Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley & Book Review of From Here to the Great Unknown audio book by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Psych Legal Pop Podcast
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Episode: Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley & Book Review of "From Here to the Great Unknown" audio book by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough
Author: Tess & Brooke Brigham
Duration: 01:04:44
Episode Shownotes
We discuss the 2024 Netflix documentary about Elvis Presley's 1969 comeback special and his career as a whole. Then we discuss the newly released autobiography of Lisa Marie Presley which was finished after her death with the help of her daughter Riley. We have a PATREON! click on link below
to check out the extra content:PatreonPlease SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and give us a 5-star rating and review.We are on Instagram and TikTok @psychlegalpopEmail: [email protected]#elvis #elvispresley #returnoftheking #theking #lisamariepresley #rileykeough #fromheretothegreatunknown #psychology #attorney #therapist #law #lawyer #autobiography #documentary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Transcript
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Hello, and welcome back to the Psych Legal Pop podcast. This is a podcast where we talk about popular culture through the lens of an attorney and a therapist. I'm the therapist, Tess Brigham. And I'm Brooke Brigham. I'm the attorney.
00:02:16 Speaker_12
And today we are talking about a Netflix documentary that just came out recently called Return of the King, The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley.
00:02:27 Speaker_12
and this is we're going to get into the details of the documentary and what they talk about but essentially in 1968 Elvis made a huge comeback in his career when he did this NBC special and so the documentary really talks about
00:02:46 Speaker_12
a little bit about his early roots not that much but just sort of what his career was before the special and how he got to this place and why that special was so important to Elvis and to his career because it was a turning point so
00:03:03 Speaker_12
Um, the first I just want to start by this. What's interesting is because Steve was asking me, Oh, what are you guys talking about today? And I said, Oh, we're gonna do Return of the Kings documentary about Elvis.
00:03:11 Speaker_12
And he was like, Elvis, like, why are you doing Elvis? Now, this is Steve, who's constantly trying to get me to do musical documentary, you know, always like trying to get us to do any of any kind of documentaries that are about music.
00:03:26 Speaker_12
and about any of that. And so he's constantly like, why don't you do this and this and this and this and I'm like, but this one he seemed to get instantly sort of like Elvis and I was like, he's the king. I know. I'm like, well, hold on a second.
00:03:40 Speaker_12
Hold on, you know, let's and so and then he starts getting into the whole thing of like, public enemy. Like, fuck him in John Wayne. What's that line in public enemy song? Fight the power. Elvis is, you know, something, something, something.
00:03:57 Speaker_12
And he starts and then Steve starts, like reciting public enemy, you know, lyrics claiming that, I don't know, the whole thing was so weird. I'm like, What are you talking about?
00:04:07 Speaker_10
I said, Excuse me, he's the king of rock and roll. He introduced us to rock and roll i mean whether you like his music or not like you can't dismiss the significance of this person.
00:04:20 Speaker_12
Yes. And, and I think that what he was really talking about is something that is, again, this is a problem, right?
00:04:28 Speaker_12
Where, you know, yes, it is very, very that if we look at the story of rock and roll and music in general, it was, right, black musicians, coming up with the music, playing it, and then white recording artists is stealing it, taking it and running with it.
00:04:43 Speaker_12
And so I can understand that maybe Elvis symbolizes that. But Yeah, yes and no. No, I don't think he's that he didn't create the system that was all flawed.
00:04:54 Speaker_10
But the but music was segregated before Elvis Elvis. He did. He did cover some black artists songs, but he also had his own songs and was very creative in combine blending the two. He was very into gospel music and black southern gospel music.
00:05:15 Speaker_10
And that was what inspired him. And he infused his own love of that into, you know, the kind of rock emerging rock and roll. I mean, it was very unique. It was.
00:05:31 Speaker_12
Well, I think that there's a couple different things. I think that as we look back, I mean, I will say for me, my own journey, because you know, I loved Elvis when I was younger, I was a huge Elvis fan. And it was because I read the Priscilla book.
00:05:43 Speaker_12
I think it came out in like 1985 or 1986 or something. And Priscilla wrote a book called Elvis and Me. And where she talks about her life with him. And that's what got me very interested in him.
00:05:53 Speaker_12
And I think that since that time, as I think about that book, and I look back on it going, oh, this book is super problematic. Do you know what I mean?
00:06:01 Speaker_12
Like, in my, I don't know, 12-year-old brain, it seemed super romantic how controlling he was with what she wore and what she didn't wear and, you know, like all this whole thing.
00:06:11 Speaker_12
And the way the book was talked about, it was, you know, he met her when she was 14 years old. 14.
00:06:18 Speaker_12
And they claim that they never had sex until their wedding night, because he had this whole Madonna whore kind of complex, though I've heard different stories that that's not necessarily true.
00:06:27 Speaker_12
But essentially, she was 14 when they met, and then she was, I want to say 17, 18 when she moved into the mansion, into Graceland. And yeah, I think that he had a raging drug problem. I don't think he was faithful.
00:06:41 Speaker_12
I think all of it, you know, I mean, but at the same time,
00:06:47 Speaker_12
um so anyway as I've gotten older I kind of look back on that and I look at him a little bit differently and I think that now even 10 years after that of like in the last 10 years it's really been like oh god that was a really problematic book and oh yeah their marriage was weird um I can see him in a different way
00:07:07 Speaker_12
of being someone who really was this poor naive, you know, poor kid, not a lot of resources, not a lot of, you know, help, and somehow finds him, you know, has this talent and finds himself in these situate into this place in this situation.
00:07:24 Speaker_12
And it just felt like he was just reacting to it in the moment. Like, I don't think Elvis had a lot of tools in his toolbox to manage what was going on with him. And I don't think there were a lot of people in his life
00:07:37 Speaker_12
that were really trying to help manage what was going on with him. I think he had a lot of enablers and a lot of people that were forcing him to do things.
00:07:46 Speaker_10
Yeah, I mean, he grew up very, very, very, very, very poor. His father was in prison for writing a bad check.
00:07:55 Speaker_12
Like how and they said that the dad wasn't around most of his childhood. I'm like from 14 a bad check.
00:08:00 Speaker_10
Yeah, that what that's an entire life. I think it was more than that. But I mean, he was doing it because he didn't have any money. Yeah, his family. And then I think his mother had mental health issues. maybe some substance abuse issues.
00:08:15 Speaker_10
No, the guy came from like the bleakest of circumstances. And he was extremely talented, and people picked up on that. And he was exploited a lot, taken advantage of a lot by, you know, managers by doctors by a lot of people did not have his back.
00:08:32 Speaker_10
And just as a postscript, at the end, after we talk about the film, I just finished listening to the autobiography of Lisa Marie Presley that her daughter, her daughter also contributed to it, because she died before they could be finished.
00:08:52 Speaker_10
So I after seeing that I had all new different feelings about Elvis. It really humanized Elvis. So yeah, I mean, he's, he's obviously a complicated figure here. Yes. And did you know that this a NBC special this comeback special was on June 29 1968?
00:09:13 Speaker_10
Your birth? Oh, that is my birthday. But I wasn't even born on the same year. But yeah. Day so.
00:09:25 Speaker_12
But it didn't it didn't air till December.
00:09:28 Speaker_10
Okay. Yeah. So was filmed on then filmed in June. But yeah, you do you remember this when you had that? l? Because it for years because you loved Elvis, people would always give you Elvis stuff. I know.
00:09:41 Speaker_10
It's so you know, and it kind of went on for too long. Yeah. Anyway, somebody gave you an Elvis watch. Yeah, dad, probably. Yeah. And we were up in Ukiah. And, um, It must have been around the holidays or something. And I remember it was snowing.
00:09:56 Speaker_10
Oh, I remember this. Up in Willits, which is like maybe 30 minutes away. And you know, we didn't see a lot of snow. So we had to pack up into the car and go see the snow.
00:10:07 Speaker_10
You and me and my friend Julie drove up there and pulled over on the side of the road and like saw the snow, took pictures in the snow. And then when we got back home, you realized your watch was missing.
00:10:19 Speaker_10
And we figured, I don't know, correctly or incorrectly, that you lost it when we were up in the snow. Yes. And so we were going to go back and look for it.
00:10:28 Speaker_10
And it was you and me and dad and thank God dad came because we probably would have like died in the snow. Yeah. Because we go out there and of course, now it's really snowing. It's been snowing a lot more.
00:10:41 Speaker_10
And we get to the spot where we think we were we don't even know we can't even recognize it. And we tried to get out of the car to look for it. And like the car was like, kind of spinning on the road to get really treacherous.
00:10:54 Speaker_10
I don't remember any of this. But yeah, dad said, Okay, we're aborting this. We're gonna die in this stupid watch this to get this watch. So the Elvis watch was lost to the snow.
00:11:08 Speaker_12
It was never someone very lucky. Hopefully when in the spring when the thaw came, we're able to get it and hence why I've never watched I don't wear watches. I've never wear a watch.
00:11:18 Speaker_12
I've never like because watches always they always I always have so many bad situations with watches. So I just gave it up. But yeah, R.I.P. the watches.
00:11:30 Speaker_12
And I think that, you know, in this documentary, there's lots of people they interviewed, you know, Priscilla Presley, and they interview, you know, a background, one of his background singers and some other people, but they interview Conan O'Brien.
00:11:44 Speaker_12
And we were trying to figure out what Conan O'Brien's, you know,
00:11:47 Speaker_12
uh place in all of this is if he was just a really big fan and he said yes to the documentary or if he's one of the producers but i think that you know he says this at the end which is we are you know we put a lot on our celebrities we put a lot on these people we we you know we expect them to be uber human or to be something that they aren't and and i think that's the part that is tough is
00:12:17 Speaker_12
Or you have to reconcile with the people that you love, which is there is Elvis, the musician and and all of his talent and all of the things that he did and all the things that he accomplished. And you can look at that and admire that.
00:12:30 Speaker_12
And at the same time, yeah, he's probably a crappy husband, drug addict. not probably not the best person, you know, I mean, like, had, you know, had a lot of issues.
00:12:39 Speaker_10
But why do you say it like that? A drug addict, not the best person.
00:12:43 Speaker_12
I mean, a lot of people, I'm not saying being a drug addict means that you're not the best person. I'm just simply saying that I think that we
00:12:53 Speaker_12
that we tend to go in these extremes and that that he is all of those things that he is that talented person that also really I my guess would be that really struggled a lot and obviously struggled with a lot of fame and struggled with things and that that a lot of the choices and decisions of his career he didn't necessarily make himself and he felt you know and that felt very scary and I think he just like Cody Brown is very was very worried about very worried about poverty.
00:13:23 Speaker_12
Do you know what I mean? Like I think he right and like that idea. I mean, I'm not saying that he is like he, he's a bad person because he used drugs. I'm just saying that he that he's a complicated person, just like the rest of us.
00:13:38 Speaker_12
And that nobody does it perfectly and well, and that we're all complicated. And we put a lot of pressure on celebrities to do everything right all the time.
00:13:48 Speaker_10
That's, that's the thing is that like, I mean, it's hard to find a celebrity of this level, who doesn't have a lot of issues, because it is such an unnatural way to live. Yes, unnatural life.
00:14:02 Speaker_10
And you have so many people trying to get something out of you, that, you know, it's rare that you do come out of it, like normal and intact, or as normal as possible. So yeah, it's kind of he didn't have that much of a chance. No. honestly.
00:14:22 Speaker_10
So where do you want do you want to start? I mean, the movie starts with him like rehearsing for and getting ready for this special but I don't know if you want to go back to kind of.
00:14:38 Speaker_12
Yeah. I mean, I think I think that what they do in the documentary, they sort of set the scene right where here's Elvis. He is in rehearsals for this performance. He hasn't performed live in seven years. He has not had a top 10 hit in five years.
00:14:54 Speaker_12
His career is in jeopardy. And really, there was a tremendous amount of pressure on him to give one of the greatest performances of his career.
00:15:06 Speaker_12
And, you know, he there was this real feeling of, okay, you know, that, you know, and apparently there was some story to about how Elvis called the director of the special, and was like, I can't go out there. I can't do it. I'm not going out there.
00:15:22 Speaker_12
And he was already in the leather outfit, like I can't go out there. And basically, the director makes a promise and says, Well, if it's all bad, we'll just destroy the tapes.
00:15:32 Speaker_12
And we can see, you know, him kind of fumbling the first song and struggling and all of that. And so that's that's they sort of set the scene and then they go back to 1954 when Elvis was 19 and released his first single, That's Alright.
00:15:47 Speaker_10
Mm hmm. Yeah, and I didn't realize that that song was, I thought he wrote that song. No. It was a black artist. I wrote his name down somewhere in my notes. But um,
00:15:59 Speaker_10
Yeah, even going back farther, you know, what made I think what made Elvis very unique was that he his musical style, it was influenced by, you know, he grew up in Mississippi is born in Tupelo, Mississippi, very poor.
00:16:14 Speaker_10
um, used to like stand at the doors of these black churches and listen to the gospel music.
00:16:21 Speaker_10
He loves that kind of music and all of his, um, the, his original songs and his performances and all this stuff was, um, informed by this love of gospel music. And so he was kind of fusing that with, I don't know, whatever
00:16:37 Speaker_10
whatever artists were coming out at the time that weren't like the white milk toast kind of, you know, and that's how he fused, came up with, you know, what we now call rock and roll.
00:16:49 Speaker_12
But yeah, because music was very segregated at that time, right?
00:16:53 Speaker_12
You had this, you know, you had BB King and these other artists, Little Richard on one side, and then you had this sort of milquetoast, Pat Boone, you know, and and so it was very segregated. And America had a lot of fears.
00:17:09 Speaker_12
You know, this is why Elvis was parents were like, Oh, my God, with Elvis when he first came out, because you know, they, you know, these white parents didn't want black culture, infecting white children.
00:17:24 Speaker_12
And what really what what Elvis was doing was he was creating his own music and his own music of the time almost, right, this again, rebel, as we see all the time, like rebelling against
00:17:36 Speaker_12
you know what what your parents think and what the status quo is and like you know wait a second why you know why is this music why is everything segregated and why can't there be a combination of the two and um yeah and that was the whole Elvis the pelvis um you know because it was this first sex symbol
00:17:55 Speaker_10
Yeah, they tried to blame it on the saying that yeah, he was too suggestive in his moves and his dancing, but really, it was just a racial thing. It was they didn't like that he was infusing, you know, black music and black culture into his music.
00:18:14 Speaker_10
And so they use this Elvis the pelvis thing, I think is kind of an excuse.
00:18:20 Speaker_12
But he was like a real, I think the other thing too, was that he was a real sex, like sex symbol, as opposed to Pat Boone, who are like, I'm trying to think Frankie Valli, or I'm trying to think of all the men at that time, all the rest of them.
00:18:33 Speaker_12
Yeah, that were very much cute, attractive, rock Hudson, right? All cute and attractive, but not sexy.
00:18:42 Speaker_10
Yeah, he was extremely sexy. He had a look, you know, with the dark hair and kind of kind of has like this I mean, his facial features are just gorgeous. I mean, he's just really... stunning looking. Yeah, very, very confident.
00:19:00 Speaker_10
And yeah, people went crazy over him. And rightly so.
00:19:04 Speaker_12
And he always wanted to be in movies because I, you know, at the time, Frank Sinatra, because Frank Sinatra, I don't know, I like Frank Sinatra, but like, I wouldn't call him sexy.
00:19:14 Speaker_12
No, you know, I think maybe some people would, but, but that it made sense for him that he wanted to do movies Elvis did before he even went into the military.
00:19:24 Speaker_12
But before he was drafted, but that in he wanted, he did this movie King Creole, and he only did it because he heard James Dean wanted to do it. So he, you know, him acting and going in this movie direction wasn't an insane idea. It was very common.
00:19:39 Speaker_12
It was just a matter of what direction to go in. And then, you know, I, what I'd always read was that they could have, Elvis didn't have to go into the military. Like they could, that he very easily could have gotten out of it.
00:19:54 Speaker_12
And that it was very much Colonel Tom Parker as part of his career that said, no, no, no, you're not going to try to get out of this. We're not going to finagle our way out of this. You're going to stay in.
00:20:04 Speaker_10
Is that the story you heard? I didn't even realize that they had the draft in 19, 58. But yeah, they had the draft from 1948 to 1973. So yeah, and so when did Tom Parker come in?
00:20:20 Speaker_12
Probably around like 50, right? Early 53, 54. Like he was, because it sounds like Elvis was his first, TV appearance. And I think that's the thing. I think that he was performing around, I think, Colonel Tom Parker, who I don't think was a real manager.
00:20:38 Speaker_12
Wasn't he like a circus? Didn't he like run a circus or run a vaudeville thing?
00:20:43 Speaker_10
Yeah. Carnival Barker. Yeah.
00:20:45 Speaker_12
So I think he just kind of was like, huh, you know, maybe I can. And I think that and I do think that Colonel Tom Parker did have a good business sense. He just wasn't an artist.
00:20:55 Speaker_12
He wasn't, you know, I think he saw everything in terms of dollars and cents. And again, I think here's Elvis, this poor kid, someone's coming in saying, you know, yeah, I'll take care of you, sign on the dotted line, just listen to me.
00:21:10 Speaker_12
And it sounds like a lot of the things that Colonel Tom Parker were telling him to do worked really well. So, oh, okay, I should stay in the military, I should go and I'll get drafted.
00:21:19 Speaker_10
Yeah, it worked, but it cheapened everything. Like they talk about how the colonel was all about merch. He invented merch. He put Elvis's face on everything. And he started the merch thing. And so yeah, he saw Elvis's merch.
00:21:34 Speaker_10
He didn't see him as an artist. And yeah, so the thing about going into the army was kind of a stunt, you know, at the height of his career.
00:21:43 Speaker_12
Well, and also, which I thought was really smart, was the colonel had him record a ton of music before he had to ship out. So the entire two years that he was in the military, he, um, you know, releasing music, he was releasing music.
00:21:58 Speaker_12
So if you weren't paying attention, you would think like, Oh, okay, you know, here's Elvis, here he is, out and about. The other thing too, is I think his mom died. Yeah, right before he left. I think that.
00:22:10 Speaker_12
And again, I think this is the part of the Colonel Tom Parker, like, not kind of getting like, what is what is best for this person in this moment in time versus no, no dollars and cents, dollars and cents.
00:22:21 Speaker_12
Like, I don't care that your mother just died. I don't care about this. Like, you know, this is part of our plan for your image.
00:22:26 Speaker_12
So go and I guess, when he got to Germany, you know, this is also a kid, how much did he travel outside of the US when he went to Germany? And I was really alone. That's what we talked about, like how alone he was, and how lonely he felt.
00:22:42 Speaker_12
And I think that he was, I think he was surrounded by people because I remember, When Priscilla talks about meeting him and how that all came about and, you know, someone saw her in some like club or cafe or something.
00:22:56 Speaker_10
Yeah, the Eagles Club, which was like a you know, all these like bases and embassies and stuff. They have like these little cafes, places like where Americans can congregate. And, um, but I don't think Priscilla was even there.
00:23:11 Speaker_12
I think Priscilla was somewhere else. Someone spotted her.
00:23:15 Speaker_10
So he had like chrome Elvis's friend approached her. Oh, okay. So she's sitting in the Eagles club writing letters back home to her friends. And yes, she's 13 or something. And he and so this guy comes up to her Elvis's friend approaches her
00:23:31 Speaker_10
and says, Hey, you know, would you like to meet Elvis? And she was like, Well, yeah, I guess so. And I'm not sure how long after that they actually first met. But to me, it seems like that relationship from from what she described.
00:23:48 Speaker_10
I don't think it was sexual. I think she was like his best friend. Yeah. Like he didn't have a mother, you know, no one else is talking to him about his feelings. And here's this young girl who's very sensitive and we'll sit there and listen to him.
00:24:03 Speaker_10
And she talked about how you know, even after he got out of the army, I think she was still over in Germany with her family. And they, they would just talk all the time. And he would tell her all of his deepest thoughts and fears and whatever.
00:24:17 Speaker_10
Yeah, yeah, she was very beautiful and whatever. But and then he had her move in when she was 18. She quickly got pregnant within like a couple months. They got pregnant on their wedding night on the wedding night, right.
00:24:29 Speaker_10
And so they really never had a marriage. You know what I mean? They really never had I don't, I don't, it doesn't seem like it was like she was just kind of his best friend. And then he got married and had sex and had a baby.
00:24:45 Speaker_12
Well, and also, I think, right, it wasn't a marriage of equals. No. And, and I do, it's funny, because, you know, Chris Rock has all these jokes in his latest special about like,
00:24:56 Speaker_12
dating younger women versus dating women your own age and and all that and and i get it i really do because when i was 22 23 i would listen to all these men that were talking to me and you know because and i would care and all this and i know now today i'm like oh shut up like i have no time for you to complain to me about your life and i think that's really true there's something about that young female and my men tend to go for these younger females is because
00:25:22 Speaker_12
it's it's beyond the youth part. It's almost that desire. Yeah, desire and willingness to listen and kind of put up with it. Because I think someone you're like, get over yourself. Let's go. You know, I got I got bills to pay. I got things to do.
00:25:40 Speaker_12
And no, that's that's interesting. You know, I don't I don't ever want to talk about anyone's looks. But Priscilla Presley, God damn it. She was gorgeous, like hands down, I think one of the most beautiful women ever. Just flawlessly beautiful.
00:25:59 Speaker_12
And it drives me crazy that that woman let a knife get near her face.
00:26:04 Speaker_10
Yeah, she really, really bad facelift when she was pretty young. Yeah, you know, like maybe in her 40s.
00:26:12 Speaker_12
she got this botched facelift I think it looks a little better now it's looking better now but it was it's been bad for a while and even still when you see those old photos of her and those big blue eyes and oh my god the dark hair she was I mean stunning absolutely stunning
00:26:31 Speaker_10
I know she never should have touched her face. No, no.
00:26:34 Speaker_12
So if you look like Priscilla Presley, do not touch your face. Don't do it.
00:26:38 Speaker_10
Yeah.
00:26:38 Speaker_12
Because God, I just so beautiful. So, so beautiful.
00:26:43 Speaker_10
So, so when he came back from Germany, he had this thing where I don't know somehow Frank Sinatra had to, you know, give him his blessing. Because he was in charge of show business. So they call him the chairman of the board. Yeah.
00:27:01 Speaker_10
And I also thought it was interesting that, you know, he was exposed to all this European opera music, which really influenced his style of singing.
00:27:09 Speaker_10
And, and it was more like adult leaning music, as opposed to the kind of, you know, teenage, whatever. And he wanted to do that. Because again, Elvis really was an artist, like he would get inspired by these things that he heard.
00:27:25 Speaker_10
And so they played a clip of him singing, I forget the name of the song, but it's absolutely beautiful. I think it was released, but But no, no, no, no, no. We got to get back to these dumb movies and these terrible soundtracks.
00:27:38 Speaker_10
And he did that for like 10 years or something.
00:27:40 Speaker_12
And I think this is a bit of what how things have changed for Elvis and like his viewpoint in our world. As I feel like we've come, I think that he was revered for a long, long time. And then there was this evolution of like,
00:27:53 Speaker_12
you know, wait a minute, he stole things from people. And this is just the stories that were told.
00:27:58 Speaker_12
And it's been interesting to see sort of this new evolution of looking at him with the movie two years ago, and this one and some of the other the books that have come out, which is, you know, really being able to celebrate him as a musician, because if you watch the special, he's sitting there playing the guitar.
00:28:16 Speaker_09
singing.
00:28:17 Speaker_12
And I think he's never been seen. Yeah, I think that he has never been perceived as someone as a serious musician. It's like, no, he actually is. He is a serious musician.
00:28:30 Speaker_12
And, you know, because we have sort of bastardized or, you know, he's been his image has been spun in all these different ways. He's become a bit of someone like a teeny bopper kind of joke.
00:28:43 Speaker_10
Yeah, like the Colonel really kind of ruined his career there. Those movies were so stupid, but they made a ton of money. And it was like,
00:28:54 Speaker_10
Again, that went back to his insecurities about being poor, you know, so he felt like he had to do them and they were making a ton of money for everybody.
00:29:02 Speaker_12
Yeah. Well, I think the other problem, too, was they mentioned that he he wanted to do some serious shows. He wanted to do serious movies.
00:29:10 Speaker_12
And then apparently he released like two movies where he did not sing and he didn't get the girl in the end and no one went to go see them. And I think that that was like this moment in time of
00:29:24 Speaker_12
Right, again, I think the colonel just went right back to see that's not working. That's not working. That's never going to work for you. So let's go back to, you know, doing the musicals, making it a lot easier.
00:29:34 Speaker_12
And he in 1961, he got into this five year contract, where he had to make a certain number of musicals, and they were just terrible. Yeah, they got and they were really they got worse. and worse and worse and worse.
00:29:47 Speaker_12
But he was making I didn't realize this. He was making more money than Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, all the highest paid movie star in America.
00:29:54 Speaker_10
Yeah. They also said that Elvis felt beholden to the colonel because he felt like he owed him his career. And that he was kind of trapped. And you know, again, his insecurities about not having money and all that kind of stuff.
00:30:07 Speaker_10
It was just like a perfect storm that kept him in this cycle of making these terrible movies. But at some point, it stopped.
00:30:18 Speaker_12
Well, yeah, the contract, he finally fulfilled the contract to the point where like, the last music, I mean, the last last movie he did was, they would, you know, it would take about three weeks to shoot, they would do one take each, and he had to sing Old MacDonald.
00:30:34 Speaker_10
Yeah, it got really bad. And also, then the music scene just everything changed. So yeah, 1963, Priscilla turns 18, she moves into Graceland. 1964, the Beatles come on the scene.
00:30:50 Speaker_10
And they show that when the the Beatles met Elvis, they were so starstruck that they couldn't even talk. Yeah, you know, they were everyone was starstruck. And, and the music began to change, you know, the racial tension of the 60s and be deeper.
00:31:06 Speaker_10
I mean, Elvis's music was like this silly sort of bubblegum. Not that he wanted to really be doing that. But that's what was out there, even though he had the capacity to do a lot more.
00:31:16 Speaker_10
Yeah, he could have had the capacity to do anti war songs, because he did he actually, you know, he did write songs, and perform songs that were about important things. But that was just not part of the colonel's plan.
00:31:36 Speaker_10
And he, Elvis wasn't like a political figure, but everything was changing. You know, you have Bob Dylan and all that.
00:31:44 Speaker_12
Well, and I think that's the other part of it too is, is that, right, like your manager is someone that you, it's not just about money and protecting your interests, right?
00:31:54 Speaker_12
It's about bringing out the best in you and really thinking about what makes sense and what do you want and all of this. And I think that, I think that the colonel very much probably said to Elvis, like, don't talk about politics.
00:32:05 Speaker_12
Like you're not political. You're not political. You're not Bob Dylan. No, no, no, no. Talk about this. Talk about that.
00:32:10 Speaker_12
And, and I think that that was, I think it was one of those things where you start to go down that road and you don't know how to get out of it. You don't know, right? Like he, cause he was so young, like, oh, okay, this is what I should do.
00:32:22 Speaker_12
And it wasn't until much later that maybe he realized like, wait a minute, I didn't have to listen to this guy. But he was the original rebel. He was the first, you know, rebel to come in. But suddenly here's Bob Dylan and his music is poetry.
00:32:38 Speaker_10
Yeah, well, he did release that, that in 1967, that song, How Great Thou Art was like a gospel a lot of gospel roots in it. Those were the only Grammys he ever won. Really? He won Grammys.
00:32:56 Speaker_10
They were all for gospel music from the album that that song was on. So yeah, they should be cultivating that. Yeah.
00:33:08 Speaker_12
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00:34:48 Speaker_12
But yeah, so he moves he finally I guess his last film was this one called easy come easy go that completely bombed. Apparently, you know, basically people are like, there's no appetite.
00:34:58 Speaker_12
No one wants these Elvis films anymore, like the songs weren't doing anything. So he was at this crossroads, like he got married, they had the baby had Lisa Marie in 1968. God, I didn't realize that Priscilla was 21. when she had Lisa Marie so crazy.
00:35:17 Speaker_10
And I think that this is interesting. So basically, you know, Sola Pressley is interviewed, she's in this, this movie. And she says that Elvis was really excited to be a dad. That was his reaction.
00:35:30 Speaker_10
Her reaction was, she was upset that she wouldn't be able to do stuff with him anymore. Like, yeah, yeah, and live that kind of lifestyle. And she's like, Oh, well, you don't want to have a baby with you in Las Vegas. And
00:35:45 Speaker_10
so and so this is this is what because no one likes his movies anymore that's over that's why they had to so yeah we're in 1968 and it's like they got to get him back on the stage.
00:35:59 Speaker_12
Now I didn't realize I always thought the special was just supposed to be him a guitar and, you know, performing. But I guess apparently the original concept of it was to have a bunch of skits, right to do kind of a variety hour.
00:36:16 Speaker_10
I think I thought it was all of it. I thought it was part. Yeah, the skits sort of like with the songs with the sets and not a live audience. you know, those were filmed on a soundstage. But then they had this live audience that kind of in a round.
00:36:33 Speaker_10
And he performed in the on the stage, both alone, and then he had that jam session. Yes. Yeah. Because I don't know whose idea this was, or who over I think was the directors.
00:36:44 Speaker_10
Yeah, so he basically overheard every day, Elvis and his band in the dressing room just jamming. And he's like, this stuff is good. Like we need to get this out here. So they put them all on the stage in the round. And they just kind of improvised.
00:36:59 Speaker_10
Mm hmm. It was like some of the best music I've ever heard. Yeah, it was so, like, powerful. And like, that was Elvis at his finest. And it's like, why wouldn't we see more of this?
00:37:12 Speaker_12
Like, well, and it was also him ad libbing, making jokes.
00:37:16 Speaker_10
Yeah.
00:37:17 Speaker_12
stories. Yeah, and I think that's probably how these jam sessions were. But I think, and I think that was the that was the thing, right? I think that the director really got Elvis and got like, Hey, wait a second, why don't we do this?
00:37:29 Speaker_12
Because he was struggling with the skits. He couldn't. He was just like, Yeah, he's having a hard time with it.
00:37:34 Speaker_12
Because he talked about towards the end of the his acting career, when he was doing all these movies, he talked about how he started to become physically ill, like physically sick.
00:37:44 Speaker_12
And so there's almost this piece of, um, you know, I can imagine like having to go do those skits again, like, you must feel like, Oh, God, you know, I'm back to doing they were, they were dumb.
00:37:56 Speaker_10
Yeah. Um, yeah, and he got ready, you know, he started training lost 25 pounds, you know, to, to do this thing. And he looked hot. Yeah, he looked really black leather. matching, you know, pants and jacket. Really hot. He really looked good. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:19 Speaker_10
But he was very, very nervous at first. It took him a while to to warm up. But so and Priscilla said this was the first time she'd ever even seen him perform.
00:38:32 Speaker_12
Yeah, yeah. And that is interesting when you think about it, where you think, wow, she really came into his life during like a really hard time of his career. And yeah, I'm sure she saw sort of one side of of him.
00:38:48 Speaker_12
And, and I think it was like, Oh, wow, yeah, he is really because when he came on the scene, she was like 10. So yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they, they, the special aired on December 3, 1968.
00:39:04 Speaker_12
It was the highest rated show that NBC had that you're 42% of the US watched it. Getting those kinds. I mean, that's the part I was so like, Oh, my God, you know, when you think about that, that's what big network numbers.
00:39:22 Speaker_12
That was what it was like when these things happened. You know, who shot jr and the finale of mash like big deals because there was nothing else to watch. Like everybody if you were home watching TV that night, you were watching this Elvis special.
00:39:38 Speaker_10
There are four stations.
00:39:39 Speaker_12
Yeah. But how incredible that is, and how many people saw it, but it was really the beginning. So this is what I was saying about Conan O'Brien. He talks about how, you know,
00:39:52 Speaker_12
that this allowed him to have this third act of his career and that we need to have empathy for him because we tend to turn celebrities into objects and then project a lot onto them or have expectations of them and again it always comes back to right the the artist and the art
00:40:16 Speaker_12
You know?
00:40:17 Speaker_10
Yeah, yeah. And they had Bruce Springsteen. Yes, it did a lot of the commentary. And that makes sense. You know, because you know, someone who's musically minded from a young age.
00:40:28 Speaker_10
And yeah, seeing Elvis come on to the scene, and he obviously really admired him. They also had Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins. And his connection is he's very good friends.
00:40:43 Speaker_10
or was very good friends with Lisa Marie, and he produced a lot of her music. And then they had Baz Luhrmann, who produced the movie that was done. What's that guy's name?
00:40:56 Speaker_10
Austin Butler, Austin Butler, the very stylized Elvis movies that came out a couple years ago. That is a great movie. I have to watch that. It's beautiful. It's a great movie. And they had Darlene Love, who was one of his backup singers.
00:41:16 Speaker_10
Who else did they interview?
00:41:17 Speaker_12
Well, they interviewed one of his close friends, this guy, Jerry Schilling. And this guy, if you read anything about Elvis, like he was all over Priscilla's book. This guy was like, truly, I think one of his best.
00:41:28 Speaker_12
This guy has been with him from day one.
00:41:31 Speaker_10
Yeah, I thought he was became his manager like after the Colonel?
00:41:35 Speaker_12
Oh, maybe. I don't know. But I know that he had a core group of friends. One of them being like a cousin of his and I think Jerry or maybe Jerry's related to him in some way, shape or form. But like everyone he had like a core group of people.
00:41:49 Speaker_12
And Jerry's one of them. And maybe Jerry was the youngest because he seemed like maybe he's the only one left. I don't know. But and that's the other thing, too, is when you really stop and think about Elvis and when he died, he was 42.
00:42:00 Speaker_12
Like, I think about that now. Now, when I'm reading the book, when I'm, you know, 12, 42 seems ancient. Like it seemed, you know, obviously I knew it was young, but it also seemed like, oh, it's a long life. Right.
00:42:14 Speaker_12
And it's just crazy to think about, oh, my God, 42.
00:42:19 Speaker_10
That's nothing. Well, and I remember the day he died. I can't remember where I was. But I remember I was out in public. And someone said Elvis died. It was 1977. Yeah. So yeah. It was really tragic. And you know, uh,
00:42:42 Speaker_10
Lisa Marie tower, the autobiography, you know, she had her own drug problems, but they talk a lot about Elvis's drug problems. And it was mostly dictated by these doctors who told him because you know, he had this crazy schedule.
00:42:55 Speaker_10
Yeah, he had a hard time sleeping. And they're like, we'll take these to go to sleep and then take these to wake up. Yep. And it's like, Oh, they're prescribed by a doctor. Yep. Yep. And you know, nobody saw anything wrong with it.
00:43:08 Speaker_10
I don't think Elvis was really a drinker. No, I don't think so. No, he just used these pills to just, and he got, of course, got addicted to them because they're addictive. He started out just trying to be able to get some sleep and then
00:43:26 Speaker_10
wake up in the morning.
00:43:27 Speaker_12
Yeah, or like, okay, you have an all night shoot, you take this and then oh, I'm wired. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about because you let's talk about the autobiography. So how was it? How was Lisa Marie's autobiography?
00:43:41 Speaker_12
Because she's also in her own ways. So a tragic, you know, she's got her own stuff and a tragic figure.
00:43:47 Speaker_10
Yes, her her life story, I think is crazier than his.
00:43:50 Speaker_08
Mm hmm.
00:43:51 Speaker_10
Um, yeah, so I listened to the audio book, when I'm sorry, who reads it. So Julia Roberts reads the, the part that's in Lisa Marie's voice. And then Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's daughter, kind of supplements it.
00:44:09 Speaker_10
She reads parts where because here's what happened before her death. she asked Riley if she would help her write her autobiography. And she said yes.
00:44:20 Speaker_10
And they started by there's all these audio recordings, and they put some clips of the audio recordings in the audible book.
00:44:28 Speaker_10
And so she sat down with I'm not quite sure who was she was working with, but there's all these audio interviews on tape where she's just kind of talking, she starts talking about her life and talking about different things.
00:44:44 Speaker_10
there apparently there was like this 10 year period of her life where that she just did not talk about like a really painful part of her life. She really didn't record anything about that. So Riley kind of filled in the blanks there. And what was it?
00:44:59 Speaker_10
What were those 10 years? I think it was basically kind of like the last 10 years of her life. Oh, after her child died? Yeah, well, her child died in 2020. Oh, okay. Even before that for that thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
00:45:17 Speaker_10
She Lisa, this woman's life is so tragic. Anyway, the book is called from here to the great unknown. And I think that her daughter did a excellent job of doing this. And she and her daughter were extremely close. You know,
00:45:33 Speaker_10
her daughter witnessed all of this. She knew all of it. And she's very mature. She's like 45.
00:45:37 Speaker_12
Yeah, I was gonna say Riley is like the most together mature person I think I've ever seen.
00:45:43 Speaker_10
She's the most mature person in the family. Yeah. And very well spoken and very like, able to communicate and empathize with people but also really see what's going on.
00:45:56 Speaker_10
And she just did an excellent job of putting this all together with very little, you know, it's not like Lisa Marie had written down this big and she was just finishing it up or cleaning it up or editing it.
00:46:10 Speaker_10
She really had to almost like reconstruct it from scratch. So yeah, anyway, you know, a lot of a lot of couples takeaways from this. Lisa Marie absolutely adored her father and he adored her and he treated her like, you know, gold. Yeah, I'm sure. And
00:46:32 Speaker_10
she loved him, and felt so good just growing up at Graceland, like she could basically do whatever she wanted to. But it wasn't like she was a spoiled brat.
00:46:43 Speaker_10
It was just sort of like, you know, this is some Marie's home and you know, do whatever you want. She talks a lot about riding around the place and golf carts and you know, just kind of little mischiefy type things.
00:46:55 Speaker_10
And she loved it there and was so so so happy. And she just, a lot of it is talking about how happy she was there and her relationship with Elvis. And, you know, he never got mad at her.
00:47:08 Speaker_10
I mean, it was just, I don't know if that's good or bad, but she never, she was not close to her mom, like at all, like really through, maybe towards the later part of her life.
00:47:20 Speaker_12
But well, not so hard to because Priscilla was so young when she had her. Yeah. And I think that as I learned from the book, Priscilla, you know, she had her own affairs. She she went through her own stuff, like in this in the 70s.
00:47:35 Speaker_12
When I'm sure you know, she had an affair with her karate instructor and like all of the you know, her trainer and the horse riding guy and you know, all the people that and I and I do wonder to it how much was
00:47:47 Speaker_12
I'm not saying Priscilla wasn't a good mother. I'm just saying that I wonder if Priscilla was distracted.
00:47:52 Speaker_10
You know, she didn't seem very present. She barely really talked about her mother during the time when they were all living together in Graceland. And then of course, in 1977, Lisa Marie is the one who finds her father dead. Hmm.
00:48:11 Speaker_12
Because that was very different in the Elvis and me book. That's not how they told it there. But okay.
00:48:16 Speaker_10
Oh, interesting. She says she found it because she, they had the whole, the upstairs of Graceland, it's just Elvis's room and then her room. And no one's really allowed to go up there when they do tours and stuff. Nobody can, can go up in there.
00:48:30 Speaker_10
And every morning I think she would kind of go and see if the door was open or like look in and see. And, and she literally, she was the one who found him. She was nine years old. Wow.
00:48:41 Speaker_10
And then all of a sudden she had to start, all of a sudden she had to go live at, well, Elvis and Priscilla had already been divorced. Yes. And she was already going back and forth between California and Greece. And she hated going to California.
00:48:59 Speaker_10
She never wanted to go. She always wanted to be a Graceland. Then of course, he dies and she has to move full time with her mom in California. And like her mom was putting her in these schools, she started very young, like using drugs.
00:49:16 Speaker_10
The mom had a super creepy boyfriend. Oh, Priscilla. Priscilla had this creepy boyfriend for a really long time. And Priscilla didn't sound like a good mom to me at all. I mean, she was She was very financially savvy, though.
00:49:31 Speaker_10
She got right in there and she made sure that everything was preserved and the licensing and all of this was saved for Lisa Marie. And so she was very smart and savvy about the financial part, but she was just kind of living her own California life.
00:49:48 Speaker_10
And, you know, she would put Lisa in these boarding schools and she would get a very young age. And then finally, and so then, you know, Priscilla became a Scientologist.
00:50:05 Speaker_12
Yeah, this is what I want to know about is like, so it started with Priscilla, right?
00:50:09 Speaker_10
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so then she started taking her to the Scientology Center in Los Angeles. And actually, strangely, the Scientology Center, at first, she had problems, and she kept getting kicked out. Apparently, they had
00:50:23 Speaker_10
like you could just go and drop your kids off there. Yeah. Like if they were bothering you, you drop them off there. And the Scientologists would try to get them off drugs.
00:50:36 Speaker_12
Well, because the Scientologists don't think that kids, they think kids should be treated the same way adults should be. Yeah.
00:50:43 Speaker_10
So it's awful for kids. Yeah. But it did actually help Lisa Marie, she actually did benefit from it. And then she, she, she's just stopped doing hard drugs at a certain point in her teen years.
00:51:02 Speaker_10
So, so then, you know, she starts to, she goes through, you know, just kind of her teenage years and her young adult years. And, you know, she had a very crazy life, you know, and she had a lot of money. So she was always like,
00:51:17 Speaker_10
you know, going here going there. And even when she was older, and she had her own money and her own kids, they would, I don't think her kids were sounds like they didn't really go to school much.
00:51:26 Speaker_10
It'd be like, Oh, let's go to Hawaii for a couple months. Why that house is all over. They say, Oh, let's go to Amsterdam. Let's go live in Amsterdam for a couple weeks or you know what I mean? They were doing all of this stuff. And so then, then she, um,
00:51:43 Speaker_10
she meets the father of her children, Danny Keough, and they, and they're young, right? They're very young. Yes, that was the other thing. When she had Riley, I think she was only like, you know, 21. Just like mom, just like her mom. Interesting. Yeah.
00:52:00 Speaker_10
Yeah. And so they, they had a very, even though they got divorced fairly early on, they always had a very strong They even lived together.
00:52:13 Speaker_10
He's the one who found her when she went into cardiac arrest and he tried to resuscitate her and all this kind of stuff. And they had two children, Riley and the boy Benjamin.
00:52:23 Speaker_12
Benjamin who passed away. Okay. So that was marriage number one. Okay.
00:52:27 Speaker_10
Yeah. So then what happened was, okay, so then Michael Jackson, this was one of the most revealing parts about the book. Michael Jackson, who had been obsessed with her for years, and had wanted to meet her.
00:52:40 Speaker_10
And in fact, he invited years ago, before that hit, he had invited Priscilla to have lunch with him. And when she showed up, he was disappointed because he thought that she was going to bring Lisa Marie.
00:52:53 Speaker_10
Lisa Marie was like, only like, at the time, I don't know, eight years old or something. Oh, God, and he wanted to meet her. Mm hmm.
00:53:00 Speaker_10
So over the years he had been trying and trying to meet her and they finally started talking on the phone and they struck up this friendship and then she started to go and see him.
00:53:12 Speaker_10
She said that they would bare their souls to each other, they would talk, started out platonically. But they were spending all this time together. And finally, he says that he wants to marry her.
00:53:28 Speaker_10
And she also said that that the whole thing about like him, with his high pitched voice and all that, that's fake, that he doesn't really talk like that, that he's totally different. And, you know, you're just one on one in person.
00:53:43 Speaker_10
And so she left this guy, she left Danny Keough.
00:53:47 Speaker_12
Oh, she left him for him. Oh, I thought they had already divorced.
00:53:51 Speaker_10
No, or broken up already. Okay. She left him and then she was 100% you know, absolutely totally in love with him. And, you know, they just had all this fun together. You know, she said she never saw anything, you know, she
00:54:12 Speaker_10
They stayed at Neverland sometimes. Uh-huh. You know, they never saw anything weird. All the stuff about the child molestation, all that stuff, they didn't see any of it. That doesn't mean anything, but... It just means it wasn't exposed to her.
00:54:27 Speaker_12
So did I hear something that he was a virgin? Or no? I think so. Was that wrong? Okay. No, no, no. I think that's right. When they met and that she was his first? Yeah. And he was how old at this time? I want to say he was like 30.
00:54:42 Speaker_10
friend. She was, I don't know how much older he was than her. But he was Yeah, he was like, at least 10 years older than her.
00:54:50 Speaker_12
All right, I gotta Google this now.
00:54:52 Speaker_10
Yeah. So easy.
00:54:54 Speaker_12
Do you remember all that? Like, it's just so crazy to think about, like, how insane that was, like, Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley's daughter marries Michael Jackson. And you know, Michael Jackson's very talked about in the news.
00:55:06 Speaker_12
And you know, I just remember that. And I remember Priscilla talking about like, like didn't even know they had gotten married, but all of a sudden started hearing helicopters and like, Oh, something's going on here. Just all of it.
00:55:21 Speaker_12
And then making out at the Grammys and all that. And that was so bizarre.
00:55:25 Speaker_10
Yeah, no, it was. And people were also questioning if that was a real relationship. Yeah. And it was, it was definitely a real relationship. But then, of course, what had what ended it was that Michael Jackson had such a raging drug problem.
00:55:40 Speaker_10
And she said that, yeah, he had his own anesthesiologist, you know, as we know, yes, yes, who kind of traveled with him. So he when he really, really wanted to have presence of mind to say, No, I don't think that's a good idea.
00:55:58 Speaker_10
Because she did go on and have two more kids. It wasn't that she, she didn't want more kids. I think she just knew if she had kids with him that he would want to have complete control over the kids.
00:56:10 Speaker_12
Yeah, I can imagine that.
00:56:11 Speaker_10
Yeah, she wasn't gonna do that. So yeah, it's a lot. I mean, ultimately, you know, she, she married Nicholas cage for a couple years, then she married this guy.
00:56:25 Speaker_12
Oh, so he was sorry. Michael Jackson was 35 years old when he married Lisa Marie. So so Michael Jackson was 35. And she was 25. So she was still very young. Wow.
00:56:37 Speaker_10
Yeah.
00:56:39 Speaker_12
Um, what so they broke up because of his drug problem? Was that what she said? Okay.
00:56:43 Speaker_10
Yeah. Um, so yeah, then she married this guy, Michael Lockwood, who was a guitarist and a music producer, and they had twin girls. They broke up and then this is what really ended it all.
00:57:00 Speaker_10
Oh, well, then what happened was after she had a c-section with her twins, she got hooked on opioids that she started taking in the hospital. And it got so bad that she was taking like 80 pills a day.
00:57:15 Speaker_12
And that was the other thing with her father, everyone always makes fun of Elvis, like dying on the toilet. But it was like, because all of those opiates make it really hard, it gets you very constipated.
00:57:26 Speaker_12
And that's one of the biggest things that happens to drug addicts, is that your system, you know, it can't operate.
00:57:33 Speaker_10
Yeah. Yeah. And so then she heard that, oh, well, if I do cocaine, that'll help me get off the opioids. So she started doing cocaine. And then she, I mean, and all this time, she did do some stints in rehab, but she would always leave early.
00:57:51 Speaker_10
She, she was having a lot of physical things, she wouldn't go to the doctor. She and then her son committed suicide in 2020, at 27 years old. Riley basically said that she just kind of gave up after that. Yeah. She didn't want to be here.
00:58:12 Speaker_10
She died of a broken heart. Yeah. I'm sure she did. Yeah. Riley talked about it as if she knew this was inevitable.
00:58:18 Speaker_10
Like she kept hoping that, you know, she would get clean or she'd go to, she was begging her to go to a doctor because she was always in so much pain. She was having all these issues. And, um, she had a very serious health issues.
00:58:37 Speaker_10
And yeah, and then she died. And it's just there's believe it or not, there's even more to it. This is like a cliff notes for Wow, wow, I think I have to check out this. You should. Yeah, it sounds really good.
00:58:52 Speaker_10
I finished it in a couple days, you know, listen to it, like on my commute, like, just whenever because you're just like, Okay, and then what happened? Mm hmm. She had a crazy, crazy, crazy life. Because of, you know, she had access to all this money.
00:59:07 Speaker_10
And then, you know, she was who she was.
00:59:10 Speaker_12
And yeah, well, and also being the only daughter, like, this is the king of rock and roll.
00:59:14 Speaker_12
He's this very significant person, then he has one child, you know, and it's like, I think that's the part I always felt for her, like being the only one and sort of having to carry this and yeah, and having, you
00:59:26 Speaker_12
I can imagine, right, Graceland, I don't think Elvis was like a hands-on dad in the sense that he was like, okay, Lisa Marie, let's get up and go. I think she had a very unstructured life at Graceland.
00:59:36 Speaker_12
I think she had a very unstructured life when she was with her mom, except when she was sent off to these boarding schools. And that's the other thing, these boarding schools and rehabs are very, very structured.
00:59:45 Speaker_12
And it's very hard for people, you know, and I can understand the desire for Scientology because you know, the core of what they teach you in Scientology is like cognitive behavioral therapy.
00:59:56 Speaker_12
It's not, you know, I mean, that's how they hook people, because it's like, the stuff does help, you know, how you think about things, how you feel about things, like, changing all that. And I'm sure all of that was important and significant for her.
01:00:07 Speaker_12
But it's that same tragic thing of she was born with all of these expectations. And of like who she was and who she should be, yet at the same time, there was zero expectations to actually do anything, right?
01:00:24 Speaker_12
No expectation to go to school, no expectation to finish, no, right? And she didn't, it sounds like she didn't put that on her own kids.
01:00:32 Speaker_12
And I think, and I think Riley is sort of, Riley sort of exemplifies the oldest daughter role and being the one that keeps it all together and being the parent.
01:00:46 Speaker_10
Yes, he did. She had to parent her mother, her brother. Yeah, she was just always kind of the most rational, reasonable response. And I think the fact that Danny Keough was always involved was also very stabilizing.
01:00:59 Speaker_10
Yeah, he, he was, you know, he's a little flaky, but he was a stable person. And he really loved and cared about. I mean, they all live together all of them for most of their life. Yeah, you know.
01:01:18 Speaker_12
I thought she and Danny were together a lot longer, but I guess not. No, they didn't realize she was 25 when she married Michael Jackson.
01:01:24 Speaker_10
Yeah, no, well, she I think she met him when she was like 17 or something, but they didn't But then they didn't become serious for several years. And then right away, yeah, and then she had started having her kids and it was all very crazy and fast.
01:01:39 Speaker_10
And yeah, and she, she never had to, her life was never stable. She could always run away from her life. When things got too much, she'd be like, well, let's go here. You know, let's go live in Japan. Yeah, like stuff like that.
01:01:53 Speaker_10
And because she had money, she could do that.
01:01:58 Speaker_12
And she was engaged a lot and married what four times her and Nicholas cage back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Like, she had these very high profile marriages. I think all of it, right? You're, you're right.
01:02:10 Speaker_12
Like she never was forced to ever stay and kind of deal with it. And even in rehab, that's a good example of someone You know, a lot of people have to go into rehab and have to stay because if not, they'll get fired from their jobs. Right.
01:02:22 Speaker_12
And so in some ways, that actually helps people because it pushes them to stay much longer. And then they finally start things are clicking and they start to go, oh, OK. But that's the problem. There were no stakes for Lisa Marie.
01:02:33 Speaker_12
What stakes did she have? Yeah, and I do know I remember she released that album. She she's had a couple albums, right. But she her first one was very popular.
01:02:42 Speaker_12
And she had some hits and, you know, but again, being compared to her father and oh my god, she's dancing just like her dad in the sneer and bop, bop, bop, bop.
01:02:51 Speaker_12
It just, I felt for her because I was like, God, this is a lot of pressure to like, you just want to release some music. And now it's being looked at like that.
01:02:58 Speaker_12
And I can see how you would get stuck in this place of, well, there's so many expectations on me. So I'm not going to produce anything. And then then what do you have? Well, these marriages, you know, your kids, the marriages traveling and yeah, yeah.
01:03:14 Speaker_10
It's really something I've never heard a life story quite like hers.
01:03:20 Speaker_12
Was the son, was the son, her son deeply depressed? Did they talk a little bit about what was leading up to all that? Well, he was a heavy drug user and drinker.
01:03:32 Speaker_10
And again, because he didn't have to, she had no expectations of him. She just wanted him to be with her. hang out with her, be her family and just, you know, always be around her.
01:03:50 Speaker_10
And so, you know, these kids never went to school, you know, they had no pressure on them to, to achieve anything or do anything. And he just, I think he just kind of lived like he spent a lot of time in Hawaii, they had a house there.
01:04:04 Speaker_10
I think he just kind of did his own thing. And he was doing drugs and alcohol. And he maybe did have some mental health issues. I think they were kind of surprised by this. I don't think they saw it coming.
01:04:24 Speaker_12
Yeah, I mean in 27 is such an interesting age as we know. It's a very significant age. Some people believe, right, things happen to us in in nines. You know, but there's something about 27 a lot of people die, you know, all the famous people die at 27.
01:04:43 Speaker_12
But there's something about I had my quarter life crisis at 27. There's something about age 27. That is interesting for people because it's it's very much that place of
01:04:55 Speaker_12
you're no longer right you you're no longer a kid you're no longer young you're not quite 30 yet and it is it's it's a strange it's a weird place to be because you're kind of caught in between two places yeah so it's very tragic and i i mean depending on what you believe in the afterlife they're all reunited elvis lisa marie yeah benjamin
01:05:18 Speaker_12
Yeah, and Gladys. Gladys together again, four generations. But it is, it's interesting when you think about that, like these four people, family, one generation after the other, tragedy, death early, all of it.
01:05:33 Speaker_10
Well, Riley talked about how Lisa Marie was very intuitive and in touch with, you know, she's very spiritual, but not just spiritual, it sounds kind of generic, but she, like she knew things about the universe, like she had these certain senses.
01:05:51 Speaker_10
And she would say to her, she's like, I have one child here with me on earth. And I have one child that I'm not with out there. And she felt very unsettled by that. And you know, she kept his body in her house for two months. I heard about that. Yeah.
01:06:09 Speaker_10
Because she just wasn't to, like, let it go. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I highly recommend this. It's very interesting. Lots of information.
01:06:23 Speaker_12
The autobiography.
01:06:24 Speaker_10
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's called From Here to the Great Unknown.
01:06:28 Speaker_12
And I thought this documentary, I have to say, I didn't know what to expect with this documentary. I thought it was and I felt like, Oh, God, I already know a lot about all this. Like, what more am I going to learn? But
01:06:37 Speaker_12
It is interesting because it's framed, even though a lot of the things that they talked about weren't like, Oh my God, surprising. It was a really fresh perspective on him, his life, his career.
01:06:50 Speaker_12
And it just allows you to kind of really look at this time and this moment and what this moment meant to him and his career and all of that. And I think that they did very well. So yeah, I highly recommend that. I mean, the documentary is good.
01:07:03 Speaker_10
Yeah, it is. And it's on Netflix. It's like one of the top documentaries. No, it is. Okay. That's good. Number two or something. So it is good. People are enjoying it. All right.
01:07:15 Speaker_12
Wow. All right. Well, if you are still here, and you enjoy our podcast, thank you so much for being here. There's lots of different ways to support us.
01:07:25 Speaker_12
You can write us a five star rating and review that or just the rating is always very helpful for us spread the word tell people about psych legal pop and subscribing to the show also helps us tremendously.
01:07:38 Speaker_12
We're here every Tuesday and, sorry, not Tuesday, Monday and Thursday. Thursdays we do documentaries and other things. Mondays is Sister Wives, so if you're interested in Sister Wives, go check out our Monday show.
01:07:53 Speaker_12
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01:08:06 Speaker_12
So you can go check us out there and follow us on social media. It's like legal pop on TikTok and Instagram. And I think that's it. Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
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