Why Priscilla's Memoir 'Elvis And Me' Demands to Be Filmed
Baz Luhrmann's jukebox biopic focused on predatory grooming, but picked the wrong subject
By T. Bloom
“Drawing on all of his charm, Elvis assured my father that if I was permitted to move to Memphis, I wouldn’t live with him at Graceland but with his daddy, Vernon and his wife, Dee. Elvis promised to enroll me in a good Catholic school — he’d choose it himself — and make sure I graduated. He said I’d always be chaperoned and that he’d care for me in every way. Declaring his intentions honorable, he swore that he loved and needed and respected me. In fact, he couldn’t live without me, he said, intimating that one day we’d marry…
“In truth, I was as mystified as my parents were about why Elvis wanted me to come and live with him. I think he was attracted by the fact that I had a normal, stable childhood, and that I was very responsible, having helped my parents raise my younger brothers and sister. I was more mature at sixteen than I was at fourteen, when he’d met me, not only because I’d gone through the normal growing period, but also because I’d experienced the pain of living without him for those two years.
“…I also had all of the physical attributes that Elvis liked, the fundamentals he could use in turning me into his ideal woman.
“…I intended to do whatever I had to to hold him, because if he ever sent me home, it would have meant not only that I’d been wrong in going to him, but that my parents had been wrong for having permitted it. I firmly resolved to make our relationship work, no matter what.”
— Priscilla Presley, Elvis and Me (1984)
Generally I appreciate what Baz Luhrmann brings to the screen, even though I don’t particularly love any of his films, except Moulin Rouge (an achievement of cinematic spectacle so joyous and seductive that it remains easy for me to overlook its glaring problems). Few filmmakers have dared to bend this visual/aural medium so far past its breaking point, poking directly at certain brain glands to get their secretions flowing, delivering audiences to new thresholds of wonder, joy, and outrage.
That strategy is evident in the subjects Luhrmann chooses to focus on, and his 2022 Elvis biopic has more in common with Moulin Rouge in that regard than perhaps any other pairing from his filmography. These are both films about the two-headed monster of exploitation and entertainment. As Colonel Tom Parker (over)explains in Elvis, “The carnival act that would get you the most money…had great costumes and a unique trick, that gave the audience feelings they weren’t sure they were supposed to enjoy. But they do.”
But Luhrmann’s films are never weaker than when they prioritize the feelings of their male protagonists, who tend to brood and pout through these films as they long for unattainable expressions of love and beauty which are projected onto the too-convenient feminine objects of their fixation. And Elvis is perhaps the worst offender yet, because we actually have an account to draw from that reveals exactly what his Twin Flame was thinking and feeling over the course of their tumultuous relationship, which ended in divorce in 1973.
Priscilla Presley wrote her tell-all about their life together in ‘84, taking advantage of a literary phenomenon I’ve commented on in the past — before the internet, memoirs could be released white-hot and then allowed to dwindle steadily out of circulation, lending an ephemeral quality to even the spiciest revelations. This made it much easier for famous women to kiss, tell, cash in, and move on.
Luhrmann’s Elvis primarily focuses on the relationship between The King and his notorious manager, the Colonel, who drew from a carny sideshow skillset to find and groom the next big star. Tom Hanks shuffles amiably through this role, soaking up unforgivable amounts of screen time from beneath a mountain of prosthetics. It feels silly to pick these nits in a film that so eagerly exemplifies the worst excesses of showbiz, but really, why? There’s already so much suspension of disbelief involved in this story, and then we have to contend with a fat suit and rubber jowls on top of everything else. And don’t get me started on his accent, which grates as much by the film’s 158th minute as it does in the first.
Sadly, Luhrmann’s emphasis on the Colonel comes directly at the expense of everything there is to love about this madcap amusement park ride. It’s impossible to overstate how unpleasant it was to watch these scenes, and what an artistic misfire it ultimately proves to be — akin to making a version of What’s Love Got To Do With It? that begins on Ike Turner’s deathbed, focusing on his early life and cataloging his regrets related to Tina. Who really wants this? Literally no one needs the Colonel’s deathbed soliloquies to understand the Elvis phenomenon.
For a time, this version of the tale will be used by die-hard Elvis fans to continue looking past more odious elements of The King’s life — particularly his grooming of Priscilla when she was fourteen years old, and his use of sex (and the withholding thereof) and drugs to mold her into the ideal groupie, child bride, and feminine Elvis avatar, all rolled into one.
“It was the era of the Polaroid and the beginning of videotape. He was the director and I his star acting out fantasies. We dressed up and undressed, played and wrestled, told stories, acted out our fantasies, invented scenes. Whether it was dressing up in my school uniform and playing at being a sweet innocent schoolgirl, or a secretary coming home from work and relaxing in the privacy of her own bedroom, or a teacher seducing her student, we were always inventing new stories, and eventually, I learned what stimulated Elvis the most.”
“…I had no previous sexual experience to compare with his inventive sexuality and I was ready to indulge him any way I could. Being in the fast lane, he was exposed to every pleasure available in life. Ordinary thrills sometimes were not enough, especially when he was under the influence of powerful drugs.
“…I was careful to say little that might jeopardize my bond with him. I fulfilled his needs, and his beliefs became mine. Under no circumstances were his ideas or playfulness perverted or in any way harmful.”
Much has been made in the press of Priscilla Presley’s response to this movie, and her daughter Lisa Marie’s. Both offered their carefully-worded stamps of approval, describing the emotional experience of watching certain family memories play out on the big screen, and hailing Austin Butler’s uncanny performance as The King himself.
Perhaps they were relieved that there was no room in Luhrmann’s story to explore this unseemly courtship. Possibly, it reflects some kind of agreement reached between the estate and the filmmakers. Either way, the fateful pairing of Elvis and Priscilla scarcely registers as a focus.
The film especially downplays Priscilla’s transformation, introducing her as a raven-haired beauty of ambiguous age (played by Olivia DeJonge, age twenty-four) who is precocious and ready to leave the nest. She’s a null presence throughout the film’s most dramatic scenes, and her vampire glamour queen makeover merely seems to reflect the rapidly-changing times, rather than her older lover’s obsessive demands.
“He liked me in red, blue, turquoise, emerald green, and black and white — the colors he himself wore. He liked solids only, declaring that large prints took away from my looks. ‘Too distracting,’ he said.”
“Back at Graceland he had me model all my new clothes again for Grandma, who patiently sat through a long two hours of changes. I was Elvis’s doll, his own living doll, to fashion as he pleased.”
“Elvis liked long hair. When I’d cut mine without asking his permission, he was shocked… He wanted it long and jet back, dyed to match his because, as he said, ‘You have blue eyes, Cilla, like mine. Black hair will make your eyes stand out more.’ He made a lot of sense to me and soon my hair was dyed jet black, like his.
The more we were together the more I came to resemble him in every way. His tastes, his insecurities, his hang-ups — all became mine.
For instance, high collars were his trademark, not because he especially liked them, but because he felt his neck looked too long… When he told me that the collar I was wearing on a particular blouse was too small for my ‘long, skinny neck,’ I too began wearing high-collared shirts. Why not? My sole ambition was to please him, to be rewarded with his approval and affection. When he criticized me, I fell to pieces.”
“There were evenings when he’d send me back upstairs to change clothes because my choice was ‘dull,’ ‘unflattering,’ or ‘not dressy enough’ for him. Even the way I walked came under review; he told me to move more slowly, and for a short while, he had me walking around the house with a book on my head.”
“He was equally fanatical about posture. If I slumped, he’d straighten my back. When I’d look up at him and wrinkle my forehead, he’d smooth it out — or tap it — telling me not to get in that habit. I didn’t like him rapping me, so I learned that one fast.
“When we came home from the movies one night, I was getting ready for bed and he was in his office playing the piano. I came in to listen, propping my foot on the bench where he was sitting. He looked down at a small chip in my nail polish and I immediately withdrew my foot from the bench and started making up excuses about why it wasn’t fixed. ‘I’m going to have my pedicure tomorrow,’ I promised.
“‘Good,’ he said, ‘cause that doesn’t look like my Little Girl’s pretty sooties. You should always keep them looking nice.”
“I was leading a double life — a schoolgirl by day, a femme fatale by night.”
As the memoir’s intimate details add up, they impart a Bluebeard’s Wife quality to Priscilla — a gothic romance heroine making a series of discoveries which cast a pall of menace over what originally seemed to be a love story for the ages. In short order, her hero and guardian reveals himself to be a secretive womanizer and drug addict with a notorious temper. Having already relocated across the world from her family, Priscilla is left with few options except to join him in this underworld, caring for him, keeping up with him, becoming more and more like him… all while still attending high school.
“During the last month before finals, I started popping more dexies than before. They seemed to give me the energy I needed to get through classes and homework. Every free moment was devoted to cramming a whole semester’s work into a few weeks. But by concentration was scattered; the strain of life at Graceland had finally caught up with me.
I had already been warned by Sister Adrian that in order for me to graduate, I had to pass all my subjects. During a talk in her office, I wanted desperately to confide in her and explain how hard it was to maintain my grade level with the late hours I kept. But how could I tell that to a nun?
I had no real goals after gradation, but I did sometimes dream of becoming a dancer or possibly enrolling in an art academy. Now I realize that I was deeply influenced by Elvis’s casual attitude toward continuing schooling. He figured I didn’t need it and I agreed. Just being with him most of the time would provide an education — not to mention experience — that no school could give me. He wanted me to be his totally, free to go to him in an instant if he needed me.”
Priscilla, who would never remarry and has continued describing the late icon as “the love of her life”, seems to derive no pleasure from airing the couple’s secrets. It’s possible that documenting the more frightening aspects of their relationship just felt like another duty to fulfill, part of cementing Presley’s legacy as a rock star, the rock star. After all, by the ‘80s the public had grown desensitized to the antics and excesses of rockers like David Bowie, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. Elvis’s exploits probably seemed par for the course — relatively tame in comparison to what shock rockers were up to in 1984.
As a reader it strikes one that Priscilla had grown tired of being imagined the luckiest girl on earth for having been chosen as Elvis’s consort, and wished to comment publicly on the difficulty of her ordeal, as well as his. In many instances she appears fairly innocent of just how wrong her husband’s actions were, many of which constitute clear allegations of abuse by later standards. However, there are many moments when she seems to anticipate our reaction, making sure to emphatically declare her own willing participation in these scenarios — although she still continually underscores her powerlessness, how lonely it was to be loved by a man who clearly wanted to mold her into someone else.
Suffice to say, she walks a very narrow and complicated path through her own memories. In a TV interview promoting her book, Priscilla claimed that she wrote it to offset accounts by others in which she felt Elvis had been treated unjustly. “All I can do is write about the person I knew,” she said, “that I saw as his wife, as his friend, as his lover, as his child.” That final word is delivered almost as an afterthought, and the interviewer simply lets it pass.
A New York Times bestseller, Elvis and Me was itself adapted into a film for TV in 1988; the actress playing Priscilla in the film, Susan Walters, was twenty-five.
As more time passes in Priscilla’s book, Elvis’s film career begins to fizzle (a period which is covered mostly by a montage in Luhrmann’s film) and the superstar grows more despondent, losing himself in a series of increasingly bizarre interests and behaviors. Priscilla even recalls a night when he arranged for the two lovers to visit the Memphis morgue, where they were allowed to tour privately, observing and handling the cadavers.
“We’re not supposed to,” he told her, “But I got ways.”
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I have no doubt Priscilla’s experience of watching Baz Luhrmann’s movie was truly an emotional one, as much because of what isn’t depicted as what is. Many of her darkest secrets were aired so long ago that the public has all but forgotten or dismissed them; browsing the reviews of Elvis and Me on Amazon, readers are quick to question her motivations, casting doubts on her account of their marriage. This is shamefully common when a male celebrity is survived by a less famous woman; fans remain so protective of their idol, they’ll do anything to shield him from perceived attacks, drowning out the voices of those who knew him best, who are (inconveniently, it must seem) still alive and finally at liberty to tell their story.
In a way, this could answer my question about the male focus in Baz Luhrmann’s movie, which is sure to strike mainstream audiences as inherently more trustworthy, no matter of how daffy and effects-laden and anachronistic his other artistic choices may be. The truth might be more interesting, but it’s harder to sell, even if it gives people those “feelings they weren’t sure they were supposed to enjoy.” The Colonel’s rule-of-thumb depends heavily on patriarchal resistance as a source of cultural friction: remove those constraints, let people enjoy what they enjoy, and suddenly the funhouse doesn’t seem as fun.
Politically the climate is right for Elvis, since The King is the perfect “radical” for liberals and centrists to nudge out into the mainstream again. As lionized by Luhrmann, the decidedly conservative IRL Presley’s boundary-pushing performances lend themselves to an incrementalist view of progress, encouraging audiences to challenge only the most obviously unfair and unpopular rules… which are especially easy to spot and comment on fifty years after the fact. In the meantime, comparable trailblazers in music today (like Black, queer pop stars Lil Nas X and Janelle Monáe) still face uphill battles in terms of mainstream acceptance. And there is direct continuity between the media sensation caused by Elvis’s gyrations and the uproar caused by Cardi B.’s “WAP” — but conservatives will always be able to pardon one and condemn the other. Hm, wonder why that is?
Luhrmann’s team knows the answer, but despite their frequent uplifting of Black culture this is still just another white superhero movie — complete with origin story in which a childhood misadventure renders our young protagonist Spiritually Black. Entering the story in such a symbolic way pretty much voids the possibility of examining the details of Elvis as a (white) person, a son, a husband, a cultural and sexual opportunist; his services are needed here as an icon and an entertainer, just as urgently as they were in his lifetime. The “real” Elvis hasn’t just left this building, he never entered it to begin with.
Despite its shocking impersonality, the film often does succeed purely as spectacle, with the affable Butler pneumatically functioning as a sort of living hologram. He brings the heat, and even manages to strike sparks as lurching, sweaty Elvis in the film’s second half (curiously, with no fat suit or visible heaviness), but some of the more demanding scenes deserve serious acting chops. and all we’re served is mutton.
I blame the screenwriters, who counterfeit their hero’s dramatic arc by magnifying his significance as a sort of tormented folk philosopher, abandoning Butler to hint and gesture at levels of awareness which are never otherwise explored. For example, when his character is forced to wrestle superficially with the need to “say something” about RFK getting shot — right on the heels of the dutifully-covered MLK assassination, no less. This late in a biopic, with miles left to go, truly no one cares what Elvis thinks about RFK.
Once the shout-outs to iconic Black figures start to dry up (concluding with Elvis being briefly haunted by the ghost of Mahalia Jackson, an unforeseen consequence of his Spiritual Blackness) there seems to be nothing more for the film to say. By declining to investigate his earlier-career drug use — which also became Priscilla’s — the excesses of his later years seem less like a personal problem and more like an inevitable consequence of fame, or perhaps a trauma response to the Colonel’s unwanted interference in his life.
Elvis sure had a lot of problems, Elvis concedes, draping a sequined cape of victimhood over the coffin, distracting from any questions about The King’s victims.
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If Elvis and Me was published today, against a backdrop that includes titles like Jennette McCurdy’s soul-baring memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, it would be part of a very different conversation. And when Sofia Coppola’s A24 movie based on Elvis and Me finally makes it to the screen, it will be a very different story than the one told by Elvis. Backlash is inevitable: fans who enjoyed Lurhmann’s film will regard Coppola’s with suspicion and contempt, deriding it as “woke” or as a cash-in on the part of a fame-chasing ex-wife.
I find it frustrating how often women’s accounts of significant events are still treated as an “alternate” history. In a sense that’s how Presley’s and McCurdy’s books ended up becoming bestsellers, decades apart: readers are keen to hear the “other” side of the story. Deciding how much of it to believe (and whether it’s fair or appropriate to linger over certain truths) is considered part of the entertainment.
But no matter how widely-accepted these versions of events may become, women’s stories nearly always serve as a sort of “bonus level” in history and pop culture, a footnote to the bigger, more important stories which are controlled by bigger, more important interests. (In McCurdy’s case that would be Nickelodeon, which she claims offered her $300K in hush money after her shows on the network ended, which she declined to accept.)
Nowadays more “alternate” histories are breaking through all the time, but they still encounter resistance every step of the way, beginning with the publishers and film studios who get to decide how many of them we really need. In order for them to break through, somebody somewhere really must want them to.
When I began writing this piece, news about Coppola’s Elvis and Me adaptation hadn’t broken yet, and I had drawn different conclusions about Priscilla’s preferences for the way her love story was remembered. After all, as the official guardian of the Elvis estate and legacy, she has the ultimate say in which narratives ought to be preserved, and she and her family deserve to memorialize their life with Elvis however they see fit. One could even say there’s a financial incentive in declining to speak out. Her support of Luhrmann’s Elvis had me wondering whether she still stands by those 1984 revelations, whether time has affected her own interpretation of those events.
I shouldn’t have doubted you, Priscilla. I’m glad you agree that the person you became in spite of Elvis deserves to be acknowledged just as much as the version who emerged because of him. And while the portrayal of E.P. in Coppola’s film won’t be as charitable, there might be more honest redemption for him there too — as a human being whose afflictions injured everyone he loved, whose incandescent errors remain visible from the back rows, fifty years onward.
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