At 80, Priscilla Presley reflects on love, loss and why Elvis went through so many TVs

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She’s spent most of her life in a hurricane of fame, and has weathered more than her fair share of tragedy. But that hasn’t slowed Priscilla Presley, who at 80 is in Australia for her live show, An Audience with Priscilla Presley.

Her national tour takes in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney across successive nights, before heading back across the Pacific for dates the week after in Michigan and Pennsylvania. How does she tackle such a demanding schedule?

Priscilla Presley in Melbourne for An Audience with Priscilla Presley.

“Don’t think about it, just do it”, she told this masthead with a smile during an interview in Melbourne on Friday. “I just do what I have to do, get it over with and continue to whatever I have to do next.”

It’s a philosophy that has served her well. The tour coincides with a new book she has just released, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, which delves into her time married to “the King”, Elvis Presley, the decision to leave him after they had met when she was only 14, and the tragedies that have struck in more recent years with the death first of her grandson Benjamin, and then her daughter with Elvis, Lisa Marie.

The title of the book, borrowed from one of Elvis’ tracks, has a particular resonance for Priscilla. “I did leave Elvis, and that was the hardest thing. It was the hardest thing for me to do. But I had lived Elvis’s life for so long, I kind of lost myself. To this day I love him more than anything, and when I left, I loved him, from the bottom of my heart, I just know that for me, it was not a world that I could live in.”

Writing Softly, As I Leave You, provided some comfort as she processed the grief of recent years. “I was able to talk about it, I was able to think about it and write about it – all the pain you go through when you lose people that you love. I found that it helped me a lot it get it out instead of just thinking about it all the time.”

The book has plenty of light as well as shade. Priscilla enjoyed a flourishing screen career in the 1980s, starring in the hit series Dallas for three seasons, and seguing into a career in comedy as the love interest in Leslie Nielsen’s classic Naked Gun movies.

Meanwhile, as Lisa Marie grew up, Priscilla found herself mother-in-law to Michael Jackson, who she didn’t like, and later Nicolas Cage, who she did like, despite the fact that Cage, like her daughter, could be temperamental.

“There was the time they were on a boat and they were having a great time. But they did argue, there’s no doubt about that. And Lisa took her engagement ring off and threw it overboard in that argument.

“They could get riled up, and the next minute they’re hugging each other. Well, that ring had cost a lot of money, so a couple of people dove into the ocean to try to find it. A few days later he bought her a new ring.”

Elvis too could be short-tempered. The book describes his habit of shooting at the television when something came on that annoyed him. They went through a lot of TVs at Graceland. “I don’t recommend it,” Priscilla says. “There are other ways of letting off steam. Take a walk!”

An Audience with Priscilla Presley is in Melbourne, Sunday, November 23, Hamer Hall; Brisbane, Monday November 24, QPAC Concert Hall; and Sydney, Tuesday November 25, State Theatre. Softly, As I Leave You (Hachette) is in bookshops.