NEED TO KNOW
- Priscilla Presley tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story that she was once told she would have to sell ex Elvis Presley’s beloved Graceland mansion, as it was bleeding money following his death
- The businesswoman had been named trustee after Elvis’ father Vernon died in 1979
- Priscilla also reveals how she turned the estate around by opening it up to the public
Elvis Presley’s beloved Graceland mansion almost wasn’t the historical landmark it is today.
When Elvis died of a heart attack at age 42 in 1977, Graceland was left in the hands of his father Vernon. When Vernon died at 63 in 1979, he named Elvis’ ex-wife Priscilla Presley as trustee.
At the time, as Priscilla writes in her new memoir Softly as I Leave You: Life After Elvis, out Sept. 23, Graceland was bleeding money — so much so that she says only $500,000 was left of her and Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s inheritance.
“After Elvis passed, it went on for about three years until the attorneys brought me in and said, ‘Priscilla, we’re going to have to sell Graceland. We have no money. We’re not bringing any money in,’ ” Priscilla recalls in this week’s PEOPLE cover story. “I just looked at them, and I said, ‘That’ll never happen, ever.’ Then, I left.”
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From that point on, Priscilla says she was committed to doing her “homework.” Through a mutual friend, she was introduced to Morgan Maxfield, a man who had made his fortune from building gas stations at freeway exits.
Maxfield helped Priscilla come up with a plan to open Graceland to the public, but before he could see it come to fruition, he was killed in a plane crash in 1981.
“That was a shock,” Priscilla says. “He was guiding me all the way on opening Graceland. Thank God I was able to fulfill what he had said about making sure I get the right people, the right attorneys, the right bank. It was a trip, but it was a trip worthwhile.”
Graceland officially opened its doors in 1982, and 43 years later, it receives about 600,000 visitors annually.
“Now, we’re getting all the younger ones, and they wear their little Elvis outfits,” Priscilla says. “Oh my God, it’s so cute.”
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In her book, Priscilla writes that her decision to rope off the second floor of the mansion started “rumors” that Elvis is still alive and “lives there” — something she’s happy to set the record straight on now.
“There’s been so much that’s untruthful out there — things like Elvis is still alive and hidden somewhere,” she says. “I wish he was still alive.”
Softly, as I Leave You: Life after Elvis will be published on Sept. 23 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
