Inside Graceland: Elvis' Maid Remembers (9 page)

Enjoying a good laugh

At Graceland one night

Working on his suntan

Copies of Graceland paystubs

Nancy with her new car

Nancy at bottom of stairs

LISA MARIE
 

Of
all the things that brought Elvis happiness during the
ti
me I knew him, nothing holds a candle to the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie.

She brought about a change in him that nothing else could match. The entire mood of Graceland changed, like sunshine filling a room, when she came into his life.

A lot of people who knew Elvis were afraid that he would not be up to the challenge of fatherhood. They were soon proven wrong.

I, along with everyone else, was so excited at the prospect of a baby being within the walls of Graceland.

I still remember the day Priscilla went into labor. She walked into Dodger’s bedroom and told her she thought it was time for her to go to the hospital.

Dodger asked, “Has your water broke yet?”, and Priscilla said, “Yes, it just broke.” Dodger, sensing the fear and nervousness in Priscilla’s voice, tried to re-assure her.

“Everything is going to be ok, honey”, she told Priscilla. “I done been through this five times and I promise you it will all be fine.”

Priscilla went into the living room, sat down on the end of the long couch, and waited patiently. Elvis and several of the “guys” gathered up all the bags and suitcases we had already packed in preparation for the big event, and took them out and placed them in the waiting cars out front.

I thought it was so sweet when Elvis came back inside. He made sure Priscilla was ok, then went into Dodger’s room and kissed her on top of the head as she sat in her rocking chair near the door. He was so nervous that he got to talking to Dodger and she finally had to remind him about Priscilla. He kissed her again and she thanked him and then said, “You better get that little girl to the hospital right now . . . and be sure to drive safe!”

They all walked out the front door and headed to the hospital. Normally, by most people’s standards, a fairly routine task, unless you happened to be Elvis Presley. They had two different automobiles ready to go, one acting as a back-up just in case the other broke down—a highly unlikely event with the type of autos Elvis drove.

As could only happen to Elvis, in all the excitement they almost ended up at the wrong hospital. But, the confusion was soon straightened out, Priscilla ended up at the correct hospital, and little Lisa Marie was born later that afternoon.

I was scheduled to get off work at 5pm that day, but I stayed around waiting for Elvis to return with the exciting news.

We all ran to the front of the house when we saw him coming, and practically mobbed him as he came in the front door.

He broke the news to us that Lisa Marie had been born, and that mother and baby were both doing fine. We didn’t know, until he told us, that Priscilla had had a little girl.

He thanked us all for everything and, after catching his breath, related all the exciting events of the day. His excitement was so contagious, and everyone wanted to share it with him.

He told Dodger, “I love my little girl to death! We’re going to have a boy next time!” He beamed and, getting caught up in the rapture of the moment, said, “We’re going to have 20 children!”

I told him, “Well, you’ve only got 19 more to go.” Everyone laughed.

(Several weeks later Priscilla and I were talking and I happened to mention, teasingly, what Elvis had said about wanting 20 children. She laughed and replied, “Well, he’ll be the one to have them, because I’m not having any more!”)

Before I left to go home for the day, I asked Elvis if I could fix him something to eat. I figured he probably had not eaten much at the hospital, but he said, “Thanks, Nancy, but I’m too excited to eat anything right now.” I left the house shortly after that.

It was several days before Priscilla and Elvis brought little Lisa home. I was off the day they came home and was very excited to get to work the next day so I could finally see the new baby.

I couldn’t put my things away fast enough and then headed upstairs and rushed into the new nursery.

Lisa was asleep in a small bassinet in the middle of the room. I remember thinking how beautiful she looked, with her full head of dark hair. She was sleeping soundly as I crept quietly into the room. My first thought was that I was looking at a little angel. One look at her and I knew things were about to change at Graceland.

The back corner bedroom, previously used as an informal conference room with a round table in it, had been converted to a nursery. It had been lovingly decorated by Elvis and Priscilla in a pretty combination of yellow and white. Dressers had been installed on two walls and a small, single bunk-style bed, that converted to a couch during the day, had been placed against the wall to the right of the door as you entered the room. It would be used by the babysitters for Lisa. A chair sat against the wall between the daybed and the bassinet.

The combination bed/couch had a yellow custom-made cover on it. Years later, when the bed was moved out of the room, Aunt Delta gave me that cover from the bed. I still have it today and count it as one of my most prized possessions. I can’t look at it without remembering Lisa crawling all over it as a baby.

Lisa was always so much fun to be around for Elvis. She truly became the joy of his life. Watching her grow up was such a treat for him, as well as the rest of us.

They really enjoyed playing together. He would lay her on his stomach in bed and marvel for long periods at a time at how beautiful she was.

As she got older, she delighted in sneaking up behind him and tickling him when he least expected it. It was such a pleasure to be cleaning and to suddenly hear squeals of delight coming from the two of them in the next room. It was sometimes hard to tell which of the two of them was having the most fun.

They also loved to reverse roles. Lisa would pretend to be the “mommy”, and Elvis would let her feed him as they sat on his massive bed. It was very cute to watch, although I did clean up a number of food messes on that bed over the years.

As Lisa grew up, we encountered the same problems with her that any other family faces. And that, naturally, included food. Just like her father, there were foods that she liked, as well as those she didn’t. She loved macaroni & cheese, creamed potatoes, fried chicken, well-done hamburgers, french fries, and toast with grape jelly.

Milk was not one of her favorites. We would try to get her to drink it but she would beg us, instead, for either Pepsi or orange juice. We finally got her to where she would drink milk occasionally, thanks to something called chocolate syrup.

With Elvis being her father, she probably didn’t stand a chance when it came to sweets. She loved them in much the same way her famous father did. She would beg me to make her favorite dessert, chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

Always being concerned that she was eating too many sweets, we would try and limit her to reasonable amounts. This worked well when she was younger, but, as she got older, and wiser, she began coming downstairs and saying, “Mom said I could have some cake.” We knew better, of course, and, to Priscilla’s credit, she would always back us when we refused her the treats. Elvis, on the other hand, spoiled her without ever giving it a second thought.

One of Lisa’s favorite treats was to have us serve her meals to her in the round, hamburger-style bed in her bedroom. Elvis had had a similar bed in his upstairs dressing room and Lisa had enjoyed playing on it so much that he bought one for her bedroom. It was actually nicer than Elvis’s original bed. It had a built-in radio and TV, and steps leading up to it. It also had a mirror built into the canopy. Lisa would lay back in the bed and watch herself as she ate.

She was always a very independent person. One of the things that would get her riled up, even at an early age, was when she thought we were trying to baby her. She couldn’t stand that from anyone. She would scream out, “Don’t call me a baby, I’m NOT a baby!” She also did not like being touched or petted in any way. Trying to comb her hair when she was younger could sometimes be a real challenge.

Like all little girls she loved playing with makeup, and dressing up in grown-up clothes. She would often rummage through Priscilla’s or Aunt Delta’s closets trying to find the “perfect outfit.” I have so many memories of her traipsing around the house in oversized high heels and dresses big enough for her to hide in.

Priscilla also thought it was cute, until the day Lisa got into the makeup kit in her upstairs bathroom and went through, and ruined, nearly every tube of lipstick in the kit. I spent several hours trying to get the lipstick and rouge off Priscilla’s vanity.

Like all children, Lisa enjoyed swimming. She was a fairly good athlete and took to swimming in the pool at Graceland naturally.

Aunt Delta and I would spend hours by the side of the pool talking together as we “lifeguarded” Lisa. I couldn’t swim at all and would sit at the shallow end with my legs dangling in the warm water. Aunt Delta, who could swim, would be sitting beside me, ready to jump in if the need ever arose, although Lisa very quickly became a better swimmer than Aunt Delta.

I remember one day Lisa was enjoying herself in the middle of the pool and Aunt Delta told me she needed to go and check on something, and that she’d be right back. She’d only been gone a few minutes when Lisa dove down to the bottom of the deep end of the pool. I watched with mounting alarm as she stayed down there for what seemed like an eternity. Becoming concerned that something had happened to her and that I was going to have to somehow overcome my fear of the water and go in after her, I began screaming, “Lisa, are you ok, honey?” Not getting a response from her I screamed louder, then louder still when, just as I was getting ready to jump in after her, she came popping out of the water with a big grin on her face yelling, “I heard you all along, I was just seeing how long I could hold my breath!” I aged five years that day.

Under all the mischievous charm, Lisa was turning into a sweet little girl. Considering who she was and the power she wielded as the daughter of Elvis Presley, she could at times be very affectionate with those around her, and had a particular fondness for Minnie Mae. She would go into her room, and ask, “How are you today, grandma?”, and, if Minnie Mae would reply, “I’m not doing so well today, sweetie”, then Lisa would reply, “Oh, I’m sorry.” I could sense in her that she truly cared.

That affection also carried through to Vernon, who she called “papaw.” They had a very warm and close relationship as well. Vernon would always take time out to share a warm smile and a hug whenever she came around.

Though I think she loved Aunt Delta, she was not nearly as close with her. She told me one time, “I like Aunt Delta, but she cusses too much.”

After her father died, Lisa, when she would come back to Memphis, did not like spending the night at Graceland. She would usually end up spending the nights at her cousin Patsy’s house. There were several reasons for that.

For one, she didn’t feel as comfortable around Aunt Delta as she did some of the other members of the family. Even though they were related, Aunt Delta didn’t have that warm and caring way about her like some of the other family members did.

Another reason was that there had been an incident that had scared Lisa. She and a friend of hers had spent the night in Aunt Delta’s room, (Aunt Delta was away), and they had been awakened in the middle of the night by noises outside the bedroom window. We never did figure out if it was really something that they heard or if they had imagined it, but, in any case, it left a lasting impression on Lisa and she did not like to stay at the house after that.

I also think that she did not feel comfortable in the house after Elvis died. It was such a shame, because she had enjoyed it so much growing up there. I noticed a change in her, however, whenever she came to the house after his passing. The only time I remember her going upstairs was one time, several years after he had died, when she asked me to go up to his bedroom with her. She got very quiet as we entered the room, and stopped, looked around for a few minutes, and then went over and got a black and white ballcap from his closet and walked out of the room with it. I think that just knowing that her father had died up there was too much for her. I guess it would be for most children her age.

One day Lisa came running into the house, crying. I asked her what was wrong but she wouldn’t tell me. Aunt Delta walked into the room but Lisa would not come near her. We finally called Patsy to come in and talk to her, to try and find out what was bothering her. Patsy told me later that Lisa had overheard Aunt Delta saying some unflattering things about how Priscilla was talking about opening Graceland to the public. Apparently, Aunt Delta had said that meant Priscilla didn’t care about Aunt Delta and Dodger, and, because of that, had talked harshly about Priscilla.

We found out later that, after overhearing Aunt Delta say those things, Lisa had confronted her and then gotten into an argument with her and yelled, “You don’t like anybody, you just cuss them out behind their back.”

As with most family squabbles, things were back to normal within a few days and the incident was soon forgotten.

One of Lisa’s favorite pastimes was riding around the grounds of Graceland on the small blue golf cart Elvis had made especially for her. He had even had the name “Lisa Marie” painted on the side. She would drive it as fast as it would go, turning corners, sometimes on two wheels, as she maneuvered it around the curving paths and walkways of the mansion. You took your life in your hands, sometimes, just walking around the grounds while she was on her golf cart.