Priscilla Presley Said She Was ‘Unable to Shake’ Her Unease Leading Up to Elvis’ Death

Priscilla Presley was no longer married to Elvis at the time of his death, but the former couple was still close. They co-parented their daughter, Lisa Marie, and had established a friendly relationship as exes. They remained close enough that Priscilla felt a sense of profound uneasiness even before she’d learned the news of Elvis’ death. She shared why she felt something was wrong. 

Priscilla Presley said she could sense something strange before Elvis’ death

In 1977, Priscilla was in California and planned to meet her sister. She nearly canceled, though, because she felt something was wrong.

“It was August 16, 1977, overcast and dreary, not a typical Southern California day,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “When I walked outside, there was a stillness, an unnatural calm in the air that I have not experienced since. I almost went back into the house, unable to shake my uneasiness.”

As she drove to meet her sister, Michelle, she found that the feeling wouldn’t pass. The weather was abnormal, but it felt that something sinister was going on.

“On my way into Hollywood I noticed the atmosphere had not changed,” she wrote. “It still seemed unusually silent and depressing and it had begun to drizzle. As I drove down Melrose Avenue, I saw Michelle standing on the corner, a look of concern on her face. ‘Cilla, I just got a call from Dad,’ she said as I pulled up. ‘Joe’s been trying to reach you. It’s something about Elvis in the hospital.’ Joe Esposito was Elvis’s road manager and right-hand man. I froze. If he was trying to reach me, something must be terribly wrong.”

When she called Esposito, he informed her that Elvis had died. 

Priscilla Presley said her first thought went to her daughter after Elvis’ death

Priscilla was across the country from Memphis, but Lisa Marie had been staying at Graceland with her father. Priscilla immediately made plans to fly to her daughter and tried to comfort her over the phone in the meantime.

“I felt helpless,” Priscilla wrote. “What could I say to her? I couldn’t even find words to comfort myself. I feared what she would be hearing. She didn’t yet know that he had died. All I kept saying over and over was, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Try to stay in Grandma’s room, away from everyone.'”

Priscilla was grateful that Lisa Marie was only nine. The situation was not entirely real to her, so she was able to stay calm.

She has helped keep his memory intact

In the years since Elvis’ death, Priscilla has done more than perhaps anyone to keep his legacy alive. Following his death, his estate began to struggle financially.

“Elvis was the type of guy that if you wanted something, you just buy it; you can buy two cars or a house in one day and give ’em away, that was just Elvis,” Angie Marchese, the keeper of the Presley archives, told The Guardian. “If he needed money, he’d just go on tour. But then Elvis passes, and there’s no more money coming in any more.”

Priscilla decided to open his home, Graceland, to the public. While it wasn’t an easy choice, she knew they needed to raise money. She also wanted people to remember Elvis.

“Elvis never thought that he would be remembered, that was his thing,” she said. “He said, ‘you know, once I pass nobody will remember me’ and that really stuck with me … [throughout his fame] he was always asking, ‘How long will this last?'”

Since then, Graceland has become the United States’ second-most visited historical home.