LMP-PEOPLE-INTRVW-PG1

"People" Magazine
March 1, 1993, page 7.

Elvis squandered it, Priscilla restored it, now Lisa Marie is in charge of it.
Through many of his 42 years, of course, Elvis Presley seemed to inhabit an otherworldly realm of his own. Rich with royalties,
he passed out Caddies like corn chips, turned wretched exess into an art form and squandered untold riches on bad business
deals and traveling circus flunkies and sycophants. By the time he died, in 1977, his fortune had dwindled to $5 million, left in
trust to his only child.
This month, on Feb. 1, her 25th birthday, Lisa Marie Presley finally inherited that estate, which, thanks largely to the
stewardship of her mother, Priscilla, has grown to an estimated $100 million. She divvied up a cake with a few close friends,
but mostly, she says of that milestone day, "I tried to ignore it." In fact, there is little of the daughter-apart from her looks-that
mirrors her famous father. A reclusive wife and mother, she has come to her legacy with a steady, un-Elvis-like calm. "I think
it's time," she says simply. "I do [have new responsibilities], but it's not like a major new thing, except maybe for people who
didn't know my role."
But if the affairs of estate remain unaltered, what has changed is Lisa Marie herself. "I think marriage and motherhood have
made her a responsible person," says Jerry Schilling, a longtime Elvis confidant and until recently Lisa Marie's manager. "I
have seen her grow so much."
Schilling, who first became friends with Elvis in 1954, drove the singer and Priscilla to the hospital when Lisa Marie was born
and has remained close to the family ever since. "If [the inheritance] had happened five years ago," he says, "it potentially
could have affected her. But I think Lisa has prepared herself."
One stabilizing influence in her life has been her marriage since 1988 to bass player and Scientology soulmate Danny
Keough, 28, a Chicago native who grew up mostly in Oregon, where his mother and stepfather cofounded a Scientology
school. The couple, who met at the Scientology Celebrity Center in L.A., have two children, Danielle, 3, and Benjamin Storm,
4 months. In the backyard of their four-bedroom home in Los Angeles, swings and playthings dot the landscape. Inside, there
are few visible mementos of her father and none of the gaudy indulgences she had known as a child at Graceland. "Lisa's
tastes," says her grandfather, Paul Beaulieu, "run to the modern and contemporary."
Her feelings about home and family, on the other hand, are clearly traditional. She breast-feeds her newborn son, reads to
her daughter each night and cooks up meals of "vegetables, fruits, pasta, chicken-[but] no red-the standard health-food stuff."
As a parent, she says, "I tend to be more the mother, and Danny's much more charming and fun. He's the playful one, and
I'm, 'OK, it's time to go take a bath now' or 'You're not supposed to have that.'"
Lisa Marie's own childhood, of which she says she has many happy memories, was far less predictable and tranquil. The
family saga began, of course, when Army Specialist 4th Class Elvis Presley first spotted 14-year-old Air Force brat Priscilla
Beaulieu while he was stationed in Germany. She moved back to Memphis with him at 16, married him at 21, gave birth to Lisa
Marie exactly nine months later and was divorced at 28.
Lisa Marie moved with her mother to L.A. after the split but often visited her father, who tended to treat her with awestruck
extravagance. When she wanted to see a movie, he rented the theater. When she wanted to ride a carousal, he took over
the amusement park. When she complained once on the phone from L.A.. that she had never seen snow, Elvis fired up his
jet, the Lisa Marie, sent to L.A. to pick her up and flew her to Utah, where she romped in the powder for 20 minutes. Cost of
the brief encounter with winter: more than $30,000.
But there was troubling times as well. Lisa Marie watched her father's descent into drug-dependent excess and suffered
through an unsettled, occasionally melancholy adolescence. She went through a string of private schools before dropping out
in the 11th grade. By 14. an obsession with boys and a flirtation with drugs had created problems between her and Priscilla.
"I was just in that rebellious stage, and drugs were a part of that,," she has said. "A lot of people would ask, 'Why did you do
that if your father died from drugs?' But at that age I didn't look at it like that. I have to learn things by myself."
The drugs long since abandoned and her differences with Priscilla mended, Lisa Marie and her mother now live a short drive
apart, talk daily on the phone and even baby-sit for each other. (She was in the delivery room when Priscilla, who lives with
writer-director Marco Garibaldi, gave birth to their son, Navarone, six years ago.) "She's done an astounding job," Lisa Marie
says of Priscilla's custodianship of her riches. "She's incredible, and I have huge admiration and respect for what she's
accomplished."
Lisa Marie's own lifestyle is quiet by Hollywood standards; there are no beefy bodyguards, no limos and few of the flamboyant
trappings of serious showbiz wealth. She drives a black BMW with tinted windows, goes shopping, and attends Scientology
classes. She sometimes jogs with her husband, and brags, "I worked out every day when I was pregnant. I'm sort of lagging a
bit lately, but I'm getting back into it."
She is also making tentative moves toward a singing career. She leans toward rock and R&B, and one friend likens her voice
to that of a black Bonnie Raitt. "I've always had an ear for it, and I've always felt music," Lisa Marie says. "Iv'e been around it
all my life. I definately have it in me." Although she has recorded four demo tapes, produced by Danny, who is also her
song-writing partner, she insists that that any serious work is on hold until the baby gets a little older.
If there is an area of controversy in her life, it is the question of how she reached this state of adjustment. Lisa Marie credits
the much maligned Church of Scientology, to which she was introduced as a teenager by her mother. Founded by the late L.
Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer with a messianic mission, the church employs various confessional therapies to treat its
members. Its detractors, and there are many, charge that the church is only after her money and the Presley name.
Lisa Marie is adamant that both she and the church are treated unfairly. "I'm pretty levelheaded, and I see it as the most
incredible thing I've ever been involved in," she says. "I was never quite happy. I always had a lot of questions, and living and
existing didn't answer them but only upset me more. And Scientology has answered those questions."
"Lisa's been through a lot," says lyricist Linda Thompson; who lived with Elvis from 1972 through 1976 and has seen Lisa
Marie sporadically over the years. "She's had to understand a lot about life, about people and about fame." And now there is
more, of course; the weight of newfound wealth, of parenting and, if her singing career takes hold one day, of judging how
much of her success is a reflection of her father's indelible legend. One lesson she has already learned, though, is to know
what is important to her.
"Having kids gave me a new lease on life," says Lisa Marie, who plans to have more later on. "It's like you're in a situation
where you could have a lot and you're still never complete, never happy. That's what my children do for me-they give me
stability and the sense of being complete."
Is there anything missing right now? She answers almost before the question is finished. "No," she says, with that
unmistakable inherited smile. "There's absolutely nothing."
. CRAIG HOROWITZ
. LOIS ARMSTRONG, NANY MATSUMOTO, VICKI SHEFF-CAHAN and LYNDON STAMBLER in Los Angeles and JANE
SANDERSON in Memphis