Lisa Marie Presley
(born February 1, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter also known as the Princess of Rock 'n' Roll. [1] [2] She is the only child of musician Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley.
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LISA MARIE PRESLEY TICKETS
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Early life
Lisa Marie Presley was born in
Memphis,
Tennessee, exactly nine months after her parents' May 1, 1967, wedding. Until her parents' divorce, she lived at
Graceland, Elvis' Memphis estate. She was pampered and indulged by her father —
she divided her time between living at
Graceland with her father and in
Beverly Hills with her mother. This arrangement continued until her father died in 1977, after which she lived exclusively in
Beverly Hills.
After her father's death, Presley had serious problems with her mother Priscilla, particularly because Priscilla's live-in boyfriend
Michael Edwards, Presley claims, made advances toward her.
[3] Her mother was often away due to the schedule of her television series,
Dallas
, while Presley was left with Edwards. After Edwards and Priscilla Presley broke up, Edwards wrote a book entitled
Priscilla, Elvis, & Me
, which included details of his lust for Lisa Marie.
[4] By age fourteen, she had started taking drugs. Presley's mother sent her to several boarding schools. She attended the 10th grade at an alternative boarding school in Ojai, California, called
Happy Valley School. The last secondary school she attended was the
Scientology-affiliated Apple School (later known as Los Feliz Hills School) in
Los Angeles.
Music career
In her early twenties, she was managed by her father's friend
Jerry Schilling and recorded a demo in 1992. When Schilling told her he had negotiated a recording contract for her, she rejected it. In 1997, she recorded a duet of the song "
Don't Cry Daddy" with her father using the original recording of his vocals and mixing it with her new vocals. It was never released for marketing, but the music video was shown at the 20th Anniversary Elvis concert in Memphis. In 1998, she signed a deal with
Capitol Records. Her debut album was originally scheduled for release in 2000, though it took longer than expected for Presley to write every song on the album.
To Whom It May Concern
On April 8, 2003, Presley released her debut album,
To Whom It May Concern
. It reached #5 on the
Billboard
200 albums chart and was certified gold in June 2003. Presley wrote all the lyrics and co-wrote some of the melodies. To promote it, she presented a concert in the
UK, something that her father never did. The album's first single, "Lights Out", reached # 18 on the
Billboard
Hot Adult Top 40 chart
[5] and #16 on the UK charts.
[6] Eight months before the album's release, Presley performed "Nobody Noticed It" at the 25th Anniversary Elvis concert. The song, which was featured on the album, was written as a tribute to her father.
Now What
Presley released her
sophomore album,
Now What
, on April 5, 2005. It reached #9 on the
Billboard 200 albums chart. It was certified gold in November 2005. Presley co-wrote 10 songs and recorded covers of
Don Henley's "
Dirty Laundry" (the album's first single, which hit #36 on the
Billboard
100 AC singles chart).
and
The Ramones' "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow". The song "Idiot" is a jab towards different men in her life. Unlike her first album,
Now What
included a
Parental Advisory sticker. Both albums, as of 2006, have been certified platinum.
In the Ghetto
In August 2007, the single
In the Ghetto
was released.
Elvis Presley originally released the single in 1969. In the new version, Lisa Marie "duets" with her father. The video that was simultaneously released with the single reached #1 on the
iTunes sales and #16 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 singles chart.
[7] All of the profits were donated to a Scientology-related charity.
Personal life
At the age of twenty, Presley married her musician boyfriend
Danny Keough on October 3, 1988. During their six year relationship,
[8] they had two children together, Riley Danielle, born May 29, 1989 and Benjamin Storm, born October 21, 1992. In April 1994, Presley announced that she and Keough were separating, but would remain on good terms for their children's sake. Later that month, she flew to the
Dominican Republic to get a quick divorce, which was finalized on May 6, 1994. In the years since their divorce, Presley and Keough have remained friends and even written some songs together. Keough lives in the guest house on the same property as her home. He home-schooled their children during her musical tours.
20 days after her divorce from
Keough, Presley married singer
Michael Jackson on May 26, 1994, in the
Dominican Republic.
[9] They had first met when the seven-year-old Presley attended several of his shows in
Las Vegas.
According to Yahoo.com, when they met again years later, "things moved very quickly", with Jackson proposing over the telephone after four months.
They stayed in contact every day over the telephone. As
child molestation accusations became public, Jackson became dependent on Lisa Marie for emotional support; she was concerned about his faltering health and his addiction to drugs.
[10] Lisa Marie explained, "I believed he didn't do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it."
[11] Shortly afterwards, she tried to persuade Jackson to settle the allegations out of court and go into
rehabilitation to recover. He subsequently did both.
Recently, Presley issued a statement on her MySpace blog regarding Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, stating that she was "gutted", and that she felt she had "failed" to help save him from "the inevitable".
[12]
In 1995, she appeared in nothing but a towel around her waist in the music video for his song "
You Are Not Alone". It was one of the few instances where their affection for one another was exhibited in public.
[13] The marriage was, in her words, "a married couple's life ... that was sexually active".
[14] Presley filed for divorce in January 1996, but the couple remained friendly.
[15] [16]
In 2005, Presley was considered as a witness for
Jackson's trial after he had been charged with child molestation. She released a statement saying that she never saw her then-husband engage in "improper behavior with children".
[17] Jackson was found
not guilty of the charges.
[18]
Presley was engaged in 2000 to rocker
John Oszajca. She broke off the engagement after meeting actor
Nicolas Cage at a party. Her relationship with Cage was on-again/off-again from the beginning.
[19] They were married on August 10, 2002, in an outdoor wedding at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel on the
Big Island of Hawaii. Cage had proposed just ten days earlier. An avid Elvis fan, Cage is said to be the only person outside the immediate Presley family to have been allowed to see Elvis' bedroom at
Graceland. He filed for divorce after 108 days of marriage, on November 25, 2002, just two days after the couple appeared looking happy together at the premiere of
Adaptation
. The divorce was finalized on May 26, 2004. The divorce proceeding lasted longer than the marriage.
[20]
Presley married for a fourth time on January 22, 2006, to
Michael Lockwood. Lockwood is her
guitarist,
music producer, and director. Keough served as best man at the couple's wedding, held in
Japan. Priscilla Presley walked her down the aisle in front of 16 guests. In March 2008, Presley announced that she was pregnant, following speculation over her apparent weight gain
[21]. Her husband is a first-time father.
[22] On October 7, 2008, Presley gave birth to
fraternal twin girls, Harper and Finley Lockwood via
Caesarean section. The twins weighed 5 pounds 2 ounces (2.3 kg) and 5 lb 15oz (2.7 kg) respectively.
[23] [24]
Elvis Presley estate
Elvis' will appointed his father Vernon Presley as executor and trustee. The beneficiaries were Lisa Marie, along with her grandfather Vernon and great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley. The will provided that Vernon could, at his discretion, provide funds to other family members as needed. Vernon died in 1979, and Minnie Mae in 1980. This left Lisa Marie Presley as the sole heiress to the estate. Elvis' will stated that her inheritance was to be held in trust for her until her twenty-fifth birthday.
Vernon's will resulted in the appointment of three co-executors/co-trustees to succeed him. They were: the
National Bank of Commerce in Memphis, which was the bank with whom Elvis and Vernon had done business; Joseph Hanks, a long-time accountant for Elvis and Vernon; and Priscilla Presley.
Upon Lisa's twenty-fifth birthday, the trust automatically dissolved and Lisa formed a new trust, The Elvis Presley Trust, and continued to manage the estate, with her mother and the National Bank of Commerce continuing to serve as co-trustees.
In 1998, Lisa became more closely involved with the management team of The Elvis Presley Trust and its business entity, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.(EPE). She was owner and Chairman of the Board until February 2005, when she sold 85 percent of the estate's business holdings to
CKX, Inc., excluding
Graceland itself and the property within it.
[25]
Airplane "Lisa Marie"
Her father named one of his private aircraft, a converted
Convair 880 jet (original passenger capacity: 100), after her. The airplane "Lisa Marie" is currently on exhibit at the
Graceland mansion museum of Elvis Presley in
Memphis, Tennessee. The rock band
Queen used this for a flight, and Lisa gave Queen vocalist
Freddie Mercury a scarf that belonged to her father.
Discography
Albums
| Year
| Title
| Chart positions
|
| U.S.
| UK
|
| 2003
| To Whom It May Concern
| 5 [26]
| 52 [27]
|
| 2005
| Now What
| 9 [
] | —
|
| 2009
|
|
|
|
Singles
| Year
| Title
| Chart positions
| Album
|
| U.S. Top 40
| U.S. AC
| UK
| AUS
| NZ
| CAN Hot Digital Singles
|
| 2003
| "Lights Out"
| 34 [28]
| 18 [
] | 16 [29]
| 29 [30]
| 28 [
] | 12 [31]
| To Whom It May Concern
|
| "Sinking In"
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
|
| 2005
| "Dirty Laundry"
| —
| 36 [32]
| —
| —
| —
| —
| Now What
|
| "Idiot"
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
|
| 2007
| "In The Ghetto" (With Elvis Presley) 1
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| iTunes Single
|
1"In The Ghetto" became available for purchase on
iTunes (both song and video) on August 17, 2007. It premiered on August 16, at the 30th Anniversary Elvis Presley Tribute Concert in Memphis.
References
- The Princess of Rock Makes a Name for Herself
- 5 Questions For... Lisa Marie Presley
- Lisamarie.at.infoseek.co.jp News
- Amazon.com - Priscilla, Elvis & Me
- Billboard chartlist for 09.24.2003
- Lisa Marie Presley (II) Biography from Yahoo! Movies
- Billboard Bubbling Hot 100
- Lisa Marie Presley Biography- Yahoo Music
- One Theory On Michael-Lisa: It's All A Plot
- Taraborrelli, p. 518–520
- Taraborrelli, p. 510
- http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=42291868&blogId=497035326
- Taraborrelli, p. 609
- Taraborrelli, p. 562–564
- Taraborrelli, p. 580–581
- He knew - Jackson predicted his early demise
- Lisa Marie says Jacko Never Acted Improperly
- The Jackson Verdict - - Michael Jackson Trial, Michael Jackson : People.com
- http://lisamarie.at.infoseek.co.jp/lisa-LarryKingLive2003.htm
- Cage-Presley Union Now a Memory
- Lisa Marie Presley News - Lisa Marie Presley names twins
- Lisa Marie Presley Announces Pregnancy
- http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20232818,00.html
- Woman's Day (magazine) pp4-7, February 2, 2009
- Elvis Presley Enterprises Corporate Information
- Billboard Albums Chart History
- chartstats.com - Lisa Marie Presley - To Whom It May Concern
- Billboard chartlist for 09.24.2003
- everyhit.com, UK Top 40 Chart Archive
- charts.org.nz -Lisa Marie Presley - Lights Out
- Billboard chartlist for 08.26.2003
- Billboard Singles Chart History