On February 1, 1968, one of the world’s most famous couples became first-time parents.
Nine months after they tied the knot, Elvis and Priscilla Presley welcomed their first and only child, daughter Lisa Marie Presley.
But the lead up to the birth was not so picture perfect – starting with the moment Priscilla found out she was pregnant not long after their wedding.
Priscilla, who was in her early twenties, didn’t have a child in her plans for the near future when she married the music superstar.
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“Elvis and I often talked of having children, but we certainly weren’t planning on having them right away,” she wrote in an article for the Orlando Sentinel
According to Priscilla, Elvis hadn’t wanted her to take birth control pills due to “all kinds of side effects”.
“Then one day I lay in bed and felt a sensation in my stomach that I’d never felt before. I knew I was pregnant,” she wrote.
She recalled her husband was “ecstatic” at the news, which was then confirmed with a visit to the doctor’s office together.
Priscilla, who was 21 when she married the King of Rock and Roll, recalled wanting “to be beautiful” for her husband.
”Instead, my debut as Elvis’s bride was going to be spoiled by a fat stomach, puffy face and swollen feet,” she wrote.
The newlywed was concerned over how an “unexpected pregnancy” would change their married life.
While the pregnancy initially brought the pair “closer as it progressed”, around seven months in, Priscilla was taken aback when Elvis proposed a “trial separation.”
”I was numb. This was not the man I knew,” Priscilla recalled reacting to the news, thought just two days later they continued with their life as normal.
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The morning Priscilla went into labour at their Graceland estate, she called her mother before dialling the doctor and waking her sleeping husband.
In her memoir Elvis by the Presleys: Intimate Stories from Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, and Other Family Members, Priscilla claimed Elvis was trying to find his cigars before they headed to the hospital.
“Elvis is moving around the house in slow motion while I’m crossing my legs,” she wrote.
“He finally finds his cigars, but now he’s lulling around the kitchen, getting a bite to eat. Elvis is acting like we’ve all the time in the world.”
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According to Priscilla in the Orlando Sentinel, the pair had a full plan ready for the birth, which included sending decoy cars to mislead the paparazzi and fans.
But there was one thing that, despite all the planning in the world, was a spanner in the works.
The couple were set on giving birth at the Baptist Memorial Hospital, but their driver wasn’t informed of the change from the previously decided Methodist Hospital.
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Elvis and Priscilla began heading towards the Methodist Hospital in Memphis before the mother-to-be had a warning for her husband.
“I’m having this baby in the car if we don’t get to the Baptist hospital,” Priscilla recalled saying in Elvis by the Presleys.
Fortunately, Priscilla wouldn’t need to keep true to her warning as the pair made it to the Baptist Memorial Hospital and gave birth to their healthy daughter Lisa Marie at 5:01pm.
“The nurse brought her into my room and I cradled her in my arms. She was so tiny, so beautiful,” Priscilla wrote in the Orlando Sentinel, even revealing she was able to get “special permission” to keep her false eyelashes on in labour.
The new family of three were then able to spend some time basking in their joy before sharing the news of the birth to the rest of the world.
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“We stayed in each other’s arms for a long time, caressing our infant and each other, a young couple sharing the first pleasures of parenthood,” Priscilla wrote.
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Elvis would go on to spend nine years with his daughter before his untimely death in 1977 at his Graceland estate.
After her father’s death, Lisa Marie – who died in 2023 – followed in his footsteps as she too became a singer.
In 1997, Lisa Marie released a duet of Don’t Cry Daddy for the 20th anniversary of his death. The then-29-year-old sang over her father’s old voice recording to create the special tribute.
While Lisa Marie was Elvis’ only child, Priscilla later welcomed her second child, Navarone, with filmmaker Marco Garibaldi in 1987.
