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TL;DR:

  • Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley first met each other while he was in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany.
  • Priscilla charmed her future husband by keeping their meeting a secret.
  • She later opened up about the marriage in the famous book Elvis and Me.

Elvis Presley‘s relationship with his only wife, Priscilla Presley, had been the source of media attention for decades. Despite this, Elvis loved Priscilla because she was able to keep secrets. Director Sofia Coppola hopes to give the rocker ‘n’ roller‘s wife her dues in the upcoming biopic Priscilla.

Priscilla Presley didn’t tell anyone about the 1st time she met Elvis Presley

During a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Priscilla said her ability to keep secrets endeared her to the “Can’t Help Falling in Love” singer. She recalled meeting him at his home in Germany while he was in the U.S. Army. She kept her lips sealed. “He said, ‘You never told them you came to my house? Really?'” she remembered. “He just was actually stunned that I didn’t reveal it.”

Coppola said that privacy makes Priscilla fascinating. “People are curious about your story because you have mystique, which is so rare today,” the filmmaker told Priscilla. Notably, Coppola has directed multiple films about young women who are isolated from the outside world in some way, including The Virgin Suicides, an adaptation of the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, and the biopic Marie Antoinette.

The singer’s relationship with his wife will be brought to life in a ‘sensitive’ way

Coppola compared her film with Baz Luhrmann’s razzle-dazzle biopic Elvis. “I heard Baz was making a movie about Elvis,” Coppola recalled. “I was like, ‘That’s OK. That’s even better, in a way, that people are looking at his story.’ He’s so much in the culture always, but even more so now. It’s interesting, then, to look at Priscilla’s perspective.”

Notably, Priscilla had some control over her portrayal in the film. She spoke with Cailee Spaeny, the actor who played her. “She asked what I could tell her, and I said, ‘Just be sensitive to him,'” Priscilla said. What mattered was “that love was there, that the care was there. And she’s soft. I like her demeanor, that it wasn’t hard.”

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Priscilla Presley chronicled her relationship with the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in a famous book

While Priscilla knows how to guard her privacy, she’s never shied away from the public eye completely. For example, she might be most known for penning the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me with the television writer Sandra Harmon. Near the end of Elvis and Me, Priscilla reveals she wrote the book partly to correct misinformation that had been circulating about the “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” singer.

In the years following Elvis’ death, she looked back on her relationship with him fondly. She praised the singer’s contribution to culture through his music and his films.

Priscilla valued privacy — but her love for the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll is no secret.

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