PRIS-1990sLAMAG

1990
Priscilla Presley
By Tom Green

PRISCILLA PRESLEY arrives straight from a television interview, looking drop-dead gorgeous. But a glamour image, she
says, is not what she's all about these days. There's a new extended family. She and Brazilian film producer Marco
Garibladi, with whom wedding bells have still not rung, have a three-year-old son, Navarone. Daughter Lisa Marie, 22,
married to musician Danny Keough, has a new daughter of her own, Danielle. That makes Presley a grandmother. Let's
just say that, as a concept, it's not going over real big.
In all aspects, Presley keeps trying to get on with her life, but this Elvis thing won't go away. The 45-year-old former
air-force brat, who spent 14 amazing years in the shadow of the King, through her tell-all book, Elvis and Me, and the
subsequent smash-hit mini-series based on it would wrap things up. But then somebody approached her with the idea for
Elvis, a weekly series about the legend-in-the-making, and she couldn't resist.
Presley came on board as an executive producer and was instrumental in finding the show a home at ABC. The series has
been embraced by critics but rejected by viewers. So Elvis' only wife, the mother of his only child, is now focusing more on
a line of perfume (Moments) she has recently launched and on her movie career --- which got an unexpected boost from a
comedy turn in 1988's The Naked Gun.
Next month, she's back in a much darker comedy, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, costarring with raunchy comic Andrew
Dice Clay -- an odd match for the former Wella Balsam girl whose acting career took off during five years playing lovesick
Jenna Wade on Dallas.

Q: You are the last person anyone would expect to find in an Andrew Dice Clay movie.
A: It's just that old thing of not wanting to be predictable. It's a small role, but I thought, This is the kind of movie no one
would believe I'm in. I still don't know much about Andrew Dice Clay. I never saw his show.

Q So what was it like on the set the first day -- Priscilla Presley meeting the Diceman?
A: Andrew's a little different. You feel a bit intimidated. After a while, he lets down. He's nicer than he would like you to
believe.

Q: Will we ever see an R-rated Priscilla Presley in the movies?
A: I would have to see what it was before I could say. I'd never do nudity just to get an audience. It would definitely have to
be the right thing.

Q: Does the Presley name give you clout in Hollywood?
A: No. The name gets me in the door. But they're not going to put me in because I'm a Presley. I'm not Elvis Presley. I
never thought I was. I'm constantly proving myself.

Q: With the book and the TV series, have you said just about all you want to say about Elvis?
A: Yes, yes, yes. I didn't even want to do anything before the TV series. I'd had enough. It's like, let it be, let him rest. It's
real hard for me to talk about Elvis. I'm just tired of it. I think he's great. But you know, there are just so many other things
I'm involved in.

Q: How are you doing with the morbid fascination with Elvis sightings and T-shirts and all the rest?
A: I can only deal with some of it. I only get involved from the standpoint of merchandising. They are bootlegging, in a
sense, so we can't stand for that. The sightings? It's to be expected. It's been there for years. But I do remove myself from
it. God, I have to. I have another life. I can't be caught in that time warp.

Q: All those years you spent with Elvis, and you hardly said a word. Now you manage his estate, produce
television projects -- even have your own perfume. What would he say about this?
A: He would be amazed. At that time, what would I have known? I was just a kid. I had no say at all.

Q It's been said you left Graceland the way it was for Lisa Marie in case she ever wants it back. True?
A: I left it that way because that's the way it was in the beginning. It was the natural thing to do, to leave it the way he cared
about it. But, yes, if Lisa at any point in her life wants it as a home, all she has to do is take a toothbrush.

Q: You are a grandmother.
A: [Wincing] Yes.

Q: It is unthinkable.
A: It's a real hard adjustment, to say the least. You know, I love kids. I truly adore them. Danielle's almost a year old, and
when she sees me, she's all arms. But we haven't come up with a name she can call me yet. I won't let her call me
Grandma.

Q: No?
A: I don't want to be called that, because it has such an image that goes with it, and it snaps me into it to be called that. I
don't want it.

Q: Are you going to be a totally different kind of mom with Navarone than yo were with Lisa Marie?
A: In every way. First of all, I have a life that's been such an experience. I truly believe you should not have a child if you're
under 30. When you reach your thirties, you're ready to give yourself to someone else. AT 18, or in your early twenties,
you're in search of who you are. So when you have someone else to care for, there's a lot of interruptions. You can't
devote that time to someone else, espescially a tiny person.
I look at my son with different eyes. It's not important that the things he does are the same things Lisa had to so when she
was young. It was important that she eat everything on her plate; it was important that she went to bed at a certain time.
Now, if he doesn't eat everything on his plate, he's not hungry.

Q: Here comes the M word: marriage. Why not so far for you and Marco?
A: Things are going so well I don't want to ruin it. A piece of paper interferes with some sort of attitude. We don't have it,
and our household is going just great. We've been together five years. And when something's going well, you don't change
it.