Photofest/Photo courtesy of Vegas Gold
- Elvis and Priscilla Presley were married for six years, from 1967 to 1973.
- They met in 1959 when Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24.
- Their relationship is explored in the film "Priscilla," directed by Sofia Coppola.
The love story of Elvis and Priscilla Presley is one of the most enduring in rock 'n' roll history, even if it didn't actually last that long. They were married for just six years.
Still, their lives are inextricable. Priscilla is still heavily involved in her ex-husband's estate and was part of the production of the two most recent films featuring Elvis: the 2022 best picture nominee "Elvis," starring Austin Butler in the titular role, and the 2023 biopic based on Priscilla's autobiography "Elvis and Me," which stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and "Euphoria" star Jacob Elordi as Elvis.
"Elvis" is streaming on Netflix and Max, while "Priscilla" is streaming on Max.
Learn more about how Priscilla and Elvis met, how the nature of their relationship evolved, and how Priscilla continues to celebrate Elvis' life, almost 47 years after his death.
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Elvis was already a pop-culture sensation by the time he joined the US Army. He had released three studio albums and filmed four movies, including "Jailhouse Rock."
Priscilla — who lived in West Germany with her mother, siblings, and stepfather, who was stationed in the Air Force there — first encountered Elvis' music three years prior, when she was 11.
"When we met, I was an impressionable 14-year-old. He was 24," Priscilla wrote in a 1985 essay for People. She also called him "handsomer than he appeared in films, younger and more vulnerable looking with his GI haircut."
"Even though I was 14, I was actually a little bit older in life. Not in numbers. That was the attraction," Priscilla explained in 2023 during an interview, Business Insider reported.
Priscilla said they met at a party held by one of Elvis' friends, Currie Grant, who was in the Air Force. That's why she was allowed to attend the party in the first place.
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Of the night before Elvis went back to the US, Priscilla wrote for People in 1985, "It was March 1, 1960, the night before Elvis was to leave Germany to return to the States. We were lying on his bed, our arms around each other. I was in a state of complete despair."
"Would I ever see him again, be in his arms the way I had been nearly every night for the past six months? I could not bear the thought of the night ending and us saying goodbye for what I thought would be the last time. I wept and wept," she continued.
"For the two days after Elvis left, I locked myself in my room, unable to eat, unable to sleep."
In a June 2022 video for Vogue, Priscilla reminisced on the outfit (pictured above) she wore to say goodbye to Elvis.
"One request that he asked, that I not be teary-eyed. So, you see me smiling here. There are other pictures where I am down and looking away," she said.
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Reporters told Priscilla just a few days after Elvis left that he was now seeing Sinatra, she wrote in People in 1985. "They also told me Nancy had met Elvis at the airport. Days passed into weeks and I became more and more resigned that Elvis was now dating Nancy Sinatra."
After three weeks, Elvis called Priscilla, and the two sporadically kept in touch.
"From then on, I lived in a state of suspended animation, waiting for Elvis' infrequent calls. He would phone out of the blue after three weeks — or three months. He always did most of the talking, chatting about his current film or co-star. Elvis also mentioned that he wanted me to see Graceland, especially at Christmas," she wrote.
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"My parents became confused and bewildered by our relationship. We tried to make them believe that it was proper and platonic, and they wanted to believe me. Whenever they tried to stop us from seeing each other, I pleaded and cried and made them and myself miserable. In retrospect, I don't think anything could have stopped me from seeing Elvis," Priscilla wrote in People in 1985.
When the idea of a trip was brought up, Priscilla's father demanded "we wait until I was on summer vacation, that Elvis send me a first-class round-trip ticket, that he send my parents an itinerary of my daily activities for the two weeks I'd be in Los Angeles, that I be constantly chaperoned, and that I write my parents every day." Elvis agreed to all these demands, and Priscilla made the trip.
However, Elvis and Priscilla ended up traveling to Las Vegas the next day, and she actually pre-wrote letters from Los Angeles to be sent every day while she was in Vegas.
"People think, 'Oh, it was sex.' Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving, but he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old," Priscilla said in 2023 at the Venice Film Festival, Business Insider reported.
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After the summer visit, Priscilla returned to the US to visit Graceland at Christmastime.
"When I returned to Germany and my life as a senior in high school, I began to reveal to mother that Elvis and I loved each other and longed to be together. Finally one day I summoned the courage to tell her that Elvis wanted me to finish school in Memphis," Priscilla wrote in People in 1985.
At first, her parents didn't approve, as she was still only 17. But after Elvis called Priscilla's dad and told him that Priscilla wouldn't be living with Elvis, but with his parents, that he'd make sure Priscilla graduated high school, and that he'd one day marry Priscilla, her parents acquiesced.
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She moved in with Elvis' father and stepmother, but "living with them turned out to be difficult," she said.
"I felt out of place in their home, and did not want to be an intrusion in their personal life," Priscilla wrote in her 1985 essay for People.
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She attended high school in the morning and then spent the afternoons and evenings at Graceland, she said.
"Almost unnoticed, I began to move in my things. Elvis was still in Los Angeles filming 'Fun in Acapulco' and by the time he suggested that I move into Graceland I already had," according to her 1985 essay in People.
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"Elvis had gifted me with this darling little poodle at Christmastime in 1962. I named him Honey, and I traveled with him everywhere," she said in a June 2022 Vogue video.
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"Women gravitated to him, so I would be nervous when he had to go places alone. I would even go with him to get his teeth cleaned! I always had an eye on him because everyone in the world was after him," Priscilla told People in 2021.
She had the right idea — when Elvis began shooting "Viva Las Vegas" with Ann-Margret, the two began having an affair.
"We were indeed soul mates, shy on the outside, but unbridled within," Ann-Margret wrote in her 1994 memoir, "My Story." "It would become a force we couldn't control."
According to the Express, Priscilla wrote in her 1985 memoir, "Elvis and Me," that she got so upset about rumors of Elvis and Ann-Margret getting engaged that she threw a vase at the wall. His reaction was to say this was to be expected.
"He said, 'I want a woman who's going to understand that things like this might just happen. Are you going to be her or not?'" Priscilla wrote.
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"It was a surprise," she told NPR's "World Cafe" program in 2017. "He got on his knee with a gift behind his back and told me to close my eyes. Of which I did and then told me to open them and he presented me with a beautiful engagement ring."
During a 1973 interview with Ladies Home Journal, Priscilla explained that she hadn't really been too keen on getting married, but society expected it.
"Even though we were perfectly content the way we were, at that time it wasn't nice for people to live together," she said.
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"Although many people thought our wedding was sudden, Elvis and I had been talking about it in stages," Priscilla said in the 1973 Ladies Home Journal interview. According to Priscilla, the two waited until they were married to sleep together.
Their wedding was in Las Vegas, and it was just eight minutes long — the only celebrity there was comedian Redd Foxx, according to People. The cake cost an estimated $3,200, which is around $28,000 in 2022 dollars.
There were just 14 guests at the actual ceremony, which was followed by a press conference, and then a champagne breakfast for 100 more guests organized by Elvis' controversial manager Colonel Tom Parker, according to Vogue.
"My wedding was very unusual," Priscilla said in 2015, Vogue reported. "It was the people closest to us, and private, and that's how we wanted it. We didn't want a fan club. We didn't want a circus."
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The house they stayed in, known as the House of Tomorrow, became an Elvis museum. Most recently, it was purchased in October 2022 for $5.65 million after extensive renovations, according to Palm Springs Life.
It was open for tours during Palm Springs' Modernism Week in February 2024.
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Since their wedding was relatively small, the newlyweds had another reception at Graceland a few weeks later, Vogue reported.
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Getting pregnant so early on in their marriage wasn't part of their plan. "For the first year, I wanted to be alone with Elvis, without any responsibilities or obligations," Priscilla told the Orlando Sentinel in 1985.
While, at first, the pregnancy seemed to be good for their relationship, Priscilla recalled Elvis asking for a separation, seemingly out of the blue. "Cilla, I have to have time to think. Things just aren't going right. It'll be good for the two of us to take a little time off, like a trial separation. Be apart from one another for a while," she recalled.
"I don't think Elvis really intended to leave me. It wasn't his style. I later realized he too had questions about how a baby would affect his life," said Priscilla.
Two days later, the thought had passed and the separation was never brought up again.
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"On February 1, 1968, I awoke at about eight o'clock and realized that labor had begun," Priscilla told the Orlando Sentinel in 1985. "Our daughter, Lisa Marie, was born at 5:01 that afternoon."
"Elvis came into the room and kissed me, thrilled that we had a perfectly normal, healthy baby. He was already in love with her. He watched me holding her and his eyes misted with happiness. Then he took us both in his arms and held us," she said.
"The m
