From Elvis to Lisa Marie Presley: A Pleasing Pileup of Household Tragedy

Digital Author January 13, 2024

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Lisa Marie Presley’s Memoir to be Released By Daughter Riley Keough

“Any individual grew to change into the lights available within the market in Memphis / That’s where my family’s buried and long previous / Closing time I changed into there I realized a house left / Subsequent to them there in Memphis within the rattling support backyard.”

So Lisa Marie Presley sang on “Lights Out,” the lead single off her 2003 debut album To Whom It Would possibly perhaps well Difficulty, a smoldering dirge for the larger-than-lifestyles legacy she inherited at 9 years passe when Elvis Presley died—and a vivid nod to Graceland, her father’s beloved estate grew to change into tourist shrine and extra and extra populated burial discipline.

“Many of the funerals were all on this room,” Lisa Marie told Yahoo Song for the duration of a 2013 interview at Graceland, referring to the mansion’s Peacock Room. “So I judge of these things. My grandfather and my father, they were neutral in right here.”

And as she eerily alluded to in music, Lisa Marie’s childhood home moreover grew to change into her final resting discipline after her surprising loss of life Jan. 12, 2023, on the age of 54.

“It changed into insufferable,” Lisa Marie’s mother, Priscilla Presley, stated on Piers Morgan Uncensored in November, shortly after the unlock of Sofia Coppola‘s Priscilla. “I lost my mother, I lost my grandson, and I lost my daughter. It be silent unpleasant that we produce now not maintain her.” (Priscilla’s mother, Anna Lillian Iverson, died in August 2021 at 95.)

Lisa Marie’s son, Benjamin Keough, had preceded her in loss of life, but survivors integrated daughter Riley Keough and a granddaughter. The Daisy Jones and the Six well-known individual had quietly welcomed barely one with husband Ben Smith-Petersen—staunch news now not identified unless Ben referenced their child at his slack mother-in-regulations’s funeral.

Loss and grief scamper away no dynasty undisturbed, but there are some households that seem extra touched by tragedy than others.

And since what came about to Elvis by itself would’ve been ample devastation for one family tree, relieve in mind the Presley line to maintain harbored bigger than its allotment of heartbreak.

AP; Shutterstock; Getty Photography; E! Illustration

Even Elvis’ starting up on Jan. 8, 1935, changed into shadowed by loss of life, his identical twin, Jesse Garon Presley, having been delivered stillborn 35 minutes earlier than he entered the area.

The Presleys’ neighbors in Tupelo, Miss., where they lived in a two-room home, got right here together to take $30 for the struggling family—but, fervent that 19-yr-passe patriarch Vernon Presley would drink it away, Gladys Presley‘s chums opted to throw the fresh mother barely one shower in its keep apart, in response to Elaine Dundy‘s Elvis and Gladys.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Photography

Elvis later talked about his slack brother serving as his sense of right and wrong, having first started hearing what he thought changed into Jesse’s affirm when he changed into 4 or 5 years passe telling him to “handle numerous of us, to construct himself of their discipline, to fetch their level of watch, to love them,” in response to Peter Guralnick‘s 2012 biography Careless Admire.

Jesse changed into buried at Priceville Memorial Gardens in Tupelo, but there is moreover a memorial stone for him on the grounds of Graceland amid the graves.

“That’s All Correct,” Elvis’ first commercial single, changed into released July 19, 1954. With his sensual dispute, hips that couldn’t be contained, and sound that blended country twang with the rhythm-and-blues he gravitated against at a younger age—the segregated South no hindrance to his musical education—fame descended laborious and hasty.

Nevertheless even though he changed into the most up thus some distance reveal on two legs, and he never wished for female attention for the relaxation of his lifestyles, Elvis remained the proverbial mama’s boy.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Photography

Gladys doted on her surviving son, and she saved the family together thru Vernon’s frequent spates of unemployment—and an eight-month stretch in detention heart for test fraud.

When his recording occupation started to make a decision on off, Elvis made sure that neither parent wished for anything else, at final transferring them neutral into Graceland when he sold the eight-bed room mansion in 1957.

Nevertheless their happiness there changed into fast-lived: Elvis changed into drafted into the U.S. Army in 1958, and in August his fogeys were driving to take hold of a prepare support to Memphis after visiting their son at Castle Hood in Killeen, Texas, when Gladys fell in unlucky health.

Granted emergency scamper away, Elvis flew to Memphis about a days later and went neutral to her hospital bedside, in response to wire reports from the time.

“She’s a desperately in unlucky health lady, but we’re barely extra encouraged by her situation on the present time,” Dr. Charles Clarke told UPI on Aug. 13, 1958, noting there changed into proof of “severe liver hurt.”

Gladys died on Aug. 14 on the age of 46. (One in all the many Presley myths is that she changed into 42, as Elvis changed into when he died.) She suffered a fatal coronary heart attack, with liver failure introduced on by chronic alcoholism cited as a contributing reveal.

The Linked Press reported that Elvis “sank to his knees beside his mother’s bed and wept.” The singer, 23 on the time, told journalists, “It broke my coronary heart. She changed into continuously my easiest girl.”

He changed into reportedly on the verge of hysteria at her funeral, announcing on the gravesite, “Lawful-bye, darling. We most in style you. Oh God, all the pieces I if truth be told maintain is long previous. I lived my lifestyles for you. I most in style you so vital.”

Upon his return to Texas, he told the AP, “One in all the final things mother stated changed into that dad and I may well perhaps neutral silent continuously be together. I may file support to Castle Hood Monday morning. Wherever they send me, dad will scamper too.”

Elvis ended up stationed in Germany, where he’d meet his future accomplice, then-14-yr-passe Priscilla Beaulieu—but myth has it he never if truth be told acquired over his mother’s loss of life.

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When Vernon married Dee Stanley on July 3, 1960, Elvis changed into now not in attendance—despite the indisputable truth that he entrusted his father and stepmother to again stumble on out for his future bride when she moved to Memphis to construct high college. (Priscilla had met Vernon in Germany, Elvis’ dad going all over the keep apart he went, per Gladys’ needs.)

“Other folks maintain stated, ‘Oh my gosh, I will be succesful to’t hold your fogeys let you scamper with this stranger,'” Priscilla mirrored on Lawful Morning The United States in 2017. “Nevertheless it completely changed into a extremely innocent time. I most in style him very vital. I completely felt actual.”

And when Vernon spent the occasional evening in his passe bed room at Graceland, he did so next to a closet silent burly of Gladys’ garments. No topic where he changed into within the country, Elvis had flowers delivered to his mother’s grave per week and made sure the positioning changed into neatly maintained.

Priscilla changed into 22 when she married Elvis on Would possibly perhaps well 1, 1967, in Las Vegas. Lisa Marie changed into born nine months later.

Hollywood List Archive / MediaPunch thru AP Photography

When Elvis saw their daughter for the first time, “he changed into already in love along with her,” Priscilla wrote in her 1985 memoir Elvis and Me. “He watched me retaining her and his eyes misted with happiness. Then he took us both in his fingers and held us.”

Nevertheless Priscilla accepted the “disquieting” construct that her changing into a mother had on her husband. Two months after she’d given starting up, she wrote in her diary, “he silent hasn’t touched me. I’m getting concerned.”

He at final did, but she may well perhaps perhaps record that something had changed between them, that Elvis saw her otherwise. At the identical time, he saw numerous ladies exactly the identical as he continuously had.

“Elvis saved up his blueprint of life,” Priscilla told Closer in 2017. And she tried to ignore it, “for as long as I may well perhaps perhaps. Nevertheless I did know that there changed into some finagling going on.”

On the factitious hand, the raging success of his first month of performances on the International Resort in Las Vegas in 1970 “introduced a brand fresh vitality to our marriage,” Priscilla recalled in her book. “He regarded a special individual…It changed into moreover the first time that I felt we were functioning as a team.”

Frank Carroll/Sygma thru Getty Photography

After they were apart, Priscilla would send him care applications burly of family photography and tapes of Lisa Marie sounding out fresh words. And when she got right here to metropolis, “I’d paste photography on the mirrors in his bed room to remind him he had a accomplice and child.”

At some level of the early days of his residency, she wrote, Elvis—who hadn’t carried outlast in nine years earlier than agreeing to play Vegas—if truth be told regarded humbled by the adoration, and he changed into too dedicated to rehearsing and inserting on the very best display hide doable to display hide passion in “originate air affairs or flirtations.”

Nevertheless, in Priscilla’s notion, his home lifestyles changed into within the waste no match for the love he changed into getting from the crowds and, once extra, amorous female fans.

It wasn’t the cheating that within the waste build the stake within the marriage, despite the indisputable truth that. Priscilla changed into mainly drained of getting an absentee husband, and Elvis’ volatility when they were together—exacerbated by prescription drug abuse, and the total enablers who ostensibly labored for him but whose main job changed into to cater to his whims—did now not again matters.

“If he saw any individual he did now not esteem on the TV, he’d rep his gun out and blow it up,” Priscilla recalled on Lawful Morning The United States in 2022. “Then he would record his daddy to pass rep one other TV.”

And at final Elvis if truth be told handy to her that she come to Vegas much less in general.

Their divorce changed into finalized Oct. 9, 1973. Even supposing Priscilla recalled about a months of bitter lawsuits, they agreed amicably to shared custody of Lisa Marie, so the newborn started splitting her time between Graceland and her mother’s home in Los Angeles. Elvis christened his private airplane the “Lisa Marie.”

Talking to Yahoo Song in 2013, Lisa Marie recalled being bitten by the efficiency computer virus early, her dad watching her whisper her coronary heart out, the usage of his hairbrush as a microphone, in his extensive inch-in closet.

Priscilla told Other folks in 1978 that she persevered to pass to Graceland with Lisa Marie “esteem we were never divorced. Elvis and I silent hugged every numerous, silent had love. We would explain ‘Mommy stated this’ and ‘Daddy stated that.’ That helped Lisa to feel actual. There changed into never any arguing or bitterness.”

When Elvis died at Graceland of an apparent coronary heart attack on Aug. 16, 1977, when he changed into easiest 42, Priscilla recalled seeking to die, too.

“I couldn’t face the truth that I’d never gaze him alive every other time,” she wrote in Elvis and Me. “He had continuously been there for me. I trusted him, staunch as he trusted me. We had a bond. We would change into closer and had extra thought and persistence for every numerous than in our married lifestyles. We had even talked of one day…

“And now he changed into long previous.”

Lisa Marie changed into 9 and staying at Graceland when her father died staunch hours after kissing her goodnight, the final time she saw him alive. Even supposing Elvis’ lady friend on the time, Ginger Alden, changed into the one who found his physique, his daughter moreover glimpsed him mendacity facedown on the bathroom floor. (Toxicology attempting out found 14 capsules, together with barbiturates, in Elvis’ system, forever linking his untimely loss of life to chronic drug exercise.)

“I staunch had a sense,” Lisa Marie told Rolling Stone in 2003. “He wasn’t doing well. All I know is I had it, and it came about. I changed into inquisitive about loss of life at a extremely early age.”

Even supposing she recorded several technologically aided “duets” along with her dad through the years, 2003’s To Whom It Would possibly perhaps well Difficulty marked her solo debut.

Landmark/MediaPunch/AP Photography

“You exhaust to must take hold of who I’m, and what I’m, it’s in right here,” she told Rolling Stone of the album. “Here is how both f–ked up I’m, or crazy or deranged or listless or no topic you exhaust to must name it. Here is me, and it’s from me, and that is the very best reason I did it.”

She had welcomed daughter Danielle (Riley is the actress’ heart name), in Would possibly perhaps well 1989, and son Benjamin in October 1992 along with her then-husband Danny Keough.

“The very best reveal I’ve ever performed is maintain childhood with this man, on memoir of I knew that is the one man I’d be linked to for the relaxation of my lifestyles,” Lisa Marie stated of her ex.

After their divorce, Elvis’ daughter infamously married Michael Jackson, the newlyweds thumbing their nostril at of us’s confusion with a grand kiss on the 1994 MTV Video Song Awards that September.

“I continuously most in style him,” Presley later told Jackson biographer Randy J. Taraborrelli. “Michael fascinated me along with his talent. I most in style watching him dance. He wished to take hold of me greater, but I continuously thought he changed into originate of freakish. I did now not if truth be told are seeking to take hold of him any greater than I already did.”

Their union lasted now not up to 2 years. Jackson died of a propofol overdose in 2009 on the age of 50.

Lisa Marie moreover tried marriage on for size with Nicolas Cage in August 2002, but he filed for divorce that November, announcing in a statement, “I failed to discuss about the marriage and I’m now not going to discuss about the divorce. Nevertheless I most in style her.”

Her statement read, “I’m sad about this, but we put now not were married within the first discipline. It changed into a grand mistake.”

DMI/The LIFE List Sequence/Shutterstock

Talking to Rolling Stone about a months later, Lisa Marie stated the marriage changed into “silent inserting on a thread, and I’m now not sure what’s going on, and I’d fairly now not discuss about it staunch on memoir of of that.”

“I changed into a tyrant as a toddler, after which I had infants and settled down,” she mirrored to Playboy in an interview published July 30, 2003. “Currently, within the previous six years, I’ve gotten support fervent with my inside of tyrant child. My chums were all out being crazy at 20, and I had infants. Now they’re married and I’m esteem, ‘Admire at you, you may well perhaps perhaps also neutral maintain acquired it together and I produce now not!'” (Her divorce from Cage changed into reportedly finalized in 2004.)

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Lisa Marie re-settled down with musician Michael Lockwood in 2006, with whom she welcomed fraternal twin daughters Harper and Finley in 2008.

She filed for divorce (later amended to easily separation) in 2016.

Seemingly having skilled ample for nine lives by the time she changed into 50, Lisa Marie changed into confronted with the unthinkable when her son, Benjamin, died by suicide in July 2020 on the age of 27. Her in discovering stated on the time that Lisa Marie changed into “fully heartbroken, inconsolable and previous devastated but attempting to halt sturdy for her 11-yr-passe twins and her oldest daughter Riley. She adored that boy. He changed into the love of her lifestyles.”

Richard Gardner/Shutterstock

Three months later, Benjamin changed into laid to relaxation within the Memorial Garden at Graceland, next to Elvis, his enormous-grandparents Gladys and Vernon (who died in 1979) and large-enormous-grandmother Minnie Mae Presley.

Dave M. Benett/Getty Photography

“Anguish is something you wish to relieve with you for the relaxation of your lifestyles, in spite of what distinct of us or our culture desires us to hold,” Lisa Marie wrote in an essay for Other folks published on Aug. 30, 2022, Nationwide Anguish Consciousness Day. “You construct now not ‘rep over it,’ you construct now not ‘pass on,’ interval.”

She admittedly blamed herself, a constant fight.

“I’ve dealt with loss of life, grief and loss on memoir of the age of 9 years passe. I’ve had bigger than somebody’s gorgeous allotment of it in my lifetime and by some skill perhaps, I’ve made it this some distance,” she persevered. “Nevertheless this one, the loss of life of my shapely, shapely son? The sweetest and most fabulous being that I if truth be told maintain ever had the privilege of provocative, who made me feel so honored every day to be his mother? Who changed into so vital esteem his grandfather on so many ranges that he if truth be told shrinking me? Which made me grief about him even bigger than I naturally would maintain? No. Merely no…no no no no…

“It be a proper preference to relieve going, one that I if truth be told settle on to present every day and one that is continuously tough to assert the least…Nevertheless I relieve going for my girls.”

Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

With the unlock of Baz Luhrmann‘s Elvis, a fantastical and shapely but silent tragic film about her father’s upward push and drop, Lisa Marie had started to project support out into public lifestyles, attending the film’s U.S. premiere at Graceland in June 2022 with Priscilla and Riley.

She wrote on Instagram that she had wished her son may well perhaps perhaps’ve considered Elvis, calling it “nothing looking out spectacular.”

On Jan. 10, 2023, two days after a scamper to to Graceland to appear what would’ve been her father’s 88th birthday, she and Priscilla attended the Golden Globes as allotment of the continuing Elvis occasion.

“I if truth be told had to make a decision on, esteem, 5 days to job it, on memoir of it changed into so discipline-on and official,” Lisa Marie told Additional on the crimson carpet earlier than watching Austin Butler procure Easiest Actor in a Motion List, Drama, for his heartfelt portrayal of her father.

“Thanks for opening your hearts, your memories, your house to me,” Butler stated for the duration of his acceptance speech, his sonorous Memphis yelp from the film silent intact. “Lisa Marie, Priscilla, I love you forever.”

Two days later, Lisa Marie changed into long previous. And, as she predicted, her forever home at Graceland changed into waiting.

Abet discovering out to fetch the total celebrities who attended the memorial service for Lisa Marie Presley: