By Peter Sheridan and Antonia Hoyle
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But last week it was revealed that behind the classic lyrics lies a bitter love-triangle that, half a century on, is threatening to erupt into an explosive courtroom drama.
Buddy's widow, Maria Elena, has taken legal action against the woman who inspired the song, claiming her new tell-all memoirs will damage the singer's image.
Jerry Allison, the drummer in Buddy's backing group The Crickets, named the song after his teenage crush, Peggy Sue Gerron, in the hope the 17-year-old would be flattered into reciprocating his feelings.
The lyrics "If you knew, Peggy Sue / Then you know why I feel blue / Without Peggy, my Peggy Sue" had the intended effect, and Allison went on to marry the object of his affection. But now Peggy Sue is claiming that the man she really loved was not Jerry, but Buddy Holly himself, and that she, rather than Maria Elena, was the love of his life.
Her book, Whatever Happened To Peggy Sue?, claims that, far from being a wholesome all-American hero, the star was a smooth-talking Casanova, who even flirted with her on his honeymoon.
Peggy Sue also claims that on the night he died in a plane crash, aged just 22, Buddy was poised to divorce his wife so they could be together.
Maria Elena, now 75 and owner of the rights to her husband's name and image, is understandably angry and has taken the legal action to halt the book's publication.
"It's very interesting that this woman makes up all these stories," she says.
"He never, never considered Peggy Sue a friend."
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Honeymoon heartbreak: Peggy Sue and Jerry, right, relax with Maria Elena and Buddy Holly in
their Mexican hotel - but the shared holiday was not always so harmonious. |
Her account, published in America this month, will, she says "correct untruth and rumour" and is something she has "every right to write".
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday from her three-bedroom ranch home in Lubbock, Texas, the 67-year-old says: "Just before he died Buddy and I were riding an elevator from his room in a New York hotel when he reached over and stopped it between floors.
"He said, 'I don't have much time. I may not have another chance to talk to you. I'm getting a divorce, and you should get a divorce too. You are going to waste your life with Jerry, and I can't let that happen to you.'
"I told him I couldn't get a divorce as I didn't have any money.
"Buddy said, 'I'm going to take care of you.' He didn't ask me to marry him you don't ask someone to marry you just when you're telling them you're getting a divorce.
"But if Buddy Holly had lived, I know he would have divorced his wife, and I think there would have been something romantic between us.
"Was I his great unrequited love? I think it's possible.
"The fans are entitled to the truth after all these years. I've gone back to my original diaries to write this book, and my memories are as fresh as the day it all happened.
"In reality he was no goody-two-shoes. Maria Elena has to let the truth be known. She has always been very protective of Buddy's estate. I think she's a bully, and bullies aren't nice."
Peggy Sue, who is set to make millions from Maria Elena's misery, says there was chemistry between the two from the moment they met, when she was just 13.
"I was attending Lubbock High School, where Buddy graduated from the year before, but he came back to perform as a local celebrity," she recalls.
"I was going into the band room and he was coming out with his guitar in one hand and an amp in the other, when we bumped into each other and he knocked me down.
"He said, 'Are you OK? I don't have time to pick you up, but you sure are pretty.' Then he ran off to the stage.
"I'd already met Jerry, who was two years ahead of me at school, and he asked me out on a date.
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Bride and gloom: Peggy Sue and Jerry at Buddy's 1958 wedding to Maria Elena. |
"Buddy and I started giggling, and when Jerry asked why, Buddy said, 'I've already overwhelmed your Peggy Sue.'"
She remembers: "Buddy had beautiful sparkling brown eyes, long legs and a great smile. He wasn't a nerd; he just needed glasses to see.
"He was considerate, caring and intelligent. I absolutely loved just being near him. He didn't feel like he had to act like a star he knew he was a star, and that let him relax. "It was hard not to love him."
Nevertheless, she married Jerry on July 22, 1958, when the band were at the height of their fame. Just days later, on August 15, Buddy married New York record company receptionist Maria Elena Santiago, a feisty Puerto Rican brunette three years his senior, following a whirlwind romance.
They had known each other only two months, and Buddy proposed within hours of their meeting. Peggy Sue was maid of honour at Holly's wedding, her husband best man.
"I only met her a week before they wed,' says Peggy Sue. 'She was very pretty, short, with dark curly hair. She was always very stylish."
The four newlyweds honeymooned together in Acapulco, Mexico, but Peggy Sue says: "Already, I could see cracks developing in their marriage.
"Buddy told me he wasn't happy. Maria wanted to lie on the beach and sunbathe every day, but after three days Buddy and I had had enough. We were bored out of our minds.
"He asked what I wanted to do and I said, 'Water-ski.' So he found a boat, but Maria didn't want to go.
"Finally, we got her in the back of the boat, but she was very angry. She thought Buddy would get hurt. She was over-protective and paranoid.
"She'd wear a one-piece bathing suit and I wore a bikini that summed up our differences. I'm sure I irritated Maria right from the beginning.
"And she wasn't too happy when I went skinny-dipping in the pool, though Buddy thought it was a laugh.
"One night on honeymoon, we were going to have dinner but Maria never showed up. "I think she knew her marriage was already crumbling."
Maria Elena, who now lives in Dallas, paints a very different picture of the disastrous honeymoon and her husband's feelings for Peggy Sue.
"We were thrown out of where we were staying because Jerry was drinking beer and getting rowdy," she says.
"Sadly, the moment we got there I became really sick, so we never celebrated our honeymoon."
She adds: "Buddy detested Peggy Sue."
But Peggy Sue insists the opposite was true.
"When I walked into a room he'd always stop what he was doing and say, 'Come on here and sit with me.' "Buddy never had a bad word to say about me, and I think that angered Maria.
"Jerry was always trying to get me to quit smoking. When he refused to buy me cigarettes one day, Buddy gave me one of his and said, 'If you were mine, I'd give you the world.'
"Maria can't have been happy that Buddy flirted with me openly. Relations were always strained between us. I was relaxed and fun-loving, unlike Maria."
It was in late 1958 that Peggy Sue who to this day describes herself as The First Lady Of Rock & Roll claims Buddy made his most brazen move.
She says: "Our connection seemed to get more serious when we were in New York together.
"It was there that Buddy told me he was going to hire an attorney to get a divorce. He asked me to get a divorce as well, because he felt Jerry was bad for me.
"Buddy was upset at Jerry's drinking and partying, and I suspect my husband may have been seeing other women, but I told Buddy, 'I'm Catholic, and marriage is a sacred vow. I can't divorce Jerry.'
"Buddy thought I was going to ruin my life if I stayed with Jerry. I was hurt by his words; I wanted my marriage to work."
Buddy wasn't the only one irritated by Jerry's wild ways, says Peggy Sue who did eventually divorce him in 1965.
She says:"Maria Elena pulled me aside complaining he drank on stage, gave Buddy a hard time, and that he was 'just a drummer'. "I took great offense at that. Maria Elena threatened that if Jerry didn't straighten up, he'd be fired. But she didn't have the right to fire anyone; she was just Buddy's wife."
The band split up shortly afterwards, with Buddy recording a bitter-sweet account of Jerry and Peggy Sue's relationship in Peggy Sue Got Married in December 1958.
On February 3, 1959, he died when his plane crashed in a blizzard near Clear Lake, Iowa, along with his friends, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper.
Grief-stricken Maria Elena miscarried Buddy's baby two days later and refused to discuss Buddy even with her family. Now she protects his legacy, but she still cannot bring herself to visit his grave.
Peggy Sue, too, says: "I was devastated. It was such a tragic waste.
"Buddy was planning to build a house and a recording studio in Lubbock, and I think I would have been with Buddy somehow, involved romantically or in his music.
"Who knows what would have happened if Buddy had lived?"
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