Priscilla Presley in September 2023.Photo:Stefania D’Alessandro/WireImage
Stefania D’Alessandro/WireImage
Priscilla Presleysays that seeing her marriage toElvis Presleyplay out on screen inSofia Coppola’s 2023 film,Priscilla, was “awkward” but accurate — except, she adds, for one part.
Speaking during a panel at MegaCon Orlando on Friday, Feb. 7, Priscilla, 79, said the film — which was based on her own 1985 memoir,Elvis and Me —didn’t nail the ending.“It is awkward to see yourself on film,” she said, adding that she had never met the filmmaker before she learned she would be the subject of one of her projects.
“Sofia Coppola called me — and she actually called me and I had never really met her — and said to me that she wanted to do a film about Elvis and I,” Priscilla added. “Just to warn me that she was going to do it, but not to worry. I mean, I wouldn’t anyway. I love her work.”
And while Priscilla said she was “quite honored” that Coppola, 53, wanted to tell her story, she did have one bone to pick with the director. “The only thing was the ending. I wasn’t really happy about the ending,” Priscilla said. “It didn’t end that way, and we ended — Elvis and I ended very lovingly.”
Sofia Coppola and Priscilla Presley in September 2023.Daniele Venturelli/WireImage
Daniele Venturelli/WireImage
As Priscilla explained, the two maintained a close friendship even after their divorce in 1973, with the late megastar, who died at age 42 in 1977, often showing up at her house “unannounced” — even in the middle of the night.
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Elsewhere in the panel, Priscilla spoke about the challenges she faced during her marriage to Elvis. “He was gone a lot … and I would hear stories and the thing that did it for me was we had a home in Palm Springs, and … I decided to go up and check the mail and make sure the house was okay,” she explained.
As she began removing the mail from the mailbox, she noticed that a lot of it had come from other women. “A lot of it was like, ‘Oh Elvis, thank you for the invite. Charlie Hodge [Elvis’ best friend and confidante] asked me to come up and I’m so glad you, you know, you greeted me and my girlfriends,' " she said.
Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley on May 1, 1967.Keystone/Getty
Keystone/Getty
But after finding other, more explicit letters from women thanking Elvis for “the best night,” Priscilla decided she had had enough. She said, “I decided, gosh, he’s living another life and and I just couldn’t take it. Every time he’d go to Vegas or even Palm Springs, it was, you know, it was it was difficult.”
“He was famous, he was loving, he was a beautiful, beautiful man, [but] I just couldn’t take it. It just was not a good life for me,” Priscilla continued.
source: people.com
