Lisa Marie Presley | Photo Credit: Jordan Strauss
Lisa Marie Presley, the only daughter of singer Elvis and a devoted defender of her father’s legacy, died Friday after being hospitalized for a medical emergency. She was 54 years old.
Presley’s death was confirmed by his mother, Priscilla. “It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla Presley said in a statement. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I ever met.” The only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, Presley shared his father’s charisma – hooded eyes, cheeky smile, low, sultry voice – and followed him professionally, releasing his own rock albums in the 2000s , and appeared on stage with Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley among others.
She also forged a direct musical relationship with her father, adding her voice to Elvis recordings such as “In the Ghetto” and “Don’t Cry Daddy”, a heartbreaking ballad that made her remember her mother’s (and Lisa Marie’s) early death. Was given Grandmother), Gladys Presley.
She said, “It’s been my whole life.” The Associated Press In 2012, speaking of his father’s influence. “It’s not something I listen to now and it’s different. Although I can listen closer. I maintain that I’ve always been a fan of his. He’s always impressed me.”
Lisa’s birth, just nine months after her parents married, was international news, and her background was rarely far from her mind. With the release of Baz Luhrmann’s major musical feature Elvis Last year, Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley accompanied the film’s stars to red carpets and award shows.
She was at the Golden Globes on Wednesday to celebrate Austin Butler’s award for playing her father. Just days earlier, she had been in Memphis at Graceland—the mansion where Elvis lived, and died—to celebrate her father’s birth anniversary on January 8.
Elvis Presley with wife Priscilla and daughter Lisa Marie in a room at Baptist Hospital on February 5, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.
Presley lived with his mother, an actress known for Dallas And this naked gun Films in California in 1973 after her parents separated. She recalled early memories of her father during visits to Graceland, golf cart rides through the neighborhood and his daily entrance down the stairs.
“He was always fully dressed, fully dressed. You would never see him coming down the stairs in his pyjamas,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “You’ll never see them in anything other than a ‘ready to see’ outfit.” Elvis Presley died in August 1977, when he was just 42 and Lisa was 9. Lisa Marie was living at Graceland at the time and would remember kissing her goodnight before she collapsed and never recovered. When she next saw him, the next day, he was lying face down in the bathroom.
“I just had a feeling,” she said Rolling stone in 2003. “He wasn’t doing well. All I know is that I had it (a feeling), and it happened. I was obsessed with death at a very young age.” She would later make headlines of her own. Struggles with drugs and some very public marriages. Her four husbands included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.
Jackson and Presley were married in the Dominican Republic in 1994, but the marriage ended after two years and was marred by several awkward public appearances, including an unexpected kiss from Jackson during the MTV Video Music Awards and a joint with Diane Sawyer. The interview was included when she defended her husband against allegations that he had sexually abused a minor. Their other celebrity marriage was even shorter: Cage filed for divorce in 2002 after four months of marriage.