Lisa Marie Presley

Lisa Marie Presley
Lisa Marie Presley at a car race July 2, 2005
Born	(1968-02-01) February 1, 1968 Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Occupation	Singer-songwriter
Years active	2003–present
Employer	Capitol Records (2003-2007)
Spouse(s)	Danny Keough (1988-1994) Michael Jackson (1994-1996) Nicolas Cage (2002-2004) Michael Lockwood (2006-present)
Parent(s)	Elvis Presley (father) Priscilla Presley (mother)
Website	Official Site of Lisa Marie Presley

Lisa Marie Presley (born February 1, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter, she is also known as the Princess of Rock 'n' Roll. She is the daughter of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley.

Early life

Lisa Marie Presley was born in Memphis, Tennessee, exactly nine months after her parents' wedding. Until her parents' divorce, she lived at Graceland, Elvis' Memphis estate. 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 on August 16, 1977, after which she lived exclusively in Beverly Hills. When her father died, Lisa Marie became the sole heir and inherited Graceland, his legendary estate in Memphis. As a teenager, Lisa Marie became a member of the Church of Scientology, where she met her first husband, Danny Keough.

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.

After the death of her father, Lisa and her mother had serious problems in their relationship. The key reason of this disharmony was her mother’s live-in boyfriend Michael Edwards. Her mother often left her with Michael due to her commitments as a TV actress. After Priscilla broke up with Edwards, he admitted his lust for Lisa in his book titled Priscilla, Elvis & Me.

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.

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 and #16 on the UK charts. Eight months before the album's release, Presley performed "Nobody Noticed It" at the 25th Anniversary.

Her second album, Now What debuted number 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. Presley covers Blue Öyster Cult's Burnin' for you as a b-side.

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. All of the profits were donated to a Scientology-related charity.

In October 2009, she joined singer Richard Hawley on stage in London for an encore, she sang vocals on a song the pair have been working on called 'Weary'.Hawley wants to help Presley relaunch her music career, and the two have embarked on a songwriting partnership in which Lisa Marie writes the lyrics and Hawley the music. In a new interview Presley said that she is currently recording a new album in London.

Personal life

At the age of 20, Presley married her musician boyfriend Danny Keough on October 3, 1988. During their six-year relationship, they had two children together, Danielle Riley, 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.

Twenty days after her divorce from Keough, Presley married singer Michael Jackson on May 26, 1994, in the Dominican Republic. They had first met when the seven-year-old Presley attended several of his concerts 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. 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." 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". Lisa Marie also said this about the marriage when she received news of his death:

"Our relationship was not "a sham" as is being reported in the press. It was an unusual relationship yes, where two unusual people who did not live or know a "normal life" found a connection, perhaps with some suspect timing on his part. Nonetheless, I do believe he loved me as much as he could love anyone and I loved him very much. As I sit here overwhelmed with sadness, reflection and confusion at what was my biggest failure to date, watching on the news almost play by play The exact scenario I saw happen on August 16th, 1977 happening again right now with Michael (A sight I never wanted to see again) just as he predicted, I am truly, truly gutted. Any ill experience or words I have felt towards him in the past has just died inside of me along with him. He was an amazing person and I am lucky to have gotten as close to him as I did and to have had the many experiences and years that we had together.

I desperately hope that he can be relieved from his pain, pressure and turmoil now.

He deserves to be free from all of that and I hope he is in a better place or will be. I also hope that anyone else who feels they have failed to help him can be set free because he hopefully finally is. The world is in shock but somehow he knew exactly how his fate would be played out some day more than anyone else knew, and he was right."

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. The marriage was, in her words, "a married couple's life ... that was sexually active". Presley filed for divorce in January 1996, but the couple remained friendly. 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". Jackson was found not guilty of the charges.

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. 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.

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. Her husband is a first-time father. On October 7, 2008, Presley gave birth to fraternal twin girls, Harper Vivienne Ann and Finley Aaron Love via Caesarean section. The twins weighed 5 pounds 2 ounces (2.3 kg) and 5 lb 15oz (2.7 kg) respectively.

Presley stated that she and her family have moved to England: ‘We have found the quality of life so much more enriching and fulfilling. The civility, the culture, the people and its beauty have reawakened me and have smoothed out some of my bleak and jagged views about people and life.’

Elvis Presley estate

Elvis's 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.

Airplane "Lisa Marie"

Elvis' plane named after his daughter

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.

Discography

Albums

Year	Title	Chart positions
		U.S.	UK
2003	To Whom It May Concern	5	52
2005	Now What	9	—
2010	TBA

Singles

Year	Title	Chart positions						Album
		U.S. Top 40	U.S. AC	UK	AUS	NZ	CAN Hot Digital Singles
2003	"Lights Out"	34	18	16	29	28	12	To Whom It May Concern
	"Sinking In"	—	—	—	—	—	—
2005	"Dirty Laundry"	—	36	—	—	—	—	Now What
	"Idiot"	—	—	—	—	—	—
2007	"In The Ghetto" (With Elvis Presley) 1	—	—	—	—	—	—	iTunes Single

¹"In The Ghetto" premiered on August 16, 2007, at the 30th Anniversary Elvis Presley Tribute Concert in Memphis. Both song and video became available for purchase on iTunes the day after.

References

General

• Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2004). The Magic and the Madness. Terra Alta, WV: Headline. ISBN 0-330-42005-4.

External links

• Official Website
• Lisa Marie Presley at IMDb
• Interview with Oprah Winfrey, 2007
• The Lisa Marie - Convair 880 Jet