Priscilla Presley will turn 80 on May 24, 2025.
Priscilla met Elvis at age 14 while he was stationed in Germany and later married him in 1967.
The couple divorced in 1973, and Priscilla went on to write a memoir, “Elvis and Me,” which was adapted into a miniseries and film.
She has also acted, including in the “Naked Gun” series, and continues to be involved in Elvis-related projects.
Priscilla Presley — actress, author, activist, entrepreneur and, of course, the only spouse of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley — has a birthday this week.
On May 24, 2025, Priscilla will be 80 years old.
Thanks to her Elvis association, Priscilla’s life, to some extent, is an open book. (Literally: Just go to the library, and crack open “Elvis and Me” or any of numerous other biographies.) And yet that life may be unfamiliar to many people, because it sometimes is presented as a sort of sidebar to the saga of her famous one-time husband.
So here’s a brief look at the life and accomplishments of Priscilla Presley, presented in eight parts — 8 for 80, of course.
1. Family matters
Priscilla Presley was born Priscilla Ann Wagner in Brooklyn Naval Hospital in New York on May 24, 1945 (that’s about 10 years and five months after Elvis was born). Her father, U.S Navy pilot James Frederick Wagner, was killed on Nov. 3 of that year, in a plane crash near East Mountain, near the New York-Connecticut border; Wagner was flying a single-engine, two-seat Navy training plane at the time.
Priscilla’s mother, Anna, married Paul Beaulieu, a U.S. Air Force officer, in 1948, and two years later Priscilla’s surname was changed from Wagner to Beaulieu. Paul — the only father Priscilla knew — and Ann had five more children, Priscilla’s half-siblings: Donald, Michelle, Jeffrey and the twins, Thomas and Timothy Beaulieu. Paul died in 2018 at 92, Anna in 2021 at 95.
2. Teenager in love
Priscilla Beaulieu, 16, is led away by a military policeman while trying to say goodbye to her friend Elvis Presley at Frankfurt Airport on March 2, 1960. Presley is traveling to America to be demobbed after his military service. The two met in Germany where Priscilla’s father was also stationed.
Priscilla was 14 when she met Army private Elvis for the first time on Sept. 13, 1959, at a party at Presley’s house in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, an off-post town where Elvis lived while stationed at nearby Friedberg. What followed was hardly a whirlwind courtship.
After Elvis’ Army service ended in 1960, he and Priscilla met again in 1962, after the singer convinced Priscilla’s parents to let her fly to Los Angeles to meet him for an extended, supposedly chaperoned vacation that included a 12-day sojourn to Las Vegas.
She next visited Elvis when she came to spend Christmas at Graceland. Before long she had moved to Graceland permanently and was enrolled at Immaculate Conception High School on Central Avenue. She graduated in 1963.
“She was a very unassuming girl and wanted no notice or publicity,” Sister Mary Adrian, the school’s principal, told The Commercial Appeal in 1967. “She had a good head on her shoulders,” said a teacher, Rose Marie Barrasso, who added that by “unwritten rule,” Elvis’ name was not mentioned during interactions with Priscilla.
3. Here comes the bride
American rock ‘n’ roll singer and actor Elvis Presley is photographed with his bride, Priscilla Beaulieu, after their wedding in Las Vegas on May 1, 1967.
“Memphis’ most eligible bachelor today finally tied the knot.” That’s the first sentence of the story plastered across the top of the front page of the Memphis Press-Scimitar on May 1, 1967, under the headline: “Elvis Presley Has a Bride — Priscilla Beaulieu.”
Priscilla married Elvis, in Las Vegas, on May 1, 1967, when she was 21. The story reported that the couple arrived via a Lear jet from Palm Springs, California; took out a marriage license at 3:30 a.m.; and were hitched a few hours later — at “11:41 a.m. Memphis time” — in front of 14 guests at the Aladdin Hotel, in a suite belonging to the hotel’s owner. “The pretty brownette with greenish-gray eyes has been the object of speculation for years,” wrote the newspaper.
The bride wore a “double-tiered rhinestone crown with a full illusion veil,” the newspaper added, and a “semi-fitted floor-length gown of white chiffon over satin with seed pearl and bugle bead trim on the bodice. The gown had a six-foot-long train.”
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The next day, under the headline “Congratulations, Elvis,” The Commercial Appeal published a short editorial that concluded: “And remember the words of Genesis: ‘It is good that man should not be alone.'”
Despite all her years at Graceland, Priscilla was a virgin on her wedding night, she wrote in her autobiography, “Elvis and Me.”
4. Mrs. Presley no more
Elvis and Priscilla Presley with Lisa Marie at Baptist Hospital in Memphis. Born Feb. 1, 1968, the baby weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces.
Elvis and Priscilla were married 2,190 days, before their 1973 divorce, a result of the couple’s increasing emotional distance, mutual infidelity and Priscilla’s growing independence, after spending the entirety of her adult life connected with arguably the world’s most famous man. The happiest moment of the marriage may have occurred on Feb. 1, 1968, when the couple’s only child, Lisa Marie Presley, was born..
As if in deference to the feelings of the city’s most celebrated resident, the Memphis Press-Scimitar ran the divorce story on Page 33. Reported The Commercial Appeal: “Priscilla Presley, who has had the honor of being married to Elvis Presley, is now devoting much of her time to designing clothes and running a boutique in Los Angeles.” The newspaper added that Priscilla “just couldn’t take the glamor and clamor that tags along with the Elvis image.”
5. Elvis and Her
Priscilla Presley glances at a crowd of fans after a dedication ceremony for the new Elvis Forever stamp, the King of Rock and Roll’s second postal stamp, on Aug. 12, 2015.
In 1985, Berkley Books published Priscilla’s memoir, “Elvis and Me,” credited to Priscilla Beaulieu Presley with Sandra Harmon. A fixture on The New York Times Best Sellers list for 46 weeks, the book — subtitled “The True Story of the Love Between Priscilla Presley and the King of Rock N’ Roll” — broke Priscilla’s silence about life as the King’s “queen,” and revealed intimate, sometimes charming and sometimes odd details of their courtship, marriage, sexual relationship, parental experiences and divorce.
In 1988, the book was adapted into a two-part ABC miniseries, and it also provided the inspiration for Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film, “Priscilla.”
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6. Animal Lover
Priscilla Presley introduced Max and Bandit, a pair of rescue horses adopted by Graceland, to fans at what would have been the King’s 74th birthday in 2009.
A critter-focused complement to the news-feature TV shows “Real People” (1979-1984) and “That’s Incredible!” (1980-1984), ABC’s “Those Amazing Animals” was co-hosted by Priscilla Presley, alongside actor Burgess Meredith (hired because he had played the Penguin on “Batman,” perhaps) and country singer Jim Stafford (hired because his highest-charting hit single was 1974’s “Spiders and Snakes,” certainly).
Airing on Sunday nights opposite the CBS megahit “60 Minutes,” “Animals” quickly went as extinct as the dodo — in fact, some weeks it was the lowest-rated of prime time’s 65 network programs, despite the fact that Presley typically welcomed such guest stars as “a nifty creature from the San Diego Zoo called a slow loris, a moon-eyed little sweetheart who did nothing but bat his big browns and look cute” (per the Associated Press).
In any event, Presley remains a fan of fauna: She’s an animal advocate and activist who has harnessed fundraising drives and championed legislation to protect wild mustangs, abandoned horses and rescue dogs.
As for TV, Presley achieved greater success when she was a regular for five seasons on the hit CBS series, “Dallas.”
7. Getting ‘Naked’
Elvis Presley acted in 31 theatrically released feature films; Priscilla Presley has appeared in four. One was “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” (1990), with Andrew Dice Clay; the other three — which represent Priscilla’s Claim to Screen Fame — are the “Naked Gun” comedies, with Leslie Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin.
The films are “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” (1988); “The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear” (1991); and “The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” (1994). Presley plays Drebin’s love interest and eventual wife, Jane Spencer. (Jane: “Would you like a nightcap?” Frank: “No, thank you. I don’t wear them.”)
Priscilla does not make a cameo in the “Naked Gun” reboot with Liam Neeson that is scheduled to arrive in theaters Aug. 1, but in interviews about the project she mostly has reserved judgment, choosing instead to praise her late co-star, Nielsen. “It was difficult to get through a scene with him,” said Presley, as quoted by the entertainment website, Collider. “It was hard to get through these things, laughing at each other. He would start laughing, crying with laughing until the director would come and he would say, ‘Okay kids, we’re going to take this seriously.'”
8. On-the-Go Octogenarian
Priscilla Presley speaks during a press conference advocating for Memphis music preservation and relocating Memphis Rock ’N’ Soul Museum from FedExForum to Beale Street at the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville on March 10, 2025.
Priscilla Presley is not slowing down, even if granddaughter Riley Keough is now the sole owner of the Graceland mansion. In addition to her charity work, Presley continues to coordinate and produce various Elvis-related projects (recent examples include the HBO documentary “Elvis Presley: The Searcher” and the Netflix series “Agent Elvis”); to make public appearances on behalf of animal welfare, the Presley legacy and other subjects; and to pursue other entertainment ideas, as a producer (at one point, she was working on a remake of the Peter Sellers film “The Party,” with “Austin Powers” veteran Jay Roach as director).