ELVISBLOG :: FAMILY (7)

Sadly, Priscilla has been voted off the island – or, more accurately, off the dance floor. She put up the good fight on Dancing With The Stars and lasted until the fifth night of competition, but a couple of slips last Monday did her in. I will leave it to others to argue whether the judges were looking for a way to vote her off, or if they showed favoritism to Marlee Matlin because of her hearing disability, or if Louis van Amstel made a poor choice for their dance routine. We probably all agree with those who state that Priscilla’s five-week resume of performances was superior to that of Jason, Marissa, and Christian, all of whom will come back next week.

However, I will say one thing. That split by a 62-year-old-woman was absolutely amazing!!! It will be a long time before we will ever see another dancer eligible for Social Security do something like that. Maybe there ought to be a Seniors Division, like in golf. Priscilla would be their superstar.

In last week’s column, I made reference to her history of ballet lessons. Realizing that I was drawing on a hazy memory, I decided to go back and re-read Priscilla’s book “Elvis and Me.” It has probably been fifteen years since my first reading, and it was just as enjoyable the second time. Here’s what I found about Priscilla’s dancing history.

In 1963, she was 18-years-old and had just received her high school diploma: “I had no real goals after graduation, but I did sometimes dream of becoming a dancer.” Those dreams apparently did not get fulfilled until five years later when Elvis and Priscilla had been married for a few months.

While writing in her book about events in 1968, Priscilla said: “We returned to Los Angeles, where Elvis was filming Live A Little, Love A Little… I started searching for dance classes to enroll in. I looked through the local Yellow Pages until one class caught my attention, a school for jazz and ballet not far from home. The studio was small and unpretentious… Still too shy to dance in front of a group, I wanted to wait until I was sure I could keep up with the older dancers before taking a class. I began taking private lessons three times a week… I was soon doing lifts and jumps, things I’d never thought I could accomplish. He [the studio owner] said I had the potential to be a good dancer, and he pushed me to the limit. Out of frustration and pain, I would want to quit. Demanding that I continue, he told me I was building character and forced me to repeat the same routine until it was nearly perfected. This made me realize that I could go farther than I’d ever dreamed… I was accomplishing something. For the first time I was creating, feeling good about myself, and couldn’t wait to get to class each day…dancing was becoming my life; I was obsessed with it.”

Later in 1968 while Elvis was preparing for the Comeback Special, Priscilla wrote: “In his absence I was taking care of Lisa in addition to attending dance classes in the morning, ballet in the early evening, and two jazz classes at night, lasting often until one in the morning. I was now studying with a new dance instructor, who was using me to give demonstrations for the evening classes. Many of the students were professional dancers. I had diligently worked my way into the company, rehearsing four hours every day to master new steps, constantly pushing myself to new limits, and eventually I was to take a place in the dance company, anonymously performing shows on weekends at colleges in the L.A. area.”

This gives us a sense of just how much Priscilla achieved in her dance training. You’ve got to be pretty good to be giving demonstrations to professional dancers. What really amazes me are those dance company shows she performed in anonymously. What do you think Elvis would have done if he had ever found out about them? My bet is that he would have pulled her out of that dance company in a heartbeat. Other passages in Priscilla’s book make it very clear that Elvis wouldn’t stand for any other men to be watching his wife’s body intently.

The last reference to dancing in Priscilla’s book was: “I was still there to tend to his [Elvis’] needs, as he wanted his wife to be, while also creating my own world, no longer intimidated by the magnitude of his. I was growing, learning, and expanding as an individual.”

I think we can all agree that Priscilla’s experience on Dancing With The Stars enabled her to grow, learn, and expand even more. Well done. Priscilla.

Leave Comment | Permanent Link

Sunday, March 30

A VOYAGE OF SUFFERING ... TO THE LAND OF PROMISE

by Phil Arnold on Sun 30 Mar 2008 05:37 AM EDT

Recently, a lot of folks have been coming to this blog to read about Elvis’ grandchildren. If you think they are interesting, wait until you hear about his ancestors.

The more recent Elvis genealogy charts reveal that his surname changed from the Germanic Pressler to the anglicized Presley several centuries ago. In fact, if you go back through nine generations of Elvis’ family, you can pinpoint his Pressler ancestor who crossed the Atlantic in 1710 to start the whole bloodline here in America. His name was Johann Valentine Pressler.

Elvis Presley Bloodline

Johann Valentine Pressler 1669 -- About 1742

Andreas Pressler (Andrew Presley) 1701 -- About 1759

Andrew Presley Jr. 1733 -- ?

John Presley About 1748 -- ?

Dunnen Presley About 1780 -- ?

Dunnen Presley Jr. 1827 -- 1900

Rosella Presley 1862 -- 1924

Jesse Dee Presley 1896 -- 1973

Vernon Elvis Presley 1916 -- 1979

Elvis Aron Presley 1935 -- 1977

Valentine Pressler was Elvis’ Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather. He was a vineyard worker in the Palatinate region of the Rhineland in southern Germany. With his wife Anna and five children, he left the vineyards and sailed off to America with hopes of new freedom and opportunities.

What he found was not what he hoped, but it was far better than the situation he was fleeing from back in Germany. Life in The Rhineland was abysmal in 1709. For the previous three generations, the countryside had endured the passage of marching armies and the destruction they left behind. There had been decades of warfare between France and Germany for the control of nearby Alsace. Troops from one side or the other were always moving toward battle through the area where Valentine lived, trampling, looting, and burning everything as they went. Famine, pain, pestilence, and death were left in their place.

That wasn’t all. The German rulers subjected their subjects to extremely heavy taxation. The Black Plague was so bad that the population was decreasing. And starting in October of 1709, the area experienced the most severe winter cold in more than a century. With the destruction of the precious grapevines, Valentine Pressler began to consider making a change so his family could survive. He was forty years old.

Meanwhile, the English governors in America needed workers to make their lands profitable, so pamphlets and small books were produced to entice the Germans to escape their wretched existence and find a new life in America. Free land and no taxes were promised. Valentine and thousands of other Germans made the decision to go to America and see what opportunities might open up for them there.

Unfortunately, just getting there turned into a horrible ordeal … truly a voyage of suffering. The title above comes from the third chapter of a wonderful report about Elvis’ family history: The Rhineland to Graceland, by Donald W. Presley and Edwin C. Dunn. It reveals a fascinating story. Hopefully, this short version on ElvisBlog will encourage you to click here and read the whole thing (73 pages). It’s worth your time.

On December 21, 1709, Valentine Pressler agreed to a covenant with the British Crown. In exchange for passage to America, plus settlement and support, the Germans would be, in effect, indentured servants to the British government – for an unspecified time. They would be assigned to the Governor of New York and would be employed in the manufacture of naval stores (tar, pitch, resin). When the Governor judged their obligations met, each German man was to receive a grant of forty acres of land.

By December 29, 1709, the Pressler family started their trek down the Rhine River on a flat-bottomed boat. Each night, it would dock on the shore, where the Presslers would cook their food and sleep on the ground. They had to contend with rapids in the 38-mile long Rhine Gorge. There were delays due to adverse weather, and they were repeatedly stopped and required to pay tolls charged by a never-ending succession of feudal lords along the river. The trip down the Rhine to Rotterdam in The Netherlands lasted approximately four-to-six weeks.

The next part of the trip, a voyage from Rotterdam to London, was short and uneventful.

Within a week after arriving in London, Valentine and his family boarded their last ship – the one that would take them to America. They had no way of knowing they would be imprisoned in it for the next six months. They were part of a ten-ship convoy that was supposed to be escorted by Royal Navy ships. When the Navy refused, confusion reigned. The ships couldn’t stay tied up in the harbor on the Thames and block other traffic, so they slowly sailed along the southern coast of England for three months, occasionally docking at Portsmouth and Plymouth. It took until April 10, 1710, to get things settled and finally set sail to America.

All the Germans were jammed into cargo holds only 5 feet high. There were no provisions for light or fresh air. Food served to them was cold, and the drinking water was dirty. Typhus broke out and slowly decimated the passengers. Fortunately, Valentine and his family were spared the disease, and around July 1, 1710, they landed in New York Harbor. Happy times, but there were more frustrations for the Presslers to endure.

The city government did not want all these sick immigrants to come into their city. They decided to send the Germans to Nutten Island (now Governor’s Island). Huts and tents were quickly constructed, and sufficient foodstuffs were provided. As the Germans came back to good health, they were moved upstate to settlements along the Hudson River to begin their required work in naval stores production. For some reason, Valentine stayed in New York City. Authors Presley and Dunn speculate that he found work in the Governor’s gardens or the gardens of some of the wealthier citizens.

Over the next two decades, Valentine and his family moved several times. His final place of residence was in Prince George's Parish (County), Maryland, where he lived with, or near, his oldest son Andrew. Valentine’s name last surfaced in an election petition in 1742. He was 73-years-old, an advanced age for this time. Although he did not achieve his dream of land ownership, he may have lived long enough to see his son Andrew purchase 100 acres in 1745.

Authors Presley and Dunn, ended their chapters on Valentine Pressler as follows: “If his goal in America was land ownership, then he was perhaps less than successful, but if freedom and opportunity for his children was his goal, then he was indeed a great success. He had established the family bloodline in the New World.”

Nine generations later, that lineage led to Elvis Presley.

Comments (1) | Permanent Link

Sunday, March 16

LONDON DAILY MAIL CHANGES ITS TUNE ON LISA MARIE

by Phil Arnold on Sun 16 Mar 2008 05:58 AM EDT

If you Google Lisa Marie Presley Sues Daily Mail, you will get hundreds of choices to read. It seems that every news source and entertainment website in the world has covered Lisa’s fat story. So, I thought it would be easy to find the full text of the Daily Mail story that started the whole thing. I was wrong.

Now that Lisa Marie has sued the UK tabloid, links to promising sites take you nowhere. Even the title of the Daily Mail story was hard to pin down, as two different ones were mentioned in web articles. One headline was, “Like Father Like Daughter? Bloated Lisa Marie Is Now The Double Of Dad Elvis.” The other was “Elvis Presley’s King-Sized Daughter Lisa Marie.”

I did find snippets of the offending text woven into various web commentaries. Excerpts included:

“Her father fought – and lost – a long and very public battle of

the bulge."

“Now Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie appears to have developed a similarly unhealthy appetite.”

“The once-svelte 40-year-old was seen devouring her lunch at Hollywood food market The Grove at the weekend.”

If that’s as bad as it got, Lisa Marie might have a tough time winning her case, especially against a company in another country. There has to be more. I wish I knew what her publicist, Cindy Guagenti, was talking about when she said, “…awful. It’s like, ‘she’s gonna die like her father,’ ‘her and her mom are in a fight because of her weight’ – that’s not true at all.”

So, what’s going on? I guess we’ll never know exactly what prompted Lisa Marie to write on her MySpace page, “Once they got a glimpse of my expanding physique a few days ago, they have been like a pack of coyotes circling their prey whilst eerily howling with delight.” Wow! Give ‘em hell, Lisa. I like the line, “A pack of coyotes circling their prey,” but where did you come up with ‘whilst?’

Lisa Marie also said, “I could just be pregnant and therefore have a legitimate reason for weight gain, at which point they should probably wipe the saliva off their fangs and put them back in their mouths or they may expose the black little souls that they are.” Well said! An even better line: ”wipe the saliva off their fangs.”

What amuses me the most about this whole deal is what the Daily Mail now shows on its website. There are only two Lisa Marie articles for all of 2008, and both are dated March 10, the day the suit was announced. Apparently, anything preceding that has been removed. Both articles are now friendly in tone. One headline is “Lisa Marie Presley Confirms: Yes I’m Pregnant.” The story contains two fat pictures, but now the captions make reference to her “Baby Bump.” They also show the following picture of Lisa Marie and husband Michael Lockwood looking thin and trim back in 2006. (Hmm… What’s up here?)

The other archive article is titled, “Pregnant and Proud: Lisa Marie Presley Shows Off Her Baby Bump.” They got one thing wrong when they referred to Michael as her third husband, but it was another completely positive article. The story contained two very similar pictures, and here’s one.

They described Lisa Marie: “Dressed in a fashionable print maxi dress, chunky platform sandals, and large hoop earrings, Lisa Marie looked radiant and every inch the happy mother-to-be.” (Isn’t that sweet?) Fortunately, they chose not to describe Michael’s ...aahh… wardrobe.

So, it all sounds like an attempt by the Daily Mail to make nice with the Presley family. The paper has the 12^th largest circulation in the world among English-language dailies, and presumably has a lot of clout. But, if Lisa Marie has the same lawyers that the Presley Estate utilizes, my bets are on her. Those attorneys have a great track record winning lawsuits.

It’s probably a good move for the Daily Mail to sink their fangs into some humble pie.

Leave Comment | Permanent Link

Sunday, December 23

BENJAMIN KEOUGH PHOTOS

by Phil Arnold on Sun 23 Dec 2007 05:40 AM EST

Almost every day, the most popular search topic that brings people to Elvisblog is “Benjamin Keough,” or some variation like “Ben Keough” or “Elvis’ Grandson.” This takes them to an article I wrote on February 19, 2006, right after Lisa Marie married Michael Lockwood. The article is short and doesn’t really tell much about Benjamin Keough.

The best part of the article used to be a link to a photo of young Benjamin at age 13. Unfortunately, that link no longer works, so I am sure the readers are disappointed

To correct this, here are three more-recent photos of Elvis’ grandson, Benjamin Keough. The second one was supposedly taken at the 30^th Anniversary Concert at Elvis Week 2007.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. I wasn’t going to post a blog article this week, because of Christmas, but this was a special pleasure to do. Think of it as a Christmas present from Elvisblog.

Comments (1) | Permanent Link

Saturday, February 18

BENJAMIN KEOUGH & MICHAEL LOCKWOOD

by Phil Arnold on Sat 18 Feb 2006 07:27 PM EST

(Editor's note: If you want to see photos of what Elvis' grandson looks like, click here to go to a 12/21/07 Elvisblog article with three photos of fifteen-year-old Benjamin Keough.)

The blogware platform that brings you Elvisblog offers a number of features. One I especially like is “Referrer Summary,” which shows the search entries on Google, etc. that lead folks to your site (as opposed to typing in www.elvisblog.net or clicking on it from a list of favorites). To my great surprise, 67 people searching for Benjamin Keough, Elvis’ grandson, visited Elvisblog this past Thursday, February 16.

I had to assume there was something in the news that had piqued people’s interest in Benjamin Keough. After all, the only Elvisblog reference to him was a short paragraph in a February 6, 2005 article about his sister Riley Keough Presley. I went to my favorite Elvis references to see what was up, and the answer was the same at www.elvis.con, www.elvisnews.com, and www.elvisinfonet.com. Benjamin Keough had been one of the groomsmen at the recent wedding of his mother, Lisa Marie, to guitarist and record producer Michael Lockwood. The ceremony actually took place on January 22 in Kyoto, Japan, so the celebrity press obviously missed out on this event.

Riley was the maid of honor at her mother’s wedding. People have been Googling her and coming to Elvisblog a lot for the past year. The record for Riley Keough Presley hits was 322 on March 29, 2005, when she was all over the news with articles about her modeling career. This was two days after I had posted my second blog article about her. Anyway, interest in Riley on Elvisblog has dropped off as people discovered there are several sites with more stuff about her (and pictures).

However, having Benjamin Keough in the news for the first time seems to have started the same cycle of interest for Elvisblog. On Friday, February 17, there were 151 hits for Benjamin, 22 for Riley, and even four for their father, Danny Keough, who, by the way, was best man at his ex-wife’s recent wedding.

The wedding news also gave me something new to look into – the groom, Michael Lockwood. If you want to find out more about him, check out his website www.michaellockwood.com. The news pictures of the wedding show him wearing an oversized hat, as do most of the pictures on his site. He seems to have quite a collection of them. He has recorded and toured with Lisa Marie and some other high-level female singers, including Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, and Carly Simon.

Let’s all wish Lisa Marie and Michael the best of success with their marriage. The odds-makers probably won’t give it much chance, but who knows. Maybe this time it will work out.

Back to Benjamin Keough. He will turn fourteen this October. He and his sister Riley sang back-up vocals on Lisa Marie’s last album, “Now What?” Other than that, my internet search turned up very little information about him. I hope interest in him continues and grows, because it sure helps bring people to Elvisblog.

Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie, and his granddaughter, Riley, already have successful careers, so isn’t it logical to expect something similar from Elvis’ grandson? The day Benjamin Keough steps in front of a mike to perform, I’d love to be there.

Comments (2) | Permanent Link

Sunday, March 27

SEARCHING FOR RILEY KEOUGH PRESLEY

by Phil Arnold on Sun 27 Mar 2005 04:32 PM EST

For some folks, hosting a blog is like making regular entries in a journal. However, this writer is motivated by something more. I want Elvis fans to enjoy this blog and return to it regularly. But first they have to know it exists. Internet search engines are of limited help in the beginning. If you type Elvis Presley into Google, you will find 2 zillion links, and ELVISBLOG is way down at the bottom of the list. The more hits your site gets, the higher up the list you move.

So, it was my good fortune to do a blog article on Riley Keough Presley a few weeks ago. Fully 75% of the visits to ELVISBLOG so far have been to read about Elvis’ granddaughter. It is highly probable that most of these hits were from young men intrigued with this 15-year-old beauty, and who had to be disappointed to find only text. Well, I’m writing about Riley again to hype ratings, but I’ll give back something to those folks searching for pictures of her. Click on this:

http://www.cosmeticnews.com/visit/affichage/asp/headlines_article.asp?id_article=17606

It is a March 23 article about the new Christian Dior perfume “Miss Dior Cherie.” Described as having the scent of sugar and spice, it will be embodied by Riley Keough Presley in a global print campaign to be launched in May, followed by television spots. The article features a striking picture of Riley.

Leave Comment | Permanent Link

Sunday, February 6

RILEY KEOUGH PRESLEY?

by Phil Arnold on Sun 06 Feb 2005 10:09 PM EST

There have been recent press reports about Elvis’ granddaughter doing modeling work for the IMG Agency. The interesting thing is that the name listed in the press for this sixteen-year-old beauty is Riley Keough Presley. She is, of course, the first child of Lisa Marie Presley and former husband Danny Keough, and she was christened Danielle Riley Keough.

So, why is her name now Riley Keough Presley? It sounds like a good marketing move to me. Certainly it can’t hurt her modeling career or a possible future recording career to have the Presley name out in front. Although Lisa Marie kept her out of the public eye for her first fourteen years, we should see a lot more of Riley from now on.

There is almost nothing in the press about Lisa Marie’s twelve-year-old son, and that’s the way it should be at that young age. But in about five years, don’t be surprised if a hot new rock star emerges on the scene – Benjamin Keough Presley. I sure hope so.

Comments (1) | Permanent Link