PRIS-1994McCalls

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"McCalls" Magazine
1994
pg. 122

Priscilla Presley Today

Priscilla Presley was getting dressed to go out recently when she looked at her shoes and had what she calls "an Elvis
flashback." This is not the kind of Elvis-in-a-7-Eleven sighting you read about in the tabloids; instead it was a bittersweet
reflection about her ex-husband, who died in 1977.
"I looked down at these clunky platform heels," she says. "and I thought 'My God, if Elvis ever saw these things, I don't think
I'd ever live to hear the end of it. He would have gone on and on about how ugly they were and told me to change them."
She smiles and shakes her head at the memory and adds that now she wears what she pleases--which is, of course, the
point of the story. It's hard to imagine anyone ordering Priscilla Presley around these days, now that she's become
independent and admired for her own talents, both as the comedic bombshell of the popular Naked Gun movies and as a
businesswoman who runs the $100-million -plus Elvis Presley Enterprises. Yet the shoe story is a touching reminder of who
she once was and the person she has become.
Presley is wearing a casual black silk pantsuit and brown silk shirt and is seated behind a huge mahogany desk in the
headquarters of the Presley empire in Hollywood. The setting, complete with its Oriental rugs, underscores how far Presley
has come since she first rocketed to celebrity as the shy 14-year-old who captured the heart of a rock-and-roll icon in 1959.
Now, at age 49, she is as confident as an athlete at the top of her game. "It has taken awhile to find out what I like and what I
don't like," she explains. "It feels so good not to have someone dictate to you."

A Summer of Tragedy and Turmoil
Over the last three decades Priscilla Presley has been through an extraordinary sequence of ups and downs, which she
now describes in typically understated fashion as "character building."    For this plucky survivor the lessons just kept on
coming during this past, event-filled summer. Her grief over the shocking downfall of friend and Naked Gun co-star O.J.
Simpson, accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole and waiter-model Ronald Goldman, was compounded by the tangled saga of
her daughter by Elvis, Lisa Marie.
When reports of a marriage between 26-year-old Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson hit the headlines, Presley found herself in
emotional limbo. She knew the duo were friends, but Lisa Marie had not told her of their plans to elope. Initially, Presley
knew as little as the reporters staking out her L.A. home.
"When you're greeted with information that's shocking, you need to take some time and think about it," she says
philosophically. "Then you deal with it. Whatever it is, you can work it out."
After finally speaking to Lisa Marie, just two weeks before the public announcement of the nuptials, Presley says, "This was a
surprise. I wish my daughter well. All I want is for her to be happy."
Yet through it all, Presley takes joy in the everyday life that she has created for herself. A relentlessly private woman, she
chose to reveal herself in a series of face-to-face interviews and phone conversations. What emerges from these talks is a
candid and upbeat Priscilla Presley, a woman far more subtly etched than the media stereotype.
In the space of a single conversation she can go from tycoon - this fall she is expanding her $70-million-a-year Moments
fragrance line into a full range of personal products including bath oils and scented candles - to a doting mother determined
to make a success of her second family with her live-in-lover, Marco Garibaldi, and their seven-year-old son, Navarone.
Even when discussing difficult topics, she has the calm of a survivor whose world has crash-landed before and who knows
that life will go on. "You have to get out of bad experiences. You have to move on," she says repeatedly, as if these
phrases have become a mantra.
That said, she is having trouble coming to terms with the O.J. Simpson tragedy. On the day that Simpson takes off on the
most-watched car chase in history, Presley sounds stunned on the phone, saying, "I don't want to believe it." A few weeks
later, after Simpson's gruesome preliminary hearing, she resigned and deeply shaken. "It looks, sounds and feels like he's
guilty. I sit here and watch TV and think 'I knew this person and we were friends,'" she says.
The future of the Naked Gun spoofs, which catapulted Presley to stardom, are now "up in the air," according to their director,
David Zucker. "The O.J. case definitely affects any sequels," he says. "You either have to run away from it or address it,
and either choice has its pitfalls." He expects the talented Presley to land other roles but adds that unlike so many Hollywood
actresses she isn't driven to appear on-screen.

The Scars of Elvis's Infidelity
Spending time at home with Garibaldi and Navarone, has always been more compelling to Presley than pursuing the
glamorous image of a movie star. Nothing beats watching her son's baseball games or going with Garibaldi to meeting of the
environmental group trying to block construction of a nuclear-power plant near Los Angeles. She remains close to her
parents and siblings and has hired younger sister Michelle Hovey as her executive assistant, while brother-in-law Gary Hovey
runs the music-publishing division of Elvis Presley Enterprises.
This is a family that works and plays together. "Hold on a minute," she says on the phone one day, calling from her parents'
home. "I think my dog is trying to drown my nephew or my nephew is trying to drown the dog." Long pause. "No, they're
both okay."
Her romance with Marco Garibaldi began in classic Hollywood fashion: Nearly a decade ago, when she was playing the sultry
Jenna Wade on the long running TV series, Dallas, she was looking for a writer to help her develop her own projects. So a
friend recommended Garibaldi, a screenwriter at the time. "Marco appealed to her intellect," says her sister.   "He's very
independent and self-sufficient. When he met her I don't think it really dawned on him who she was."
Half serious and half joking, Presley chalks up his attraction to "my stability." Her friends say this down-to-earth man, now a
computer programmer, is a welcome relief after the madness of her life with Elvis. "Marco is good for her," says Yvonne
Greene, a friend of 18 years, who, like many of Presley's intimates, isn't connected to the film industry. "He's a real person.
He wants to just go off and do things with her."
One of the things Presley and Garibaldi don't want to do together is get married. While in many ways Presley is quite
traditional - her current bedtime reading is William Bennett's Book of Virtues - she has a strong need to avoid a
conventional romantic commitment.   When she tries to explain her aversion to marriage, it becomes evident that she still
bears the scars of Elvis's infidelity and possessiveness.
"I'm speaking just for me - I'm not advocating that people not get married. I've been married; Marco's been married," she
says. "I don't take him for granted, and he doesn't take me for granted." She pauses for breath and starts talking so quickly
that the words are spilling out. "I know how to create a happy home. When he goes out, he never gives me any reason to
think he's going out on me, so I trust him."

A Mother's Dilemma
Framed photos of Garibaldi and Navarone and Lisa Marie and her two children - Danielle, age five, and Ben, age 2 -
surround Presley in her office. Speaking before the Michael Jackson - marriage rumors began, she seems truly saddened
by her daughter's recent divorce from musician Danny Keough. "Lisa Marie is extremely strong. This is not something she
and Danny decided on quickly," she says. "They're good friends and good parents. I know the tabloids are blaming me [for
meddling]. But I happen to like Danny very much."
It's not easy as a mother, Presley adds, to know when to get involved and when to back off. "You always want to be a mom,
you want to put in your two cents," she says laughing. "Lisa and I, we now know what to talk about together, and what not to
talk about."
Neither likes to talk publicly, for instance, about their involvement with Scientology, the controversial religion founded by the
late L. Ron Hubbard. In Presley's mind, Lisa Marie is, for better or worse, an independent adult. It is her young son,
Navarone, who commands her attention. Her face glows as she describes his latest achievements. "I love spying on my
son," she confesses. "It's terrible, but I drop him off at school, and I'll stand behind a building and watch him play."
Navarone raced off at school recently to show his best friend a just-completed project. "I was hiding behind a column and
watching, and I was so nervous my heart was going, 'Please say you love it,'" she continues. "His friend goes, 'That's really
neat.' With all the tragedies in life, I didn't want anything to leave a mark on him."

Growing Up Too Fast
Her protectiveness is perhaps a reaction to the fact that she knows all too well the dangers of growing up fast. Priscilla
Beaulieu was only 14-years-old when she met Elvis Presley in Germany, where her father was stationed with the U.S. Air
Force. Two years later her parents gave in to her heartfelt pleas and allowed her to visit Elvis in Memphis. One of his first
acts was to give her sleeping pills to overcome jet lag, and the 16-year-old nearly overdosed.
Even though Presley's marriage to Elvis ended more than two decades ago, her connection to him has never ceased. As
the chairwoman of Elvis Presley Enterprises, she remains the keeper of the flame. And his longtime fans are finally treating
her more charitably. "I think they see now that I was not the enemy," she says. "In the beginning I was the enemy because I
married him, and then, because I left him. A lot of people felt that when I left he started his downward spiral, and that if I had
stayed I could have helped."
She does not feel responsible for Elvis's downfall. "Everyone has to take responsibility for the condition their in," she says.
"We can blame people all we want, but it's up to that person." From her tone of voice, it's clear that this has been one of the
central issues of her life, coming to terms with all the might-have-beens. "Are you supposed to go down because he's going
down?" she continues. "We had a child - there were things I did not want my child to see. I wanted her father always to be in
good standing in her eyes."
Priscilla Presley could have simply become a curious rock-and-roll footnote. But her friends say she had a strong drive to
prove herself. Joseph Moscheo, a backup singer for Elvis and now a Nashville talent manager, says, "She had no idea that
she had such strength - especially after Elvis's death. There were people coming out of the woodwork offering deals. I
thought she would be so vulnerable, but she wasn't at all."
Presley initially took hold of the floundering Presley estate to protect Lisa Marie's legacy but quickly discovered she relished
being in control and developing the business. She made the decision to open Elvis's former home, Graceland, to the
adoring and admission-paying public, and it was she who authorized the first official Elvis tribute, which is airing on
pay-per-view TV October 8. She retains approval over all merchandising deals bearing Elvis's name, right down to the
underwear.

Still Trying to Do It All
Her Midas touch has not always extended to her own ventures. Her line of children's clothing went under quickly, but
Presley says she's "a frustrated designer" and that she'll preview her new women's-clothes label on Home Shopping Network
in November.
As for the business of acting, the success of the Naked Gun trilogy ensures a steady flow of scripts, but her manager of 12
years, Joel Stevens, says, "Priscilla has constantly had to go the extra yard." Even after all her acting visibility, she has yet
to land she wants without going through the ordeal of auditioning.
Age not being an advantage in Hollywood, Presley admits, "Your labeled; it's insulting. I don't feel my age, especially with
Navarone. When we go boulder climbing and rafting, I don't feel any limitations."
She maintains her lithe size-four figure with regular workouts. Regarding the other body-enhancing route so many actresses
take - plastic surgery - Presley says, "If there was anything I wanted to do, I don't see why I wouldn't do it."
Presley doesn't answer the question - has she or hasn't she - directly but confides that she hates it when people assume her
looks come from a surgeon's scalpel. Lunching at a restaurant in New York City recently, she says, she was outraged when
a woman seated nearby mouthed to a companion the certainty that Presley's nose was not a gift of nature. "I felt so insulted
and humiliated," she fumes, and then she starts to laugh. "I wanted to go over and say, 'But, really, I haven't had it done.'"
The story is vintage Priscilla Presley: funny and honest. She cares whether strangers think her nose is real or she's done a
good job protecting Elvis's image or she's a good mother. It's impossible to excel at all things in life. What's impressive is
how hard Presley tries.
"I don't want people to think I just have everything," she says, resilient and unsinkable, ready to handle whatever crisis or
comedies life offers up next.

Meryl Gordon writes frequently for many national magazines.