Every kid thinks their dad is the funniest guy in the world. Lisa Marie Presley’s dad just happened to be Elvis.
Lisa Marie was the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. Her parents married in Las Vegas in 1967, and she was born the next year, in 1968.
Years later, Lisa Marie sat down with Diane Sawyer for an exclusive interview on “Good Morning America,” ABC’s morning show. She was there to talk about something very special. She had just released a “duet” of “In the Ghetto,” singing along with her father’s original recording.
It hit her hard. She told the AP: “I’ve never cried when I’ve done anything … ever … but I just lost it when I heard it.”
During that same talk with Diane Sawyer, Lisa Marie opened up about what it was like to grow up with Elvis as her father. And the picture she painted was of a dad who loved to have fun with his little girl, at any hour.
Waking her up at odd hours was a pattern with him. In another “Good Morning America” interview, in 2012, she put it simply: “What I remember is him waking me up to do things.”
Singing was one of those things.
“Oh yeah, he’d always wake me up to sing in the middle of the night, get on the table and sing,” she told Diane Sawyer.
That’s right. When Elvis Presley wanted to sing to his daughter, he got up on the table to do it.
She doesn’t say what song it was or how old she was. She didn’t need to. The image of the most famous voice in the world standing up on the furniture to sing for one little girl says plenty on its own.
“I remember him as my dad, but he was a very exciting dad,” she said.
This next clip isn’t one of those tabletop concerts. It’s something you don’t get to see often, though: real film of father and daughter together, a short home-movie style clip shot in Memphis in 1974.
Elvis and little Lisa Marie together in Memphis, 1974
In her talk with Diane Sawyer, Lisa Marie also talked about going back to the upstairs of Graceland, which has been kept the way it was. She called it “hard,” then added: “It’s also really comforting.”
Lisa Marie passed away in January 2023. For the many people who loved her and her dad, her table story is a nice way to remember them both.
She grew up as the daughter of the biggest star on earth, and she could have talked about the fame or the crowds. When she talked to Diane Sawyer about her father, one of the memories she chose to share was a dad up on a table, singing just for her.