Sofia Coppola’s new biographical drama “Priscilla” delves into Priscilla Presley's relationship with singer Elvis Presley — including how the two met when he was 24 and Priscilla was just 14 years old.
While Coppola has said she didn't intend for the late King of Rock 'n' Roll to be the "villain" in the film, now that the film is available on Max, HBO's streaming service, viewers on social media have been questioning their 10-year age difference.
“The film doesn’t keep him on a pedestal. I thought it was interesting to learn that he was so frustrated, that he wanted to be a serious actor," Coppola told reporters at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. "I could empathize with that struggle. I tried to approach it with sensitivity and not be judgmental. I never wanted him to be a villain.”
She added that the film, based on Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir, “Elvis and Me,” is "all her story."
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At the time of their meeting, Elvis Presley, then 24, was serving in the Army in Germany, where Priscilla Presley's stepfather was stationed.
Their story has been the subject of countless analyses over the years, with Coppola's work the latest in a long list of retellings. Cailee Spaeny stars in the title role and Jacob Elordi plays Elvis Presley.
The real Priscilla Presley, now 78, said at a press conference for the film in September that it was "difficult" for her to watch.
“It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about you, about your life, about your love,” Priscilla Presley said at the time. “Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework, we spoke a couple of times and I really put everything out for her that I could.”
She also insisted that the late King of Rock ’n’ Roll did not take advantage of her as a young woman.
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“It was very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me and why,” she said, according to Variety. “And I really do think because I was more of a listener. Elvis would pour his heart out to me in every way in Germany: his fears, his hopes, the loss of his mother — which he never, ever got over. And I was the person who really, really sat there to listen and to comfort him. That was really our connection. Even though I was 14, I was actually a little bit older in life — not in numbers. That was the attraction. People think, ‘Oh, it was sex.’ No, it wasn’t. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving, but he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old. We were more in line in thought, and that was our relationship.”
When did Priscilla Presley meet Elvis Presley? Priscilla and Elvis Presley met in 1959, she wrote in “Elvis and Me.”
She said her stepfather, who was in the Air Force, was transferred to a base there, where Elvis Presley was serving in the Army.
At the time, Elvis Presley had been drafted into the service in 1957 and served overseas in Germany from Oct. 1, 1958, to March 2, 1960, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
He'd rocketed to stardom only one year before being drafted with his January 1956 hit "Heartbreak Hotel" and subsequent album "Love Me Tender," which was released that same year in November.
How old was Priscilla when she met Elvis?
In her book, Priscilla Presley wrote that she met Elvis Presley at a party when she was 14 years old.
She said she had been at the Eagles Club, where American servicemen and their families often dined, after school one day with her brother when a man named Currie Grant approached her and asked if she liked Elvis Presley.
In the book, she recalls laughing and asking "Who doesn't?"
"I’m a good friend of his," she said Grant told her. "My wife and I go to his house quite often. How would you like to join us one evening?"
Two weeks later — and after her stepfather had met and checked out Grant's credentials — she found herself in a navy and white sailor dress meeting the King of Rock ’N’ Roll.
She wrote that Elvis Presley had asked if she was a junior or senior in high school before she revealed she was just in ninth grade.
“Ninth grade,” she recalled him laughing. “Why, you’re just a baby.”
Elvis Presley, at the time, was 24. His beloved mother, Gladys Presley, had died soon before their meeting.
How did Elvis court Priscilla while she was in high school?
Priscilla Presley, in her book, said that the singer-superstar had been very respectful. On their second meeting, she said he asked her to meet him in his room, which she'd been "flustered" by.
"There’s nothing to be frightened of, honey," she recalled him telling her. "I swear I'll never do anything to harm you ... I’ll treat you just like a sister."
She went on to say that they'd cuddled and talked for hours. At the end of the evening, they shared a kiss.
"He kissed me goodbye, my first real kiss," she wrote. "I had never experienced such a mixture of affection and desire."
Priscilla Presley went on to say that her parents insisted upon meeting Elvis Presley. He won them over with his "Southern charm."
She said that when the singer had been pressed as to why he wanted to date their teenage daughter, he'd told her parents the following: “Well, sir, I happen to be very fond of her. She’s a lot more mature than her age and I enjoy her company. It hasn’t been easy for me, being away from home and all. It gets kinda lonely. I guess you might say I need someone to talk to. You don’t have to worry about her, Captain. I’ll take good care of her."
Five months later, after continuing to date while in Germany, Elvis Presley returned to the United States. The night before his departure, Priscilla Presley wrote that she "begged" the singer to "consummate our love."
"It would have been so easy for him. I was young, vulnerable, desperately in love, and he could have taken complete advantage of me," she wrote. "But he quietly said, “No. Someday we will, Priscilla, but not now. You’re just too young."
Did Priscilla follow Elvis back to the United States?
Eventually, a young Priscilla Presley made her way back to Memphis, Tennessee, at the request of Elvis Presley. She was initially supposed to live with the singer's grandparents but ended up spending most of her time at Graceland until she just moved in.
What was the nature of Priscilla and Elvis Presley's relationship when she was a teen?
In her book, Priscilla Presley expressly said that she and Elvis Presley had a sexual relationship but did not have penetrative sex until marriage when she was 21 years old.
“We had a strong connection, much of it sexual. The two of us created some exciting and wild times,” she wrote, careful to emphasize at one point that she did not think the musician was “perverted or in any way harmful.”
At the Venice Film Festival press conference in September, she said that their bond had been based on trust, per Variety.
"I didn’t know why he put so much trust in me, but he did. And I never, ever, ever told anyone that I was seeing him, and that was another issue that he loved, is the fact that I never gave him up in any way. I never told anyone at school that I was seeing him," she said.
"So, we built a relationship and then our relationship went on until I left. And it wasn’t because I didn’t love him — he was the love of my life. It was the lifestyle that was so difficult for me, and I think any woman can relate to that,” she said. “But it didn’t mar our relationship, we still remained very close. And of course, we had our daughter, and I made sure that he saw her all the time. It was like we never left each other."
Elvis Presley died on Aug. 16, 1977, from a heart attack.
Elvis and Priscilla Presley's only child, Lisa Marie Presley, died in 2023 at the age of 54.
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