Priscilla Presley first encountered Elvis when she was 11, listening to his first record. “Three years later and 5,500 miles away, I would meet him,” she later wrote at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
By Joyann Jeffrey and Anna Kaplan
The story of Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s relationship has been told in countless books, documentaries and films, including 2022’s “Elvis” and most recently, Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla.”
Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, formerly Beaulieu and Wagner, were married for six years, from 1967 to 1973. The couple met for the first time in 1959, when Elvis was 24 and Priscilla was 14.
Elvis Presley died in 1977 at the age of 42, just a few years after their divorce.
“It was a good life,” Priscilla told People of their romance in 2021. “It was different, but it was ours.”
Keep reading for a timeline of Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship — in their own words.
Priscilla and Elvis met in 1959, when Priscilla was in high school
Priscilla and Elvis’ story begins before they actually met. At the time, he was the biggest rock star in the world, and she was an 11-year-old listening to his first record at an Air Force base in Austin, Texas at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
“Three years later and 5,500 miles away, I would meet him,” Priscilla wrote in an essay for People in 1985.
Priscilla and Elvis reportedly met in 1959 at a party in West Germany. How did the two Americans end up at a party in Wiesbaden? Well, Priscilla’s stepfather, who was in the Air Force, was transferred to the base there, and Elvis was serving in the Army.
It was evident in their age difference, as Priscilla mentioned in her article. “I was an impressionable 14 years old when we first met. She stated, “He was 24.” When Priscilla told him she was a ninth grader, he allegedly said, “Why, you’re just a baby.”
Priscilla also spoke about her early memories of Elvis with TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager in 2017.
“It started out, really, with his voice,” she said. “People loved his voice. When he sang, it was like he was singing to you.
“He wasn’t bad to look at either,” she added. “Everyone had a crush on him. They’re still having crushes on him. He was truly beautiful. He woke up beautiful. I used to stare at him. I used to look at him and go, ‘Oh my gosh.’”
Speaking to Larry King in 1999, Priscilla contextualized the time in Elvis’ life when they met. “I saw him at a very vulnerable time in his life. He had just lost his mother. He was grieving,” she said at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
The two began seeing each other. “I found myself deeply involved with Elvis,” she wrote in her essay for People. Amid this relationship, Priscilla said school “became a chore.”
“I kept telling myself that I would do better, that I’d catch up, but my concentration was totally on Elvis,” she wrote.
Priscilla said he ‘molded her’ into being the ‘right girl’
According to Priscilla’s essay in People, Elvis said he liked “soft-spoken brunettes with blue eyes,” and said Priscilla “fit this image perfectly.”
Priscilla wrote that he wanted to “mold (her) to his opinions and preferences” beyond her appearance.
“Something in his Southern upbringing had taught him that the ‘right’ girl was to be saved for marriage. I was that girl. At the same time, he molded me into his woman. I wore the clothes, hairstyle and makeup of his careful choosing,” she continued.
Elvis won over Priscilla’s parents
After their fourth date, Priscilla’s parents intervened. Her father, Capt. Joseph Paul Beaulieu — whom her mother married after her biological father died — asked to meet him.
“You have women throwing themselves at you. Why my daughter?” she recalled her dad asking in her People essay. Elvis reportedly replied, “I happen to be very fond of her. She’s a lot more mature than her age, and I enjoy her company… You don’t have to worry about her, Captain. I’ll take good care of her.”
“He came to the house, and he was charming and wonderful. My family had a lot of faith in him,” Priscilla told Barbara Walters for ABC in 1985 at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
Priscilla said that she was so smitten with the “Hound Dog” singer that she would start to misbehave if her parents tried to separate them from one another.
“My parents became confused and bewildered by our relationship. We tried to make them believe that it was proper and platonic, and they wanted to believe me,” she wrote. “Whenever they tried to stop us from seeing each other, I pleaded and cried and made them and myself miserable. In retrospect, I don’t think anything could have stopped me from seeing Elvis.”
In 1960, Elvis returned to the United States. “I didn’t hear from Elvis right away. My mother said, ‘See, I told you,’” Priscilla recalled to Larry King in 1999. Then, Elvis started calling — “and that’s when it all started again.”
Three years after that, in 1963, Priscilla’s parents allowed her to finish her education in Memphis, Tennessee, so that she could be closer to Elvis at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
Elvis and Priscilla were married in Las Vegas
In 1967, Elvis and Priscilla got married in Las Vegas after he proposed to her the year before.
“One day, he showed me the ring and simply asked me to marry him… Even though we were perfectly content the way we were, at that time, it wasn’t nice for people to live together,” Priscilla told Ladies’ Home Journal in 1972.
The ceremony lasted eight minutes. Speaking to Walters in 1985, Priscilla said that the wedding was encouraged by Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s talent manager.
“Presley’s manager put the pressure to marry and marry soon. We’d been together for six years,” she said.
Elvis briefly left Priscilla when she was pregnant with Lisa Marie
Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter and only child, Lisa Marie Presley, was born nine months after their wedding.
However, when Priscilla was still pregnant with their baby girl, Elvis told her that they needed to briefly separate because “he was going through some things.”
She recalled their conversation in a 1985 as-told-to essay, per the Orlando Sentinel at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
“I don’t think Elvis really intended to leave me. It wasn’t his style,” she said. “I later realized he, too, had questions about how a baby would affect his life. Would his public accept him as a father? He wasn’t even sure whether his fans had adapted to his becoming a husband. How loyal would they be?”
After Lisa Marie was born, Elvis reportedly stopped being intimate with Priscilla. Priscilla told Walters that she believed Elvis struggled to square his image of her as a “little girl” with her as a “mother.”
“Our communication was horrible,” Priscilla told Walters, saying that Elvis didn’t feel comfortable showing weakness.
According to Country Living, she also wrote in her 1985 memoir, “Elvis and Me,” that Elvis once told her that “he had never been able to make love to a woman who had a child.”
“I (was) beginning to doubt my own sexuality as a woman,” she wrote. “My physical and emotional needs were unfulfilled.”
Priscilla said she left Elvis to ‘find Priscilla’
Priscilla left Elvis in 1972. “I had to take responsibility for myself,” Priscilla told Walters. By leaving Elvis, she said she “found Priscilla.”
She went on to become an actor, best known for her time on the show “Dallas.”
Years later, during a 2016 appearance on “Loose Women,” Priscilla’s feelings remained the same. “You obviously didn’t have your own life. You lived his life. You saw the movies he wanted to see. You listened to the music he listened to. You go to places he would go, so you really kind of lost yourself. As a woman, I didn’t really know who I was,” she added at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
In 2018, Priscilla — while speaking to Mike Amor on Australia’s Sunday Night in 2018 — revealed that Elvis had not been faithful during their marriage.
“He wasn’t faithful, not that he had someone special, but when you’re in the entertainment business, there is always that, and I tried to turn my back to that, but I just didn’t want to share him. Simple as that,” she said. “As much as he wanted to be married and have a family, I don’t know if he was ever cut to be married because I don’t think he could ever be faithful to one woman.”
Priscilla was ‘shocked’ by Elvis’ death
Priscilla said that she and Elvis remained close even after their divorce was finalized in 1973. “We never lost our friendship,” Priscilla said on the Sunday News.
In August 1977, Elvis died at his Graceland home from a heart attack at the age of 42. News of his sudden passing shocked Priscilla.
“It was just too hard to believe,” she told Hoda Kotb during a 2018 appearance on TODAY.
Priscilla noted that Elvis’ funeral procession reminded her of how iconic the singer was at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
“Going out the gates in the limo and seeing the streets lined up on both sides all the way to the cemetery, you’d see glimpses; you’d see people crying, hysterical, fainting, and that’s how impactful it was,” she said on TODAY. “And still to this day, people come around the same time, and they’re all there.”
After the official trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” was released, Priscilla went on Instagram to share how she feels about the film.
She stated that she watched the trailer “over a dozen times” and was brought to tears when she heard how much her daughter loved the movie.
“I relived every moment in this film,” she said. “It took me a few days to overcome the emotions, as it did with Lisa. Beautifully done, Baz, Tom, Austin and Olivia.”
Priscilla attended the Golden Globes to celebrate “Elvis” with her daughter Lisa Marie, days before her death.
On Jan. 12, 2023, Lisa Marie, the sole child of Elvis and Priscilla, died at the age of 54 of a small bowel obstruction, the result of a surgery that she had undergone years before, according to her autopsy report at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
Priscilla never remarried after divorcing Elvis
Priscilla did not remarry after her divorce from Elvis.
During a Q&A session at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas, according to People, Priscilla said she didn’t believe “he could handle that,” alluding to her marrying again while Elvis was still alive.
“To be honest with you, I never wanted to marry after him. I never had any desire,” she said. “No one could ever match him.”
Priscilla attends the premiere of ‘Priscilla’
Priscilla attended the premiere of Sofia Coppola’s film centered around her life at the Venice Film Festival in September 2023. She sat next to Jacob Elordi and Callie Spaeny, the 25-year-old actor tasked with portraying Priscilla.
Spaeny told TODAY.com what Priscilla said to her once the credits started rolling.
“She said, ‘That was a great performance.’ That was the first time I’d ever heard that from her,” Spaeny said.
Spaeny also recounted one of Priscilla’s memories of her relationship with Elvis, shared during a meeting between the actor and the subject before filming began at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
“There was one moment where she talked about how, when she was there living in Memphis, they’d rent out movie theaters. It would be in the middle of the night, and the town would be silent,” Spaeny said. “It was her and Elvis and his Memphis Mafia all together, watching films all night long, and then she’d have to get up in the morning and go to school.”
Spaeny went on to receive a seven-minute standing ovation in Venice, plus the festival’s Volpi Cup award for best actress for her work in the film.
Priscilla continues to share stories about her time with Elvis
After Elvis’ death in 1977, Priscilla told her story of their relationship in a memoir, “Elvis and Me,” published in 1985.
In interviews and on social media, she continues to tell stories about her late ex-husband to this day.
For example, in a video shared on Instagram June 9, Priscilla revealed that she and the “Suspicious Minds” singer used to watch “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” on TV together at The true story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship.
“‘Laugh-In,’ back in the day, was really something. It was so funny, and they had different guests coming on,” she said.
She said they also watched “Get Smart” and Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show,” recalling that Elvis “loved his monologues.”
“After Johnny Carson’s monologue, that was it, and we’d get in the car and head on to the movies,” she added.
EDITED (November 3, 2023, 4:33 p.m.): The maiden name of Priscilla Presley was spelled incorrectly as Beauliu Wagner in an earlier version of this article. After assuming her stepfather’s last name, Beaulieu, she was baptized as Wagner.
