The Unseen Elvis

Priscilla Presley’s dishy memoir, Elvis and Me, was brought to the screen almost immediately after it was published in 1985, turned into a TV movie that has been, perhaps kindly, largely forgotten. It’s safe to say that Sofia Coppolawill be coming at the material with an entirely different take. Her new film, Priscilla, which premieres at the Venice Film Festival, stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla, who met Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) when she was 14 years old and was living with him at Graceland before she even finished high school.

The relationship was scandalous at the time and might be even more shocking now, given modern understandings of what teenagers are actually capable of consenting to, and appropriate boundaries between adults and children. That puts a lot of pressure on Coppola’s film to strike the right tone, but makes it a fascinating time to catch up with Elvis and Me, the subject of the book club discussion on this week’s Little Gold Men podcast. The book, which Priscilla cowrote with Sandra Harmon, contains plenty of revealing and juicy details about her life with Elvis—meeting Barbra Streisand in Vegas, feeling jealous of Ann-Margret, sneaking into a Nashville morgue after hours—but also a sense of unease. Why was a teenage girl in any of these situations? Was she taken advantage of? Now 78 years old, Priscilla is collaborating with Coppola on this new story about her life. Could this be another chance to set the record straight?    The Little Gold Men book club will continue through August. Up next week is The Zone of Interest, the novel by Martin Amis that has been adapted into a film by Jonathan Glazer, which premiered at Cannes in May.

The Elvis Presley We Didn’t See in Elvis

On this week’s Little Gold Men podcast, a discussion of Priscilla Presley’s memoir, Elvis and Me, and the upcoming Sofia Coppola movie it inspired.

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