PRIS-1984LHJ

Priscilla Presley: Her Struggle to Raise Elvis' Daughter
Ladies' Home Journal, Feb. 1984
By Phyllis Battelle

WHILE PRISCILLA'S STILL TRYING TO EMERGE FROM ELVIS' SHADOW, LISA'S VERY MUCH HER MOTHER'S GIRL

On a warm, breezy afternoon in Southern Cal., a tiny, animatedly prissy 15-year-old was strolling in a Los Angeles park with
her 20-year-old boyfriend. It was a rare time alone for the couple. Usually the girl's fiercely protective mother or his
concerned parents chaperoned their dates. They were obviously in love, but they weren't an ordinary couple. They
understood the need for strict rules.

As they settled under a sprawling tree, a man suddenly appeared and began snapping pictures. Shocked and frustrated,
the couple hurried to the young man's car. A tabloid photographer who'd tracked down one of America's most carefully
guarded secrets--the identity of Lisa Marie Presley, only child of the late superstar Elvis Presley, and sole heir to his fortune
had stolen their brief moment of freedom.

Lisa came home absolutely heartbroken," remembers her mother, Priscilla Presley. "Right now, her boyfriend, Scott, is the
biggest thing in her life. They were both devastated. The greatest fear is that they could no longer be openly affectionate."

Priscilla herself was both outraged and deeply concerned. "When Lisa goes thru pain, I go through it, too," she says quietly.
But it's more than just a mother's sensitivity to her daughter's distress. In the 6-1/2 years since Elvis' sudden,
sensationalized death, Priscilla's never permitted photographs of her daughter, not only because of continual kidnap and
death threats--"which absolutely petrified me"--but to guarantee Lisa her much-needed anonymity. In fact, Priscilla so
scrupulously guards her private family life that when she agreed to talk to the JOURNAL about the challenge of being a
single mother, she insisted that the interview is held in an office rather than in her Beverly Hills home.

At age 38, Priscilla's an exquisite woman. Her high-cheekbone, patrician face under sun-streaked hair shows no effects of
an emotional roller coaster she's ridden since she fell in love with Elvis Presley at age 14, married him at 21, and give birth
to Lisa exactly 9 months later.

"I knew Lisa could never lead a truly normal life, but I hoped she could get her values straight," says Priscilla. It was an
awesome challenge, trying to keep Lisa free of psychological scars. "I couldn't even take her to a supermarket because
Elvis's picture might be on those cruel papers and magazines," she recalls.

But Priscilla couldn't protect Lisa from the cruelty of her peers. "One day, when she was just into puberty, an article
appeared that depicted her father as a sexual deviate. Lisa came home from school crying, 'One of the kids told me about
my dad. Mom, is it true? I would just HATE him if he was that way!'" Priscilla tried to assure her that the stories were "blown
way out of proportion," and were written by "sick people who didn't know your father." Lisa ultimately came to terms, in her
own mind, with scandal stories. "But it really had a big impact on her at the time, and she went thru a period of being angry
and disgusted and disliking him. I was very disturbed about it." Lately Lisa has begun playing Elvis's records. "and now I
think she's pretty proud of her dad."

And Priscilla's proud of her daughter. This month, Feb. 1, Lisa Marie turns 16--a 5'1" sprite that her mother describes as "a
very special young lady. She's very reserved, quiet and cautious, like me. But after you get to know her, she's neat."
Priscilla smiles.

9 years from now, when Lisa reaches 25, she'll inherit an estate estimated at $7 mil. But for now, she receives a $10 per
week allowance. "I'm very strong with Lisa," Priscilla says. "I want her to have career goals, be enthusiastic about earning
her own money. I think kids need to build self-esteem. Right now, she's saved 20 dollars, and that's not bad."

Priscilla keeps close watch on her daughter's friendships. "There's so much pretension and phoniness here," she says.
"Kids used to come to the house with Gucci bags and diamond earrings. I told Lisa to cool it with them because they're
living in a bubble. When she was little, only 4 or 5, Elvis tried to give her fur coats and jewels. I said, 'Absolutely not!' and
made him return them."

Ironically, Priscilla says, many of Lisa's peers assume she's spoiled, "because of who she is. Well, I'm not raising a spoiled
child! One of her girlfriend's got a Mercedes-Benz for her 16th birthday, and I sat Lisa right down and said, 'Listen, kid,
come with me to NY. We'll rent bikes and see what the world is really like.'" Priscilla's motto is: "You've got to put the ethics
in right away."

As she talks about her daughter and the awesome responsibility of guiding her, Priscilla's face is a kaleidoscope of
emotions. It's with a tender look that she says, "Last Monday Lisa and I went to lunch together, and I said to her, 'You know,
I've always loved you because you're my daughter, but right now I really LIKE you.' She said, 'Well, you don't always.' So I
had to admit there'd been times when she'd upset me, and I didn't like what she DID. After all, we've been through a lot, and
we're still going through a lot. But as I looked at her, almost 16," Priscilla smiles, "I thought to myself, 'Thank God, she's
going to be okay!'"

Obviously, Priscilla has had to be far more protective than most mothers. For years she taped all phone conversations of
the recurring threats against her and Lisa--and they haven't stopped. "Just recently, a man followed Lisa to school and
home for a week. Finally he stopped her and asked, 'Are you Lisa?' She answered, 'No, I'm not,' but he said, 'I know who
you are!' and shoved a card into her hand ordering, 'Have your mother call me.'" Police tracked him down and found out he
was one of many misguided people who feel Priscilla caused the rock star's death by divorcing him in 1973. Priscilla has
become accustomed to the label "the dark lady of rock," but can't forgive the harassment of her daughter. (Because of
these constant threats, Priscilla understandably wouldn't allow Lisa to be photographed for the JOURNAL. and the
magazine has honored her wish for privacy by not reprinting the tabloid photographs of Lisa and Scott.)

Lisa's young romance has helped her to cope with the threats. Priscilla approves of the relationship, which began in 1982,
while she was making a movie in the Bahamas. Scott, a film student, visited the set at the same time Lisa flew down to see
her mother. "I introduced them and it was love at first site for Lisa," Priscilla remembers. "Scott's bright and
adorable-looking. and after all, the Bahamas--perfect setting for a romance, right?"

Priscilla assumed the attraction would cool after they returned to LA. "But suddenly my child just went berserk dieting. She
lost so much weight she was skin, bones and hollow cheeks, and I it scared me. I thought, 'I've got anorexia nervosa here,'
and consulted a doctor about her." It wasn't anorexia; it was love. "I'm still concerned about her," Priscilla says. "She's so
tiny. But if she gains a pound she's a nervous wreck. I tell her she looks great, and she says, 'You just want me to look
FAT.'"

Priscilla began to suspect the romance was serious when Lisa refused to accompany her on their traditional Christmas
shopping visit to NY in autumn of 1982. "I phoned home to see how she was doing and found out from her teachers at
school that Lisa had skipped a few classes." Priscilla, very upset, flew back to Cal., "and sat her down for a real hard talk
between mother and daughter. She admitted she'd been skipping school to see her boyfriend, and he didn't even know
it--he had thought she had a vacation. Well, I respected her for being honest with me, but I had to do something." Lisa was
grounded. "I wouldn't let her see him for 3 weeks." Rules were laid down: dates were only on weekends, and with Priscilla or
Scott's parents as chaperones. It still baffles Priscilla how the photographer who sold his pictures to the NATIONEL
ENQUIRER found the couple. "They had just wandered away from his parent's BBQ," she says. and how did the
cameraman know who she was? "The press always say she's an Elvis look-alike. But unless you know her name, I don't
think you see the resemblance."

Last summer, Priscilla insisted that her daughter go on a trip to Spain with students her own age--using an assumed name.
"I want her to discover the value of traveling, discovering different cultures. It was a fight. She didn't want to go because of
her boyfriend, afraid that she'd lose him," Priscilla recalls. "I said, 'You're not going to like me for this right now, but at least
try it. He'll still be here when you come back, and if he's not, what do you want with him, anyway?' Well, she went. About the
fourth day she called and wanted to come home. I insisted that she stay, because I think it's important for kids to learn they
must complete what they start. When she returned, she admitted I was right. and she'd experienced a new feeling of
freedom because nobody knew who she was. 'I was ME,' she said. 'I wasn't Lisa Presley.'"

It was a first step toward overcoming what Priscilla calls "a major crisis" for her daughter. "I feel so sorry for her. The first
thing people ask when they know she's Elvis's daughter is 'Well, do you sing? Do you play a guitar?'" For now, the answer's
no. "Lisa loves music, but she doesn't play or sing," her mother says. "She has a wonderful talent for writing, and I'm trying
to bring that out in her so she'll have a career of her own."

Lisa's identity even prevents her from getting a job. "Last year she saw an ad for a counter girl at a delicatessen, and she's
dying to earn extra money, so she applied and got the job. She came home all excited. I had to tell her, 'God, Lisa, what if a
reporter sees you? It'll be all over the front pages.'" Priscilla said sadly, "That's the terrible price she pays for being who she
is. I tried getting her a job baby-sitting, just for friends, you know, who wouldn't call the newspapers. They were all afraid
that some harm might come to Lisa and involve their children. I keep telling her not to be afraid to be LISA--but when she
tries to be herself, there are always reminders that she's Elvis's daughter."

Priscilla's reluctant to talk about the drugs that caused Elvis's death, but she's concerned--as are all parents of teenagers
these days--about her daughter being exposed to drugs. "I'm worried because I know drugs are everywhere--in the schools,
in the streets, in the discos, in the movies. Lisa's aware of the drug scene, but she also knows how I feel about it--I'm so
very against drugs. I've had my own experiences with them, and I'm sure Lisa's tried them herself, but I can only point out
and stress the dangers to her...and hope for the best."

Priscilla's own family background's very different from her daughter's. She was the oldest of 6 children of U.S. Air Force
Colonel Joseph Beaulieu, "a very strict father who would say no without having to give you a reason." The family was
stationed in Wiesbaden, West Germany, when Presley came to entertain the troops. Priscilla was just 14 when she met him.
Elvis was 24. "We fell deeply in love right away," she recalls.

After Elvis returned to the U.S., he began a campaign to persuade Col. Beaulieu to let Priscilla join him at his vast estate
called Graceland in Memphis. He promised that she would be chaperoned by his father, Vernon Presley, and Vernon's wife.
Priscilla would be sent to the best Roman Catholic school. She would have her own luxurious quarters, with every amenity
provided. "The negotiations went on for many months," Priscilla remembers. "Elvis was a strong personality, a man it was
very hard to say no to. But Father kept saying no."

Priscilla's response was to "withdraw--from my family and everything else. Elvis and I were both so emotional, and nothing
meant anything to me but being with him. I stayed in my room, not caring about schoolwork, completely unresponsive."
Ultimately her parents let her go. "They saw their daughter just breaking apart. They couldn't handle a child who would hate
them for the rest of their lives. You just can't use logic when you're dealing with an emotion as strong as mine." She was
precisely the age Lisa is now--16--when she went to live with the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Because of her own experience, Priscilla's constantly "looking for any sign of withdrawal in Lisa. I must keep those lines of
communication open. I'm not fighting her present romance. Because I know if I fight it, I'll lose her. But they have to let me
know what they're doing, how they're feeling. I don't want Lisa sneaking away from me. I tell her, 'Please don't do anything
that'll hurt me or shock me.'" Priscilla thinks she'll respect that request. Suddenly grinning fiendishly she quips,
"Besides--I'm always close by with my binoculars!"

Asked how she handles her concerns about sex, she shudders, "Delicately--very delicately." She admits to a conflict with
that. "I know some mothers arrange for their daughter's to get the Pill, but to me that's like offering a free ticket to sex. It's
like saying, 'Here have fun and enjoy, now that you're safe.' I can't deal with that. But I've talked to Lisa and Scott and told
Lisa she has to be responsible or suffer the consequences. She knows that if anything happens, I'm not going to make it
easy for her to have an abortion." Without hesitation, Priscilla replies, "I'd say, 'Okay, fine, if that's what you want to do--but
there's an education that has to be taken care of first.' I wouldn't give Lisa a definite no. I know my daughter, and she's not
a frivolous or rebellious girl. I think she'd work with me on that."

But before Lisa marries, "I just want her to experience life. I'm not gung ho on her going to college. If she wants to, fine. But I
long to take her away to Europe, to spend 2 years in Spain, to see other cultures and how people live," Priscilla says. "To
me it's the best education. And life goes by so fast."

Travel has always been Priscilla's dream, and she's trying to make up for lost time. "I had so many dreams with Elvis. We
were going to travel everywhere together, things we couldn't do before because we weren't married. When I found out that I
was pregnant, so quickly after the marriage, I had mixed emotions. Of course, after Lisa was born, those things didn't matter
so much." Elvis' stardom meant a sheltered life for Priscilla--when the couple wanted to see a movie, Elvis would rent the
theater; when they wanted to visit a fair, it would be closed to the public. After more than 10 years of that life, Priscilla asked
for a divorce. "It wasn't that I hadn't prepared him. I'd gone to him often and said, 'I don't think we're going to make it. I can't
survive like this.' It wasn't that he didn't know."

Priscilla says that she and Elvis were still affectionate after the divorce in 1973. She and Lisa visited him, alone or together,
and the parents pretended for their daughter's sake that little had changed. "It was 'Daddy this' and 'Mommy that,'" Priscilla
has said. And it wasn't altogether a pretense. "I realize now more that I did then, when I was still so young, that you may
THINK you know what love is, but don't know what it really is until you've accumulated all the experiences--all the fights, the
words said and unsaid, all the forgiving, all the crying, all the pain." She looks back on the relationship now and thinks, "Oh,
God, I wish I could live that life over again. That's what people mean when they say, 'If I only knew then what I know now.'"
Pris realizes now that "Elvis carried a heavy burden, tenfold that of any other celebrity. He didn't belong to me, he belonged
to the world." Does she still love him? "Absolutely," she says quietly.

There were rumors that, after the divorce, Priscilla changed her mind and tried to go back to Elvis. "I don't want to get
involved with that," she says now, almost in a whisper. But even if she had returned to the marriage, Priscilla insists, it
wouldn't have saved his life. "There are fans who write to me, 'You killed him,'" she says in a hushed voice. "They don't
know--my God, he and I were so close, the best of friends, a very strong love between us. I desperately tried to phone him
2 days before he died and couldn't reach him, because I felt I should be there. I was always there for him. Yes, he was
angry over the breakup, but that was 4 years before he died. I blame Elvis for his own death. He was on self-destruct."

Aug. 16, 1977, EP was found on the floor of his bathroom at Graceland. Within an hour, an urgent phone call was placed to
Priscilla in L.A. Lisa was visiting her father at the time of his collapse. She was 9-years-old, Priscilla remembers, "a very
young 9, still playing with dolls. She saw her daddy being taken out to an ambulance. She didn't know he was dead."

When Priscilla arrived at Graceland, "Lisa and I hugged each other and cried together." They went to Elvis' bedroom, "and
Lisa cried with me because I was so devastated. His death was the greatest loss I'd ever experienced." Priscilla asked if Lisa
wanted to take anything of her father's to keep. "She picked out a golf cap, and his electric razor, because they were 'close
to Daddy.' I took his cane, because it was so much him. He never went anywhere without it and the scent of Elvis' hand, the
cologne he wore, was on the handle." Immediately afterward, Lisa went out to play on her father's golf cart. "A child knows
how to handle survival," Priscilla says. "I knew it wouldn't hit her until later."

More than 100,000 mourners were swarming around Graceland. Consumed with her own grief, "I wanted to get Lisa away
from this atmosphere. Right after the funeral I did something many parents might think insensitive. I sent her to camp. She
needed me, but she needed to get away from that atmosphere even more." 2 weeks later, when Lisa returned to L.A., "she
suddenly realized the enormousness of her loss. When it hit her that she'd never see her daddy again, that she couldn't
even talk to him on the phone, she wept and said, 'Mommy, what's going to happen to us?'"

At that moment, Priscilla had no idea. With all the confidence she could summon, she said, "Well, we're going to live our
lives, and help each other out. It's just you and me, kid..."

Money was no problem. Elvis had awarded Priscilla $1.7 mil in the divorce settlement. But there were other problems that
child psychology couldn't answer. No Dr. Spock offered advice to a young, beautiful mother--who was only recently
discovering her own freedom and individuality--on how to handle a sensitive, vulnerable, grief-stricken heiress.

"I made a lot of mistakes because I was still young," Priscilla admits. With in months of Elvis' death she formed a romantic
relationship with Michael Edwards, an aspiring actor. "I was out every night at the beginning because Michael eased the
pain I was going through. Lisa began saying, 'I thought you and I were going to be together, Mom.' I suddenly woke up and
realized there was this little person who needed my full-time attention." Priscilla continues to be close to Edwards, "but now
it's the 3 of us," and she's not contemplating marriage. "Marriage means commitment," she says. At least for now, her
commitment is to Lisa.

Priscilla has also committed herself to an acting career, and returned to the public's attention this winter, starring in the TV
series DALLAS, but she sees no contradiction. "I'd studied acting for for years, and Lisa said, 'What ever makes you happy,
Mom.' It doesn't take me away from her. I'm still wearing my mother's hat."

Mother and daughter still haven't emerged completely from the colossal shadow of Elvis Presley. On anniversaries of his
death, they travel to escape memories. "One thing we've learned is there's so much suffering you can relive before it
destroys you," Priscilla says. "We try to remember the good times to stay on top of it."

After 6 years of single parenting, Priscilla Presley watches her pretty daughter, whose head's full of many of the same
dreams and love Priscilla herself experienced at 16. She hopes her daughter will find happiness--and freedom. "I totally
sympathize with Lisa, and I can only share with her so much of my own experience. Lisa will make mistakes of her own, as I
did, and I don't mind--as long as she learns from them. I guess I'll not know how successful I am as a parent until Lisa's my
age and can look back. But right at this moment," Priscilla says fondly, "I'm just happy she's happy."