There was a blankness in her gaze. A disconnect. One involved observer mentioned she ‘didn’t appear actually current’. Others anxious about how pale and frail she’d turn out to be.
This was Lisa Marie Presley, the 54-year-old troubled daughter of singing legend Elvis, simply 4 days in the past, as she walked the pink carpet on the Golden Globe Awards ceremony to help the acclaimed biopic of her father — nominated in a number of classes — in Los Angeles.
Unsteady on her toes, at one level she clutched the arm of Elvis’s pal, 80-year-old Jerry Schilling, for help as she stopped to talk to reporters. ‘All the things is flowing collectively actually properly in the intervening time,’ she mentioned, her phrases sounding by some means hole, rehearsed and even slurred, based on some. ‘I’m so completely happy.’
It had been an analogous story days earlier, as she attended a birthday celebration for her late father at LA’s Formosa Cafe. It had been a stunning night time, with the throng, together with director of the biopic Baz Luhrmann and her daughter Riley Keough, merrily belting out Can’t Assist Falling In Love, on what would have been Elvis’s 88th birthday.
This was Lisa Marie Presley, the 54-year-old troubled daughter of singing legend Elvis, simply 4 days in the past
Lisa Marie, nevertheless, had held again, smiling, but seemingly not sure of the way to get pleasure from herself — her thoughts elsewhere.
On Thursday morning, she was lifeless, apparently having suffered a cardiac arrest at her $1.8 million residence in Calabasas, California. The singer/songwriter was discovered unresponsive in her bed room by a housekeeper when her ex-husband returned from doing the afternoon faculty run along with her teenage twin daughters.
In a press release the Presley household mentioned: ‘[Mother] Priscilla Presley and the Presley household are shocked and devastated by the tragic dying of their beloved Lisa Marie.’
Lisa Marie, the lovable and adored, pampered little princess of The King had lived a life blighted by extra fame, melodrama, scandal, dependancy and tragedy.
She was married and divorced 4 instances — as soon as, bizarrely, to Michael Jackson, and in addition to actor Nicolas Cage for a matter of days. She’d had a minimum of 5 makes an attempt at rehab. She was an heiress to a $100 million fortune and blew the lot — the final word poor little wealthy woman.
But it surely was maybe the final 30 months of her life that had drained no matter struggle there was left in her. In July 2020, aged simply 27, her son Ben Keough — himself a veteran of 4 stints of rehab — apparently killed himself with a gun. He’d tried to take his life six months earlier and had each cocaine and alcohol in his system when he died.
Lisa Marie mentioned the grief had ‘swallowed me complete . . . completely destroyed and shattered my coronary heart into nearly nothing. Grief doesn’t cease or go away in any sense, a 12 months, or years after the loss,’ she wrote. ‘Grief is one thing you’ll have to carry with you for the remainder of your life, despite what sure individuals or our tradition desires us to consider. You don’t “recover from it,” you don’t “transfer on”.’
She would have recognized how a lot Ben would have beloved to have been by her aspect her on the Globes to look at Austin Butler scoop Greatest Actor for his beautiful efficiency as Elvis. Lisa Marie had at all times remarked how uncannily he resembled his grandfather.
Tragically, it wasn’t simply Elvis’s appears to be like that Ben appeared to have inherited. Habit, self-destruction, poor well being and ruinously brief lives appear to run by the Presley household bloodline.
She joined mom Priscilla Presley (left) and movie star Austin Butler (center) on the pink carpet on the Golden Globe Awards ceremony to help the acclaimed biopic of her father — nominated in a number of classes — in Los Angeles
Elvis, a heavy person of medicine, was lifeless at 42 following a coronary heart assault; his mom Gladys, who drank and took amphetamines, solely made it to 46 earlier than succumbing to coronary heart failure. 4 uncles died from lung or coronary heart issues. Elvis biographer Sally Hoedel advised the wedding between first cousins — Elvis’s maternal grandparents — is perhaps chargeable for an inherited genetic defect.
Lisa Marie as soon as recounted considered one of her earliest reminiscences, sitting on her father’s lap as they watched TV in his den at Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee.
She was 5. Elvis was simply 38 however already overweight, ravaged by medication and laid low with hypertension and an enlarged coronary heart.
Maybe the kid sensed he was ailing or maybe she merely wanted reassurance, however she remembered trying up at him and saying, ‘Daddy, please don’t die.’ 4 years later, on August 16, 1977, she was at Graceland when she heard a commotion in his suite.
Working in, she noticed assistants and hangers-on crowded round his physique on the toilet flooring, making an attempt vainly to revive him.
Lisa Marie was Elvis’s solely baby, born in 1968, 9 months to the day after he married 21-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he’d dated from her early teenagers, in Las Vegas. When the newborn was born, Priscilla, now 77, mentioned Elvis ‘appeared petrified’ to carry her, however he was quickly lavishing his wealth on her.
She had a miniature fur coat and jewels earlier than she may stroll. At some point, on a whim, Elvis flew her in a personal jet to the Utah mountains, simply to point out her snow. She had, Priscilla commented sharply, every thing somewhat woman ‘shouldn’t have and couldn’t respect’.
Her start, nevertheless, precipitated the top of her dad and mom’ marriage. Promiscuous however bizarrely repressed and dedicated to his mom, Elvis was repelled by the considered intercourse with any girl who had given start, even his personal spouse. He and Priscilla each had affairs from Lisa Marie’s earliest days they usually divorced in 1973.
Elvis, a heavy person of medicine, was lifeless at 42 following a coronary heart assault. She was 5. Elvis was simply 38 however already overweight, ravaged by medication and laid low with hypertension and an enlarged coronary heart
Priscilla was a strict mom however through the shared parenting years, each time she stayed at Graceland along with her father, Lisa Marie may run riot. ‘There was no person taking care of me and everybody was afraid of my dad, and he was sleeping. So I used to be a tyrant.
‘Followers would give me cameras to go and take photos, and I’d take cash and I’d say I used to be going to take an image of my dad, after which I’d throw the digicam someplace.’
Life at her mom’s home, nevertheless, introduced different risks. Priscilla’s then boyfriend, mannequin Michael Edwards, admitted he’d began to be sexually interested in the 12-year-old and acquired her to pose for deeply inappropriate pictures. Lisa Marie later accused him of ‘making an attempt to come back into my room whereas drunk’.
She was 9 when she inherited Elvis’ huge fortune — though it had been severely depleted by his supervisor ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker and his iniquitous dealings during which he’d offered The King’s publishing rights to RCA Victor data.
It was Priscilla who turned the household fortunes round, nevertheless, remodeling Graceland right into a type of theme park that attracted tens of millions of tourists. The income — together with Elvis’s legacy — have been put into belief till Lisa Marie was 25. This was a smart transfer: by 14, she’d began experimenting with medication. She misplaced her virginity a 12 months later. Aged 17, she spent three days and nights partying on cocaine and alcohol. Dropping persistence, Priscilla, who was by then an lively Scientologist, handed her over to the church elders who put her by her first rehab.
Inside weeks, she had met musician Danny Keough, three years older and in addition a Scientologist, and married him. They have been collectively for six years and had two youngsters, Riley, now 33, and Benjamin, who was two years youthful.
Keough complained that his spouse was ‘emotionally chilly’, nevertheless, they usually divorced in 1994. Simply 20 days later, she married once more, in one of the weird couplings of the last decade. Lisa Marie had dreamed of a music profession and when a mutual buddy despatched her demo tape to Michael Jackson, he acquired in contact they usually organized to satisfy.
She was instantly smitten, believing she’d met a person who, due to his personal fame and world success, wasn’t impressed by both her wealth or her well-known identify.
On the face of it, that they had a lot in widespread. Other than their riches, each have been obsessive about UFOs, beloved amusement parks and lived oddly immature lives surrounded by sycophants. Each beloved chimpanzees.
Tragically, it wasn’t simply Elvis’s appears to be like that Ben (proper) appeared to have inherited. Habit, self-destruction, poor well being and ruinously brief lives appear to run by the Presley household bloodline
In Could 1994 they flew on a personal jet owned by Sony Data to La Romana within the Dominican Republic, checked into the Casa de Campo resort, and have been married in secret. They informed nobody, not even Priscilla, for 2 months.
At first the wedding appeared to make Lisa Marie completely happy. Joe Esposito, considered one of her father’s former aides, remarked: ‘She’s acquired a smile on her face. Earlier than, she by no means ever smiled. By no means ever.’
In a TV interview, Michael claimed he’d had a crush on Lisa Marie since they met as youngsters at a Jackson 5 live performance and that he’d at all times deliberate to marry her.
The interviewer requested if theirs was a ‘correct’ marriage. ‘Sure, sure, sure,’ Lisa Marie retorted indignantly. The headlines generated by their union have been an efficient distraction for Jackson who was already going through accusations of kid abuse.
Unknown to his new spouse, simply weeks earlier, he had paid one household $23 million to withdraw their accusations. Lisa Marie later informed U.S. speak present host Oprah Winfrey that she felt utilized by Jackson. He beloved her, she mentioned, ‘as a lot as he was able to loving any individual’ however had tried to control her into having his youngsters, threatening that if she didn’t, his nurse Debbie Rowe would.
She did: Rowe was the surrogate mom of Jackson’s youngsters, Prince and Paris. ‘Once I imagined having a toddler with him,’ Lisa Marie mentioned, ‘all I may ever see was a custody battle nightmare.’
The wedding quickly soured and the break got here when Jackson was hospitalised in 1996 for ‘exhaustion’. Decided to know the reality about his life, and anxious that he is perhaps a drug addict who may die at any second as her father had, Lisa Marie confronted him at his bedside. ‘Once I began asking too many questions on what was flawed, he requested me to go away. He mentioned: “You’re inflicting hassle.” The medical doctors wished me to go. I freaked out, as a result of it was all too acquainted.’
She was disturbed, too, when Priscilla visited Jackson’s ranch, Neverland in Santa Barbara, California, and reported again that she discovered him sitting on the lounge flooring surrounded by ‘a dozen infants’. Jackson had at all times opened up his ranch, with its carousel and petting zoo, to younger youngsters — which went on to have extra sinister connotations after he was accused of kid abuse.
After simply 20 months of marriage, Lisa Marie filed for divorce.
Husband quantity three was actor Cage. He’d approached her at a celebration in Los Angeles in 2000 and talked nervously about how a lot he admired Elvis. It didn’t go down effectively: ‘Is that the perfect you are able to do to have a dialog with me?’ she snapped. ‘Speak about my father?’
However Cage continued. Though he was nonetheless married to actress Patricia Arquette, he made it plain he was besotted with Lisa Marie. She made it clear she was not concerned about a married man, saying: ‘Name me when the ink is dry. And never till then.’
They ultimately married in 2002, with one newspaper dryly commenting: ‘For the avid Elvis fan, Lisa Marie Presley is the final word restricted version.’
Inside weeks that they had break up, then acquired again collectively, then break up once more. The wedding lasted 107 days.
She was 9 when she inherited Elvis’ huge fortune — though it had been severely depleted by his supervisor ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker. Pictured with mom Priscilla and father Elvis
She married a fourth time to her guitarist, Michael Lockwood, in 2006, bizarrely along with her first husband, Keough, as her finest man. The couple’s twin women, Harper and Finley, have been born in 2008. Two years later, determined to flee the ‘goldfish bowl’ life in California and maybe the temptation of medicine, she and Lockwood purchased a sprawling £3 million Fifteenth-century, Grade II listed mansion, with pool, stables and 50 acres of land, within the East Sussex village of Rotherfield.
The transfer may have been linked to Scientology, which has an HQ in Sussex.
The couple turned regulars on the The Kings Arms — the place their tipple was Guinness — with Lisa Marie volunteering for shifts within the fish and chip van owned by the pub as a result of it was a great way to get to know the group.
She took half in native occasions, together with a enjoyable run, and relished her means to go about unrecognised. She additionally discovered new creativity, recording an album there.
Inside ten years her fourth marriage had, sadly, fallen aside, amid ugly scenes: Lisa Marie informed a courtroom she had discovered lots of of disturbing pictures and movies of youngsters on her husband’s pc. Police investigated, however no motion was taken.
The tip of the wedding additionally shed a lightweight on her personal earlier drug addictions. She went to rehab a minimum of 5 instances together with a stint on the $50,000-a-month Hills Remedy Heart and her daughters spent a while within the custody of their grandmother Priscilla.
In the course of the divorce proceedings, Lisa Marie admitted she’d abused opioids, painkillers and alcohol, and had been ‘abusing cocaine terribly’ within the final 12 months of her marriage. In 2019 she wrote about her dependancy within the foreword for a ebook, The US Of Opioids. She mentioned that she was ‘grateful to be alive at present’ earlier than explaining that she first began taking opioids after the start of her twins.
She mentioned: ‘It’s possible you’ll learn this and marvel how, after dropping individuals near me, I additionally fell prey to opioids. It solely took a short-term prescription of opioids within the hospital for me to really feel the necessity to preserve taking them. It’s a tough path to beat this dependence and to place my life again collectively.’ She added that, having detailed her drug abuse, her therapist referred to as her a ‘miracle’ and informed her: ‘I don’t understand how you’re nonetheless alive.’
First husband Danny Keough remained her nice help and was dwelling along with her in Calabasas when she died.
Authorized battles over cash have been persevering with on the time of Lisa Marie’s dying. Fourth husband Lockwood had requested for $40,000 a month in upkeep however she claimed she was in debt after disastrous enterprise choices had led to the lack of her fortune.
The heaviest blow of her life, although, was the dying of son Ben. She was ‘devastated’ when he died from a self-inflicted gunshot on the household’s residence after an argument along with his girlfriend of three years, Diana Pinto.
Like his mom, grandfather and great-grandmother earlier than him, Ben had dependancy points, and had been to rehab 4 instances however by no means accomplished his restoration.
After his dying, Lisa Marie retreated from view.
She didn’t go to Cannes final spring for the premiere of the movie Elvis; it was mentioned that she was simply ‘too fragile’ to deal with journey and the highlight.
Now, she will likely be buried at Graceland, subsequent to her father and son.
‘All of the graves are lined up and there’s a spot there, ready for me, proper subsequent to my grandmother,’ she as soon as mentioned presciently.
Sadly, she will likely be becoming a member of all of them too quickly.