'Hollywood is in me:' She knew Elvis, wed a 'hillbilly' and calls the Lowcountry home

This story has been updated to correct Joanna Baeren's hometown to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Joanna Baeren looks like a movie star.

Her bright pink lipstick, mascaraed eyelashes and perfectly blown out hair still give off the Los Angeles radiance she used to live every day.

"I might not be in Hollywood, but Hollywood is in me," Baeren said with a big smile.

At 76, she's lived a full life, both on camera and off.

She's been in movies, was Max Baer Jr.'s (Jethro Bodine from "The Beverly Hillbillies") only wife and rubbed elbows with Elvis on a number of occasions.

Despite growing up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Baeren always knew she wanted to be a movie star.

"When I went to the movies, I said, 'That's what I want,' " she said. "I didn't just want to be an actress, I wanted to be a movie star."

She married her first husband at 17 and moved with him to California.

"He looked just like Elvis from 'Jailhouse Rock,' " she gushed.

They divorced two years later, and Baeren was able to focus on her acting, including working at a Roaring '20s nightclub dressed as a flapper. She later won an audition to be on the "Hollywood A Go-Go" TV show in the 1960s.

She was in commercials, on TV, and her picture was even on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard when she was 23.

That's where she said Baer first saw her and decided to show up on her doorstep on Valentine's Day 1965.

He told her, "I saw your picture, and I wanted to meet you."

"It was love at first sight," she said. "You want to know why? He looked like Elvis."

They were married that July.

Although the marriage didn't last, their friendship did.

Baeren still talks to Baer about twice every month.

One of Baeren's other dreams came true when she met got to meet her movie-star crush in real life. She worked with Presley as an extra in the movie "Roustabout."

"I knew him really well," she said. "I was really crazy about him."

She admitted she felt like she was having a heart attack the first time they met.

"I couldn't afford a car or insurance, and you didn't have to have insurance on a motorcycle so I got a motorcycle and that was my means of transportation," she said. "Elvis thought that was really neat. I also wore jumpsuits all the time, and he really liked that."

She loved the life Hollywood gave her, but in 1978, she decided it was time to leave.

"When Elvis died, all my friends were dying from nonsense wild living," she said. "I thought 'I better get out of here while I'm still in one piece.' "

She moved as far away from Los Angeles as she could and lived in Atlanta until she and her third husband moved to Hilton Head in 1986 to develop properties.

The hurricanes and evacuations scared her away from staying right on the water, but she found a perfect home in Bluffton.

She's seen hard days, including going through a divorce with her latest husband, downsizing houses and going through six months of chemotherapy for lymphoma.

But she said God helped get her through all of it.

Now, she lives with her four shih tzu dogs: Spanky, Poppy, Shuey and Happy. All of them are rescue animals because Baeren is very passionate about helping animals. Spanky is blind, and Happy is missing one eye from abuse.

She said the dogs know to walk in a single file behind her throughout the house, mainly because she claims she's a hoarder and has piles of hats, clothes and just about anything else lying around.

Baeren also volunteers regularly at nursing homes in the area and is active in the Community Bible Church.

She's works to be smartly dressed from head to toe and is known for her collection of about 2,000 hats.

She's been in the Lowcountry for more than 30 years.

And the essence of Hollywood followed her here.

This story was originally published July 2, 2018 at 5:47 PM.