Priscilla Presley

Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Presley, September 2003
Born	Priscilla Ann Wagner
Spouse	Elvis Presley (1967-1973; div.)
Website	http://www.priscillapresley.com/

Priscilla Ann Beaulieu Presley (born May 24, 1945) is an American model, actress and author. She is the rock 'n' roll singer and musician Elvis Presley's ex-wife and the mother of singer Lisa Marie Presley.

Biography

Early life

Priscilla was born Priscilla Ann Wagner in Jersey City, the daughter of Anna Lillian (née Iversen) and James (Jimmy) Frederick Wagner. Her biological father, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was killed in a plane crash when Priscilla was an infant. Her mother then married Paul Beaulieu, also a United States Air Force officer. Beaulieu took over the raising of Priscilla and is known as her father.

The Beaulieus were stationed in West Germany at the same time as Elvis during his stint in the United States Army. Priscilla was 14 years old when she met Elvis in Wiesbaden. Elvis managed to talk the extremely reluctant Beaulieus into allowing Priscilla to live with his father (Vernon Presley) and stepmother, Dee Presley, at a home Elvis purchased on Hermitage Drive in Memphis located at the back of Graceland. The seventeen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu "worked" on her mother to get her support but before finally agreeing, her still reluctant and protective father flew with her to Los Angeles where Presley was filming Fun in Acapulco. She and her father flew to Memphis where they met with Vernon Presley, made arrangements for Priscilla's enrollment in the Immaculate Conception school and her father confirmed her living arrangements at Vernon Presley's house.

Life with Elvis

Once living in Memphis in 1963, Priscilla Beaulieu says she moved into Graceland bit by bit, at first spending occasional nights with Presley, later moving in and sleeping together every night. In her 1985 autobiography, the bestseller Elvis and Me, which was later adapted to a television miniseries, Priscilla describes Presley as a very passionate man who was not overtly sexual towards her. Although he would spend hours alone with her in his bedroom, Priscilla wrote that Elvis never made any advances towards her. According to her account (p130), Elvis told her that they had to wait until they were married before having intercourse. He said, "I'm not saying we can't do other things. It's just the actual encounter. I want to save it." Priscilla adds, "Fearful of not pleasing him—of destroying my image as his little girl—I resigned myself to the long wait. Instead of consumating our love in the usual way, he began teaching me other means of pleasing him. We had a strong connection, much of it sexual. The two of us created a lot of exciting and wild times."

In Elvis and Me, Beaulieu recounted how Elvis would stay up all night and sleep most of the day. If he wanted to go out, he would rent out the venue and invite friends, family and fans, or arrange with store owners to shop after hours when the store was closed. She also talked about the prescription sleeping pills that were present from the very first night she spent with him and how their usage and variety escalated dramatically during the years they were together.

A completely different view of Priscilla's life, painting her in a rather negative light and describing her as a "wild child" and "sexpot", can be found in Suzanne Finstad's book, Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (1997), which is based on accounts of several people who knew Elvis and Priscilla well, among them many friends from Priscilla's childhood and adolescence, Elvis's stepbrother Rick Stanley, Priscilla's boyfriend Mike Edwards, Elvis's ex-girlfriends and the wives of the Memphis Mafia men. The author writes that Priscilla promised sexual favors in exchange for meeting Elvis to Currie Grant, a married, 27-year-old man who knew the singer, that she and Elvis slept together on their second date and that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night. The book also claims that her marriage was part of a plot to achieve fame hatched by Priscilla and her mother and that she never loved Elvis. Finstad takes many quotes that Priscilla has made and calls them a web of lies that she has spun. Priscilla launched a lawsuit against Currie Grant for his claims in the book and won.

Marriage and divorce

Priscilla and Elvis were married on May 1, 1967, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Aladdin Hotel . Their only child, daughter Lisa Marie, was born exactly nine months later on February 1, 1968. They separated on February 23, 1972, agreeing to share custody of their daughter, this eventually ending in divorce on October 9, 1973. Elvis and Priscilla continued to remain good friends until the day of Elvis' death on August 16, 1977.

Post-Elvis career and personal life

After their divorce, Priscilla bought into a boutique and ran it for a few years before getting into marathons and dancing (in 2008 on Dancing With the Stars). After signing with the William Morris Agency, she starred in the feature film Breakfast with Dracula, executive-produced the feature sex film Finding LaLa land and made guest appearances on Melrose Place, Touched by an Angel and Spin City. She may be best known as an actress for playing the character Jenna Wade on the television series Dallas for five years, and she also starred in the Naked Gun films. The television version of Elvis and Me was produced by her production company, Navarone Productions. As late as 2003, she planned to develop a Broadway musical about her life. It was revealed in February 2008 that she would appear on season six of ABC's Dancing with the Stars (U.S. TV series). She first danced on the live telecast on March 18, 2008.

Presley developed four perfume lines in the 1990s. Two, Moments and Experiences, were very successful in Europe, and a third, Indian Summer, hit American shelves in 1996, followed by Roses and More. She has also successfully sold her line of products live on the Home Shopping Network and was coached by veteran HSN host Bob Circosta. In 2006, Presley flew to Australia for the debut of her worldwide line of bed linens, called the Priscilla Presley Collection. She partnered with Australian designer Bruno Schiavi for the line. Priscilla has also been awarded an honorary degree from Rhodes College.

Romantically, Presley has had a number of serious relationships since her divorce from Elvis in 1973. Immediately afterwards, she lived with karate instructor Mike Stone. She then had a seven-year live-in relationship with bisexual model Mike Edwards, until he began developing feelings for the teenage Lisa Marie. Edwards recounts the tale of their relationship in his book Priscilla, Elvis, and Me.

Priscilla's longest relationship has been with Italian screenwriter-director Marco Garibaldi, with whom she lived for 22 years. Their son, Navarone, was born on March 1, 1987. The two separated in April 2006. She is now rumoured to be dating British TV executive Nigel Lythgoe.

Business in Graceland

Main article: Graceland

After the death of Elvis's father Vernon in 1979, Presley served as co-executor of his estate. Graceland itself cost $500,000 a year in upkeep, and expenses had dwindled Lisa Marie's inheritance to $5 million. Priscilla examined other famous house-museums, and hired a CEO to turn Graceland into a moneymaker. She became the chairwoman and president of Elvis Presley Enterprises. After Graceland opened to the public in 1982, the enterprise's fortunes soared and eventually the trust grew to be worth over $100 million.

In addition, in 2000, Presley was elected to the board of directors of MGM, with the prime vote coming from Kirk Kerkorian, who dated Priscilla in the 1970s.

Lisa Marie Presley

Presley and her daughter had a tempestuous relationship when Lisa was a teenager, but theirs has since matured into a smoother, more understanding mother-daughter relationship. Lisa Marie even imitated Presley by marrying not the King of Rock 'n' Roll but the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Lisa Marie herself now has a daughter, Riley Keough, who models for John Galliano, and a son, Benjamin Keough. Lisa Marie announced in the beginning of 2008 she is pregnant with twins.

Presley and Lisa Marie are both Scientologists, introduced to the religion in 1979 by John Travolta.

Dancing with the Stars

Presley was a contestant on Season 6 of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with Louis van Amstel.

She referred, on air, to Dancing with the Stars as "the hardest thing she's ever had to do." She scored 24 out of 30 on the foxtrot on March 18, 2008, the second-highest score of the evening. The following week she scored 21 for her first latin dance, Mambo. The third week she danced the Tango and was highly praised by the judges coming second on the leaderboard with a score of 26. The fourth week she danced the Waltz and scored only 22. The judges lowered her score due to a lift in the routine. In the results show the following night, Priscilla found herself in the bottom two, but just managed to stay in the competition. The fifth week, Priscilla danced the Rumba and scored 21, leaving her at the bottom of the leadboard. Priscilla found herself in the bottom two once again and this time she was voted off with the least amount of votes.

The fifth week, she was eliminated.

At the age of 62, she was the oldest female contestant to compete in the show.

Bibliography

• Priscilla Presley, Elvis and Me (1985), ISBN 0-399-12984-7
• Priscilla Presley, Elvis by the Presleys with Lisa Marie Presley (2005), ISBN 0-307-23741-9
• Suzanne Finstad, Child Bride:The Untold Story Of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (1997)

External links

• Official Site Priscilla Presley
• Priscilla Presley at IMDb
• Priscilla Beaulieu Presley Fansite
• Elvis Presley Directory