In 2022, Baz Luhrmann released ELVIS, his gargantuan ode to the King Of Rock And Roll. The Australian maximalist director’s take on an American icon was glitzy, gaudy, and appropriately over-indulgent – much like the singer’s latter Vegas years. Like any conventional biopic, ELVIS lionized its namesake, overlooking his moral shortcomings as the necessary byproduct of a generational genius. The actual man, of course, was much more complicated – especially to those who knew him best.
His wife, Priscilla Presley, was privy to a much different – and much darker – side of The King, which she detailed with co-writer Sandra Harmon in her 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me”. The #1 New York Times bestseller revealed the intimate details of their embattled relationship, which ended with divorce in 1973 but nevertheless created a strong bond that lasted until his death four years later. It’s fair to say that Priscilla’s account was quite divisive amongst the family, especially with her own daughter, Lisa Marie, but it would prove highly influential to one distant family member in particular. Lisa Marie was once married to Nicolas Cage– the stage name of one Nicolas Kim Coppola, nephew to the Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and cousin to Sofia Coppola, a celebrated director in her own right.
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