Biography

Given her parentage (Elvis and Priscilla Presley) and brief marriages to pop icon Michael Jackson and actor Nicolas Cage, Lisa Marie Presley may have been destined for a life as tabloid fodder, but she nonetheless carved out a serious music career of her own, issuing three albums in all, beginning with 2003's To Whom It May Concern. With its distinctively alluring, throaty vocals and solid, roots-injected contemporary pop craft -- including several co-writes with Glen Ballard -- it reached the Top Five of the Billboard 200. Two years later, the grittier, Top Ten follow-up, Now What, offered songwriting collaborations with Linda Perry, while 2012's Storm & Grace leaned into blues and country influences with producer T-Bone Burnett. She resurfaced in 2018 on the reworked title track of Where No One Stands Alone, a compilation of her father's gospel songs, before her death in 2023. The only child of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on February 1, 1968. She spent the first four years of her life at Graceland, then left with her mother for suburban Los Angeles when her parents split up in 1972. Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977; his daughter was nine years old. Music was undoubtedly a big part of the eventual Graceland heir's life; some of her childhood favorites included Elton John, David Cassidy, and the softer output of Elvis. She attended her first rock concert -- Queen -- before the end of the decade. Priscilla and partner Marco Garibaldi had a child in 1987, Navarone Garibaldi. (Lisa Marie's only sibling, he went on to front L.A. rock band Them Guns in the 2010s.) Around this time, Presley began writing songs but didn't immediately pursue a music career. On October 3, 1988, she married musician Danny Keough. They had two children, Riley (born 1989) and Benjamin Keough (born 1992), before divorcing in early May 1994. Before the end of the month, Presley wed the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and a year later appeared in his music video "You Are Not Alone." Their divorce followed in January 1996. She launched the Literacy, Education and Ability Program (LEAP), run by the Church of Scientology-affiliated nonprofit Applied Scholastics, with business partner Isaac Hayes in 1997. A chance meeting with songwriter/producer Glen Ballard motivated Presley to give music another try. Ballard was impressed with her dark, luckless melodies and coordinated a deal with Capitol. Before the arrival of the resulting debut, Presley married Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage in August 2002, although they split before the end of the year. Produced by Eric Rosse and Andrew Slater, and featuring five songs with Ballard as co-writer, the album To Whom It May Concern saw release in April 2003, two months after Presley's 35th birthday. A deeply personal as well as assured set of songs, it debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold that June. In the meantime, Presley performed the Pat Benatar hit "Heartbreaker" with Benatar at the VH1 Diva Duets concert, a fundraiser for the network's Save the Music Foundation. Presley was known to perform the song solo on subsequent tours. Her second album, the Rosse-produced Now What, included seven writing collaborations with 4 Non Blondes' Linda Perry. Released on Capitol in April 2005, it peaked at number nine on the U.S. album chart. Still on good terms with Danny Keough, he joined her band as bassist that year, and in January 2006, Presley married guitarist/producer Michael Lockwood, who had served as her co-executive producer on the album. In 2007, to commemorate 30th anniversary of her father's death, Presley released a duet incorporating the archival recording of Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto." She performed the song (accompanied by footage of her father) with the Harlem Gospel Choir on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She delivered fraternal twins (Harper and Finley Lockwood) in late 2008. Presley took her time with her third studio effort, the T-Bone Burnett-produced Storm & Grace, which was eventually released on Republic Records in May 2012. Its many musical contributors included Burnett, Lockwood, guitarist Blake Mills, keyboardist Patrick Warren, drummer Jay Bellerose, and singer Ed Harcourt. It peaked at number 45 on the Billboard 200 and would prove to be her final solo album. Presley broke longstanding ties with the Church of Scientology in 2014, and filed for divorce from Lockwood in 2016 (it was eventually finalized in 2021). In 2018, she re-emerged on Where No One Stands Alone, a compilation of Elvis Presley's gospel songs, again singing with an archival recording of her father (on the title track). In July 2020, her son Benjamin Keough died of suicide at the age of 27. On January 10, 2023, Presley attended the Golden Globes awards ceremony with her mother in support of Baz Luhrmann's stylish musical biopic Elvis (2022). Austin Butler took home the award for best actor for his portrayal of Elvis Presley. Two days later, on January 12, Lisa Marie Presley died at a hospital near her home in Calabasas, California. ~ Marcy Donelson & MacKenzie Wilson, Rovi