She Was His Doll: The Incredible Love Story of Elvis and Priscilla Presley

At the time of the fateful encounter, Elvis was 24 and Priscilla was just 14. The girl lived in Germany, in Wiesbaden. She spent all her free time at a music club. One day, a friend of Curry Grant approached her and offered to arrange a meeting with the king of rock and roll. He and his wife were good friends of Elvis. Presley was then living forty minutes from Wiesbaden, at a base in Bad Nauheim.

On September 13, 1959, the girl and her friends went there. On the road, she was nervous and laconic, but when she saw the musician, she blossomed. He immediately fell in love with this brunette with blue eyes. “I saw how Elvis tried to get me involved. I noticed that the more I ignored him, the more he sang just for me. I couldn’t even think that the famous Presley was flirting with me and trying to leave a good impression,” Priscilla later recalled.

When Elvis met Beaulieu, he was not free. His fiancée Anita Wood could not even think that the gentleman would fall in love with another. Presley forgot about the girl waiting for him in the United States, as Priscilla completely took control of his heart. The newly chosen one was always well-groomed, fashionably dressed and seemed to the singer the ideal of beauty. They spent a lot of time together: walking, taking pictures, listening to music. Elvis met the parents of a young lover and promised them that he would not offend their daughter. Presley was gallant and courteous to the schoolgirl and did not hint at intimacy. Priscilla and Elvis were inseparable until the day the singer had to return to the United States.

The musician left his beloved in Germany and flew to America. The young people maintained warm relations: they often called, exchanged packages. As Priscilla recalled, Elvis loved to chat. He talked with her about all her troubles, talked about recording discs, shooting in the studio, often sang excerpts from new compositions.

However, later a crisis began in their relationship. Rumors have reached the girl that Presley has started dating another. Soon the phone rang and the singer called Priscilla in Memphis. The girl’s father was against it, but Elvis managed to convince him. Beaulieu’s parents set the musician a number of conditions under which their daughter could go to the United States: the vacation would not take place before Priscilla’s vacation began; Elvis will send him a first-class round-trip ticket; there should be no sexual relations between young people, the girl is obliged to write to her parents every day; she has to spend the night at her uncle’s. In general, parents wanted to be aware of their daughter’s every step.

The girl came to the United States at the age of 17. As the King of Rock and Roll’s beloved later recalled, right after the plane, Elvis dragged her into the bedroom to check that she was “intact”. Later, the singer confessed to him how important it was for him. And then, as promised to his parents, he took Priscilla to her relatives.

The next day, Presley told the chosen one that he had planned a trip to Las Vegas, and that same evening they were already sitting in a luxurious plane. The girl went all the way: she wrote to her parents every day and asked butler Elvis to send letters from Los Angeles. For two weeks, Presley took his beloved to expensive stores, where he picked out her clothes. He also taught Priscilla how to do better makeup and hair. The singer liked women who wore a lot of eyeliner and mascara. The girl did not care about such changes. The result was her transformation from an innocent teenager into a sophisticated woman.

The next time the Chosen One visited Presley over Christmas. He gave her a puppy, a huge ring and offered to finish high school in Memphis. Priscilla’s parents flatly refused, but Elvis personally called them and used his persuasive skills. Once again, the father and the mother set their own conditions: the daughter must live in the house with Vernon, the father of Elvis; the musician was obliged to enroll him in the best Catholic school; the young girl had to be cared for, as well as accompanied, wherever she went. Presley promised to fulfill all the conditions and Priscilla moved to America.

The girl did not like to remember the time when she lived in Elvis’ father’s house and attended a Catholic boarding school. As young Priscilla suffered away from family and friends, reporters claimed the king of rock and roll was having adventures on set.

These rumors greatly traumatized her, but the schoolgirl continued to love and believed that one day everything would change. At one point, Presley’s lover decided their relationship was over, but on Christmas Eve 1966, the musician proposed.

Priscilla was allowed to choose her own wedding dress, but on the condition that the dress be modest. She went shopping with a friend of Elvis to avoid leaking information. A few days before the wedding, the singer sent an encrypted telegram to his relatives with an invitation to the celebration. The event took place in Vegas.

Young people went there in private jets to deliver a marriage certificate at three in the morning. Their parents were already waiting for them in the hotel rooms. And in the morning, dozens of journalists crowded in front of the hotel. The newlyweds’ honeymoon only lasted four days.

Almost immediately after the wedding, Elvis began working on the film “Speedway”, and on July 12 he announced on the set that his wife was pregnant. After that, Presley abruptly lost interest in Priscilla and stopped appearing in their common room. The musician’s biographer Sebastian Danshen wrote: “Even before the wedding he had told her of his inability to make love to women in childbirth, but Priscilla, convinced that she would achieve what no one else could, imagined that she could help him overcome the neurosis generated by a difficult relationship with the mother.” While his wife was pregnant, Elvis had an affair with Nancy Sinatra.

On February 1, 1968, Lisa Marie Presley was born, but the relationship of the spouses did not improve after the birth of her daughter. Elvis was a loving and caring father. He adored his daughter, showered her with gifts and jewelry. That’s just more important to the singer was his career. He rarely appeared at home, tried to bring his songs back to the top of the charts. In addition, Presley had drug and alcohol problems, which led to serious endocrine diseases. Moreover, rumors about his affairs on the side began to seep into the newspapers again.

Priscilla has long closed her eyes to her husband’s adventures. “I knew there might be storylines, but they were all minor,” she admitted. Nevertheless, the girl’s patience came to an end. In the fall of 1971, she informed her husband that she was filing for divorce. Elvis behaved with dignity and agreed to let his wife go. They divorced on October 9, 1973. The ex-spouses walked out of the courtroom together, hand in hand.

The divorce hit Elvis hard. He did his best to forget about Priscilla and tried to distract himself with drugs, alcohol and young girls, but he couldn’t. And while the ex-wife was thriving and taking her first steps into the acting profession, Elvis was battling addictions and struggling financially. Priscilla tried to help her, but she couldn’t.

On August 16, 1977, Presley was found dead. When his ex-wife got a call and was told about it, she didn’t believe it. The girl sincerely hoped that it was all the machinations of Elvis in order to hide from annoying fame. But soon the death of the musician was confirmed. “It was a real shock. I felt it, like the rest of the world, only a million times sharper,” she said.

After the death of her ex-husband, Priscilla embarked on a career in film and then in business. She also took over the musician’s unfinished business, turned his estate into one of the most popular museums in the United States, and also implemented dozens of projects dedicated to Presley. And the fact that today the songs of the king of rock and roll continue to be heard at music festivals, radio stations and, of course, among the people, is a great merit of Priscilla. Even now, she admits it’s hard for her to remember Elvis’ death. “He was a very important part of my life. He was everything to me: a soul mate, a husband and the whole world, ”says the musician’s ex-wife sadly.

Text: Alexandra Zakharova

Photo: Getty Images, East News