For a little girl growing up as Elvis Presley’s daughter, nothing beat getting to watch her dad work.
“Going to his shows was my favorite thing in the world,” Lisa Marie wrote in her memoir “From Here to the Great Unknown.” And who could blame her. All that music and noise, with her own father right at the center of it.
Before every show there was a sweet little ritual just for the two of them. “He would take me by the hand and bring me out onstage,” she remembered. Then someone would walk her to her seat out in the audience, usually next to her grandfather Vernon.
If you want to feel what those Vegas nights were like, watch him light up this stage.
Elvis singing to a Las Vegas crowd in the 1970s
That’s the show little Lisa Marie got to watch from her seat.
She loved every second of it, except for one moment she saw coming each night and quietly dreaded.
In Las Vegas, Elvis liked to say hello to his family from the stage. He’d introduce his father Vernon to the crowd. Then his eyes would drift over to his little girl, and her stomach would drop.
Here comes the part she dreaded.
He’d call out, “Lisa, stand up!”
And in that instant, with a spotlight swinging her way and a whole room turning to look, she remembered thinking, “Oh God oh God please don’t.” She later said of being put on the spot like that, “I absolutely abhorred it.”
Any shy kid who ever got singled out in front of a crowd knows that exact feeling.
You can see how carefully Elvis built those Vegas shows when you watch him rehearse, working every little detail until it was right.
Elvis rehearsing for his Las Vegas shows
Watch him here and you’ll understand why a night at his show felt like such an event.
For all the glamour, Lisa Marie’s memories are the memories of a daughter first. A dad who wanted her by his side, who loved showing her off, even when it made her want to slide right under her seat.
This next clip looks back on what her childhood at Graceland was really like.
A look back at Lisa Marie’s childhood as Elvis’s daughter
Give it a watch and you’ll see the family behind the fame.
She called watching him her favorite thing in the world, and she meant it. Even that dreaded little moment was really just her dad wanting the whole room to see how proud he was of her.
Press play and spend a while with them.