Said Priscilla Presley, quoted in "Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Rocks Venice With 7-Minute Standing Ovation as Priscilla Presley Cries" (Variety).
September 5, 2023
"It was very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me and why. 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."
Said Priscilla Presley, quoted in "Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Rocks Venice With 7-Minute Standing Ovation as Priscilla Presley Cries" (Variety).
Said Priscilla Presley, quoted in "Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Rocks Venice With 7-Minute Standing Ovation as Priscilla Presley Cries" (Variety).
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15 comments:
Gross. He was too old to be talking to a 14 year old little girl. Just because he was "ELVIS" doesn't excuse his being attracted to a CHILD.
I had always held out hope that Priscilla would eventually hook up with Rob Schneider’s Tiny Elvis and begin a new chapter…
People are clapping for time now?
Standing ovations have really gotten out of control.
I'll be curious to see it because of Sophia Coppola. I think she's done some very interesting work.
I'm interested in Sofia Coppola's career, so I clicked through. I'm sorry I did. Priscilla's facial work is horrifying.
This is one of those "it was a different time and place" moments for me. In the world of my family in the '50s, it was already well established that (a) 14 would be too young for a serious relationship, and (b) that age difference at those ages would be inappropriate. But all four of my grandparents had college degrees and three of the four had professional jobs (my one grandmother, degree in organ performance and composition, stayed home with kids until my grandfather's death forced her to go to work). It's my understanding that Elvis Presley wasn't from that background. (Because Priscilla's parents did allow the relationship, I'm given to think that they were from that large segment of the military that drew from country people, but I haven't checked that at all.)
Today, only in certain immigrant communities would a relationship like theirs (just speaking in terms of age) pass muster, and in our much more interconnected society those immigrants can't manage it either without deserved opprobrium. A 14yo today isn't a 14yo of the "country" early-to-mid-at-the-outside 1900s, no matter where she's from - even if her own natal culture would allow a romantic relationship that's intended to lead to imminent marriage, we don't.
When I was 14 and a freshman, an 18yo senior wanted to date me. My parents came along on our one out-of-house date, and then he came to our house once to try to teach me to play D&D.
He went off to Missouri Tech and, as a freshman there, came back to our high school in my sophomore year to attend a cast party (he'd always been stage crew in high school and I was in the cast, which was how we'd met the year before; his still-HS friends invited him). At the party he asked me to marry him. We had never even kissed.
I've often wondered what became of that guy - I hope he gained enough self-confidence to pursue more appropriate relationships and to allow them to take the proper course - or any course at all! - before proposing.
"Gross. He was too old to be talking to a 14 year old little girl. Just because he was 'ELVIS' doesn't excuse his being attracted to a CHILD."
Elvis came from the deep south. In that era (and later) and in parts of that region, it was not unknown or illegal for grown men to marry adolescent women. Heck, Jerry Lee Lewis was married to his 13 year old cousin for 12 years from 1958 to 1970! (She was his third marriage.)
Human males and females become sexually mature and are capable of conceiving children at puberty, an age we now consider to still be "childhood." That was not always so. When average life spans were shorter, and deaths among the broods brought forth were commonplace, they got to conceivin' earlier, especially when the offspring were workers for the family endeavor, (farming or such like), with children necessary for the family to survive!
(Not that I believe or recommend this would be appropriate or healthy today...I don't.)
Priscilla always seemed like a class act.
why is this a thing? she lived her life - we sort of knew about it. I'm good.
Don't need to re-live something that isn't any of my business.
Elvis in the '50s was a nice Southern boy; and no, Jamie, Priscilla's people were not hicks.
I was intrigued by the statement that Elvis never ever got over the death of his mother.
I knew a couple (both good friends). When the husband's mother died, he asked his life "Who will ever love me now?" The marriage didn't last long.
My take would align closely to Robert Cook, so no need to say a whole lot more. Different time and place, man. If she's telling the truth they handled it appropriately in waiting for marriage to consecrate the union.
no, Jamie, Priscilla's people were not hicks.
In no way did I mean I thought of any players in this story as "hicks." I said "country" because up until at least the early 1900s and in some places past that time, there could be, quite normally and appropriately, a different standard for courtship and marriage in rural areas than in urban ones. It was the common standard of all humanity until very recently.
I beg forgiveness for my shorthand, which was obviously inadequate and inartful.
"Gross. He was too old to be talking to a 14 year old little girl. Just because he was "ELVIS" doesn't excuse his being attracted to a CHILD."
I spent several years on the road in a band. We were playing somewhere in Montana, and at the motel we were staying at we met three people from Idaho who were about our age. Two guys and a girl. The girl was one of the guy's sister. Everyone of us agreed, she was super hot! Forty years later and I can still picture that beautiful girl.
We were their for a week and ended up doing things with this trio, like tossing around a football and the like. Did I mention we all had the hots for the girl?
Anyway, no one made a move on her, which turned out to be a very good thing because the day before we moved on to the next town, we found out she was 14-years-old. Every one of us was completely stunned by that revelation.
I for one, do not fault Elvis.
Jamie, I'm not offended--I used hick, you didn't. I was just answering some speculation, inartfully.
Her people were educated middle class, and they set strict limits on what she could do until she was an adult.
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