The death of Elvis' only daughter is the latest in a long series of family misfortunes. The singer was 54 years old, her father died at 42, and her son at 27. "If you suffer a premature, unnatural, or tragic loss, you become a pariah in a way," she said a few months ago
Two years ago, this newspaper reported on the death of Benjamin Keough, son of Lisa Marie Presley and grandson of the King of Rock, calling it "the last chapter of the Elvis Presley family curse." She was 27 years old. This Thursday, January 12, the Presleys' personal book of tragedies reopened to add a new episode. Lisa Marie, singer, celebrity, and only daughter of Elvis, died after suffering a cardiac arrest in Los Angeles. She was 54 years old.
“Death is part of life, whether we like it or not, and mourning too. Grief is something that you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, despite what certain people or our culture would have us believe. You don't 'get over', you don't 'move on'. And period”. With these words, Lisa Marie explained her relationship with her loss in an essay published in People magazine last August. In it, she explained how her trajectory had been marked by death, pain, and loss since her childhood. It is enough to take a look at the newspaper library to verify it. The Presley family biography is dotted with divorces, early deaths, drugs, and debt. A sad curse from which, generation after generation, its members cannot get out.
Elvis died at the age of 42 on August 16, 1977, at Graceland, his legendary home in Memphis. He was overweight, addicted to drugs, and had a cadre of friends and acquaintances referred to by the press as the Memphis Mafia, who wasn't exactly a good influence. That afternoon the singer told his girlfriend at the time, 20-year-old Ginger Alden, that he was going to the bathroom "to read." She replied: "Okay, but don't fall asleep," according to the book Elvis and Ginger. A few hours later, seeing that the King of Rock did not come out of the throne, they broke down the door. They found him with his pants down, his face buried in vomit, and an erotic book in his hands, as described in the book The Death of Elvis. Yes, there are many books on Elvis Presley. Annually, between 10 and 20 are published.
At first, it was said that he had died of a heart attack, but the coroner's report stated that his heart had not failed. Even so, he had it dilated, his artery walls were covered with fat, his liver was damaged and his large intestine was clogged by fecal matter. It was likely that he had died while straining on the toilet and anaphylactic shock was not ruled out as he was allergic to codeine. 14 different drugs were found in Elvis's body. The singer had been hospitalized several times for overdoses. All these elements added mystery to an already disconcerting death, fueling the rumor mill and even speculating that the King of Rock had not really died.
For Lisa Marie, the death of her father was very real. She was only nine years old and was in her house at the time. In the 2005 documentary Elvis by the Presleys, she fondly recalled their relationship. “If I was in a good mood, it was going to be a great day. We would ride horses or go around in golf carts, ”she claimed. “His bad temper had nothing to envy to that of Darth Vader. But if he was happy, everyone was happy. He never bored you ”. With her death, Lisa Marie became the owner of Graceland and 15% of Elvis Presley Enterprises, but until she came of age, it would be first her paternal grandfather and then her mother who owned them. will manage.
Priscilla Beaulieu was a 14-year-old teenager when she met Elvis, a 24-year-old man. They were both in Germany, where he was serving in the military and she was living with her family. "My God, I was talking to one of the most famous artists in the world, and he seemed to be one of the most handsome men I had ever seen," he recalled in an interview with EL PAÍS in 2017. According to the book Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, the marriage was full of infidelities and fights. Elvis played at being the perfect husband in Memphis, but he got out of hand when he got to Los Angeles, where he spent long stays to shoot movies.
There he rented a palace through which consecrated and aspiring actresses passed. As the decade progressed, drugs increased and the revelry became wilder, similar to classic orgies. Priscilla lived a turbulent marriage, but her divorce was much better: it is said that, after signing the papers, they both left the court holding hands.
After the separation, Priscilla tried her luck as an actress in the Dallas series or the Grab It as you can saga, but was more successful as a businesswoman. As co-executor of Elvis' estate, she turned Graceland into a tourist attraction in 1982. Today it is the second most visited mansion in the US, after only the White House. The move (coupled with the musician's cultural imprint) made Elvis one of the figures that generated the most money after his death. In 2022 alone, his figure had a turnover of 110 million dollars, according to Forbes magazine.
When the inheritance passed to the young Lisa Marie, she did not know how to manage it. She undersold the rights to the songs and mismanaged her fortune. In 2018 she claimed that she had only 10,000 euros left in the bank and that she had 16 million debts. She excused herself with complaints to her former manager, to which he defended himself by calling her wasteful.
Lisa Marie was slow to launch her musical career for fear of not being up to the task of her father. On her 2003 debut album, To Whom It May Concern, she enlisted the support of producer Alanis Morissette and throughout her career, she has collaborated with the likes of Pink. On the bluesy signature song Lights Out, she sang: “Someone turned out the lights in Memphis. That's where my family is buried and missing."
Her career never reached the success of her father's, under whose influence she has developed her entire public life. Last Sunday, January 8, she went to Graceland to celebrate the day Elvis was born along with hundreds of fans. Last Tuesday, two days before his death, she walked the red carpet with her mother, Priscilla. They were invited to the Golden Globes for the Elvis biopic, one of the favorites of the evening.
Lisa Marie was a little star in the shadow of a dazzling star. Her last name elevated her as a celebrity, and her relationships with celebrities of hers reinforced that perception. She has been married four times and divorced as many. She has only had children with her first and last husband, the least known of her. She married her first husband, Danny Keough, already pregnant, in October 1988 in a ceremony in Morocco. The bride's mother, Priscilla, considered her daughter too young at just 20 for marriage and children. She knew what she was talking about.
Lisa Marie and Keough became prominent members of Scientology, a controversial cult that uses Hollywood stars as pseudo-apostles. On one of the church's yachts, they celebrated their honeymoon and raised their two children in their beliefs. Actress Riley Keough and the late Benjamin Keough.
From 1994 to 1996 she was married to Michael Jackson. The King of Pop and the daughter of the King of Rock became the strangest, most fascinating, and most mediatic couple of the moment. Her marriage to Nicolas Cage was a little less popular and a lot less long-lasting. They separated after four months. The actor has released a statement in which he claims to be "heartbroken" by the death of his ex-wife. "Lisa laughed more than anyone she's ever met," he stated.
The four carriage was the longest for Lisa Marie, but also the one that ended the worst. In January 2006 she married guitarist Michael Lockwood. They had two girls, twins Harper and Finley, in October 2008. A doctor prescribed pain pills after her delivery and she ended up hooked. "It only took a short-term prescription for opioids in the hospital for her to feel the need for her to continue taking them," the artist herself confessed in the foreword to the book The United States of Opioids. Ten years after her last marriage, hooked on drugs and broke, Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce.
The dramas did not stop then. Her son Benjamin Storm Keough committed suicide at age 27. His body was found in July 2020 at the family mansion in Calabasas (Los Angeles). He had shot himself. US tabloids, accustomed to following the family's miseries in detail, described the death as "surprising but not shocking." The young man had a long history of addiction.
“If you suffer a premature, unnatural or tragic loss, you become an outcast in a way,” Lisa Marie Presley said in the open letter she published not so long ago in People. It was five months before his own death. “I already struggle and beat myself up chronically and tirelessly, blaming myself every day, and it's hard enough to live with that, but others will also judge and blame you [...] Going forward is a real decision that I have to make every day and which, to say the least, is a constant challenge... But I keep going for my daughters”.
