Is this Sophia Coppola’s "Priscilla" for historically accurate than "Elvis." Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re taking a look at the most authentic details from Sophia Coppola’s portrait of Priscilla and Elvis Presley’s relationship, as well as creative liberties taken.
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00:00 "You know there's a lot of rumors about you."
00:04 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're taking a look at the most authentic details from
00:08 Sofia Coppola's portrait of Priscilla and Elvis Presley's relationship, as well as creative
00:13 liberties taken.
00:14 "Was he good to you?"
00:15 "Very."
00:16 "Was he also bad to you?"
00:20 Number 10.
00:21 Terry West - Wrong
00:22 "Hi, what's your name?"
00:23 "Priscilla Boyer."
00:24 "You like Elvis Presley?"
00:28 The film opens with Priscilla alone at a diner where she's approached by a soldier named
00:32 Terry West, who asks her this seemingly innocent question.
00:36 Several significant details are changed here.
00:38 Priscilla was at the Eagles Club with her half-brother Don, who's absent from the film.
00:42 A man did invite Priscilla to Elvis' house, but his name was Curry Grant.
00:47 This was likely changed due to Grant's involvement in a book entitled Child Bride.
00:51 "Who are you?"
00:52 "Nobody but somebody."
00:54 "Nobody?"
00:55 "Nobody but somebody.
00:56 Now, it's a guy who knows the man at the time he was alive."
01:01 Author Suzanne Finstead claimed that Priscilla promised Grant sexual favors to meet Elvis,
01:05 whom she slept with on their second date.
01:08 Denouncing the book as a lie, Priscilla sued Grant, who was found guilty of defamation.
01:13 Coppola's film borrows nothing from Child Bride, instead adapting from Elvis and Me,
01:18 which Priscilla co-authored.
01:19 "Are you trying to offset those things that have been written by people I would call quick
01:23 buck artists?"
01:24 "I'm not going to go back and say this isn't true, that's not true, you know, I can't do
01:29 that.
01:30 All I can do is write about the person that I knew."
01:32 9.
01:33 Priscilla's age when they met.
01:34 Right.
01:35 "Very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me, and
01:42 why?"
01:43 Priscilla met Elvis at a party while he was serving in Germany.
01:46 Elvis was 24, while Priscilla was only 14.
01:49 Then in 1959, the age gap raised more than a few eyebrows, but the film adds context
01:55 that most headlines leave out.
01:56 "Even though I was 14, I was actually a little bit older in life, not in numbers.
02:03 And that was the attraction."
02:06 Although Priscilla's parents allowed Elvis to take their daughter out, her father basically
02:10 interrogated him first.
02:12 The film also stresses that while their courtship was unconventional, they didn't rush into
02:16 things.
02:17 When Elvis left Germany in 1960, he stayed in contact with Priscilla over the phone.
02:22 "Yes, he called me when he came back to the States.
02:28 That was also part of our relationship, telling me all his woes."
02:31 A 17-year-old Priscilla visited Elvis in 1962.
02:35 She'd moved to Memphis and Graceland the following year, but even then, Elvis was old-fashioned.
02:40 8.
02:41 Elvis told Priscilla what to wear.
02:44 Right.
02:45 Louis Vuitton's Oscar-winning costume design practically tells a story, transforming Priscilla
02:50 from a young schoolgirl to Mrs. Presley.
02:56 In Elvis and Me, Priscilla says that Elvis taught her how to dress, walk, apply makeup,
03:02 wear her hair, and behave.
03:04 She proceeds to write, quote, "Over the years, he became my father, husband, and very nearly
03:09 God."
03:10 "I mean, I realize that I don't know who I am.
03:13 I mean, my considerations were his considerations.
03:17 My fears were his fears.
03:19 My likes were his likes."
03:20 Elvis would tell Priscilla to get rid of clothes that, quote, "didn't suit her" and that her
03:24 eyes looked, quote, "too plain without makeup."
03:27 Priscilla claims that she, quote, "always had a little makeup on."
03:31 Apparently, this included when she went into labor with Lisa Marie Presley.
03:35 Priscilla described herself as, quote, "Elvis's doll, his own living doll, to fashion as he
03:40 pleased."
03:41 "I think it's his way of showing sophistication, maybe making me appear older."
03:46 Number 7.
03:47 Priscilla cheated on her final exam.
03:50 Right.
03:51 Although Priscilla moved in with Elvis while she was a teenager, her parents had strict
03:54 stipulations that she finish high school.
03:57 Elvis agreed that this was important, helping to enroll Priscilla in a Memphis school.
04:01 "You came home in the afternoon, you said sometimes you'd crawl into bed with Elvis
04:04 at three or four in the afternoon, and he was just getting up and didn't even know you
04:07 were gone."
04:08 "Mm-hmm.
04:09 I worked that out."
04:10 After rounding out her senior year at Immaculate Conception High School, Priscilla feared getting
04:14 close to other students due to her relationship with Elvis.
04:17 Staying out late with Elvis, she took amphetamines to get her through the school days.
04:21 "I had to.
04:22 Because we got home so early in the morning, he would sleep until three or four in the
04:25 afternoon, and then he'd get his sleep."
04:27 Priscilla knew that she wasn't going to pass her algebra final.
04:31 Not wanting to be sent home to her parents, Priscilla turned to Janet, a straight-A student.
04:36 When asked if she'd like to attend one of Elvis' parties, Janet didn't hesitate to
04:40 slide her paper over to Priscilla, who got an A.
04:43 "I had to do it.
04:44 I mean, with a fear of a young girl fearing that if I didn't do it, maybe someone would
04:49 take my place."
04:50 Right.
04:51 Priscilla was conflicted upon becoming pregnant, but when presented with a choice, she told
04:59 Elvis, quote, "I could never live with myself.
05:01 Neither could you."
05:03 While Elvis declared his commitment to their child, his commitment to Priscilla was called
05:07 into question during her pregnancy.
05:08 "I would have loved to have had that fantasy of being able to, you know, have my husband
05:14 just for me and spend a lot of time with him.
05:17 You know, there were times that you wanted to be alone."
05:20 Only two months away from her due date, Elvis called Priscilla into his office.
05:24 Feeling that things, quote, "weren't going right," Elvis thought it would be good for
05:28 them to have a trial separation.
05:30 Priscilla was shocked, but she also found a, quote, "new strength" at that moment.
05:34 Standing up, Priscilla said, quote, "You've got it.
05:37 Just tell me when to leave."
05:39 Although Priscilla was heartbroken, she didn't take Elvis' suggestion that seriously.
05:43 After two days, the two acted as if nothing had happened.
05:47 "There was a lot that you had to accept to be married to Elvis Presley."
05:52 Number five, Priscilla didn't travel with Elvis.
05:55 Wrong.
05:56 Other than a few people like Elvis' father and her dog, Honey, Priscilla had little company
06:00 in Graceland.
06:01 Even when Elvis returned to Priscilla, they spent much of their time in the bedroom.
06:05 "It went into weeks, yes.
06:07 We stayed like that.
06:08 We had our food delivered by the door."
06:11 Although Coppola paints an accurate portrait of Priscilla's isolation, her life beyond
06:15 the bedroom is somewhat glanced over.
06:17 Priscilla did actually travel from Memphis to L.A. with Elvis during her pregnancy.
06:22 While she only occasionally joined Elvis in Hollywood, Priscilla was, quote, "perfectly
06:26 happy" occupying herself at dance class and going to dinner with friends when he was away.
06:30 "How did you manage to find your friends?
06:32 Because you were with his friends."
06:34 "I was with his friends and I was with the wives of his friends.
06:37 They were pretty much chosen for me.
06:40 So and I got along.
06:42 I got along with them."
06:43 Both valued their privacy, but Elvis found ways to get them out of the house, taking
06:47 Priscilla skating and renting out venues.
06:50 The film omits most of these chapters, focusing on Priscilla's loneliness.
06:54 "The most difficult thing for me was that Elvis had told me at a young age, 'What
06:59 you see here, almost like a little in Vegas, you don't share with anybody.'
07:04 So it was difficult to be with some of the women who were married.
07:08 They would say that I was quite cool."
07:10 Number 4.
07:11 The drugs, right.
07:13 Between bulldozing his uncle's old house and giving Priscilla a pearl-handled Derringer,
07:18 life with Elvis was unpredictable to say the least.
07:21 Elvis also introduced Priscilla to pills, once putting her to sleep for about two days.
07:25 "And you almost died.
07:28 And he didn't call a doctor?"
07:29 "Well, he forgot, I think, the fact that I had never taken pills and he had given me
07:33 two, because he was used to taking two.
07:35 It didn't, you know, it didn't bother him."
07:37 Although Elvis and Priscilla regularly used amphetamines, they only briefly experimented
07:41 with marijuana and LSD.
07:43 Bodyguard Sonny West was around to supervise when the couple went on an LSD trip with their
07:47 friends.
07:48 "I'm sure he had a couple of the guys try it out, you know, before he ever touched it.
07:52 I was nervous about it and Elvis actually was nervous about it too."
07:55 At first, the drug didn't seem to have much of an effect.
07:58 Soon enough, though, Priscilla thought that Elvis' shirt was changing colors and that
08:02 it was getting larger.
08:03 At one point, she was purring in Elvis' walk-in closet.
08:07 Priscilla called the experience, quote, "extraordinary," but they agreed it was, quote, "too dangerous
08:12 to ever repeat."
08:13 "While I'm starting to laugh, he starts to laugh.
08:16 But it did frighten us to where we, you know, we never ever touched it again."
08:21 Number 3.
08:22 Elvis' violent outbursts.
08:24 Right.
08:25 The film doesn't shy away from the darkest moment throughout Priscilla's marriage.
08:28 "It wasn't bad to me in a way that, you know, intentional bad.
08:33 Elvis went through an awful lot and I think the communication that we had was very difficult
08:38 and different."
08:39 One night, a pillow fight turned ugly when Elvis grabbed Priscilla's arm and accidentally
08:44 hit her in the eye.
08:45 Elvis quickly apologized and, despite occasionally joking about the incident, continued to express
08:50 regret over the coming days.
08:52 Priscilla was nonetheless frightened, motivating her to take fewer pills.
08:56 She was frightened again when Elvis hurled a chair at her.
09:00 Priscilla merely said that she didn't like one of his demo records.
09:03 "You didn't like something he sang?"
09:04 "No."
09:05 "And he threw a chair at you?"
09:06 "And then it had records on it and the records went all over the place."
09:09 While she dodged out of the way, one of the records on the chair hit Priscilla's face.
09:13 Again, Elvis immediately apologized for his actions.
09:17 Moments like this weren't frequent, but when Elvis was angry, Priscilla compared it
09:21 to "the roar of thunder."
09:23 "We hear a lot about that temper."
09:25 "Yes, he did have a temper.
09:27 He did.
09:28 It was unpredictable."
09:29 Number two, Elvis was the only one who had affairs.
09:32 Wrong.
09:33 "He would go off to make pictures.
09:35 He would go off to Las Vegas.
09:37 And you heard about other women?"
09:39 Priscilla became convinced that Elvis was having an affair with actress Anne Margaret
09:43 after finding a telegram with the name Scooby.
09:45 Although the film delves into Elvis' infidelity, Priscilla's affairs are only alluded to.
09:50 "Is there something you're hiding?"
09:52 "I don't have a goddamn thing to hide."
09:56 Priscilla is briefly seen getting close to her karate teacher, Mike Stone.
10:00 While the film leaves the nature of their relationship somewhat ambiguous, Priscilla
10:03 has come out about the affair.
10:05 "And you went off then and lived with him?"
10:08 "Yeah."
10:09 "It was said that Elvis tried to kill him or wanted him killed."
10:11 "Right."
10:12 "And I think at that time, yes, he did.
10:15 He wanted that to happen."
10:17 Elvis supposedly enlisted a hitman to take out Stone, but nothing came of this.
10:21 In addition to Stone, Priscilla had a fleeting affair with her dance instructor, who isn't
10:26 in the film.
10:27 Whereas that affair came and went, Priscilla and Stone's relationship left her with an
10:31 important decision to make.
10:33 Despite still loving Elvis, Priscilla needed to take control of her life.
10:37 "I needed to find out what the world was like, really.
10:40 It was one world."
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10:57 1.
10:59 They didn't have sex before marriage.
11:01 Right.
11:02 Although they met when Priscilla was 14 and started living together by her late teens,
11:07 Elvis remained adamant that they wait until marriage.
11:09 "You know, people think, 'Oh, it was sex.
11:11 It was this.'
11:12 But it wasn't at all.
11:13 I never had sex with him."
11:15 Elvis wasn't a virgin, but he was drawn to Priscilla's purity and wanted to preserve
11:18 it.
11:19 That said, they did find other ways to satisfy each other.
11:22 "Elvis would take me into his bedroom and then we would kiss long, deep, passionate
11:26 kisses and his caresses would leave me weak with desire.
11:30 Yes, that's true.
11:32 Yet, he never tried to go further than kissing her.
11:36 No.
11:37 No, he didn't."
11:38 The closest they came to having sex before marriage was on New Year's Eve 1962 after
11:42 having a few drinks.
11:44 Elvis finally proposed on Christmas 1966 when Priscilla was 21.
11:49 Priscilla was nearing her 22nd birthday when they tied the knot in Las Vegas.
11:53 Reflecting on her marriage to Elvis and divorce six years later, Priscilla said, quote, "He
11:57 was the love of my life, but I had to find out about the world."
12:01 "And I think any woman can relate to that.
12:04 But it didn't mar our relationship.
12:06 We still remain very, very close."
12:09 What did you think of Priscilla?
12:10 Let us know in the comments.
12:26 and don't forget to subscribe for more videos!
12:26 [music]