Lisa Marie Presley was just nine years old when her father, Elvis Presley, died in 1977 from a heart attack. Presley was just 42 when he died and, tragically, a similar fate would befall Lisa Marie when she was 54. Just after losing her father at too young an age, Lisa Marie took one specific item from Elvis’ closet, the single simple treasure she took from the palatial Graceland, according to a longtime maid of the premises Nancy Rooks in her book Inside Graceland: Elvis’ Maid Remembers.
Lisa Marie would become the sole heir to Graceland, the sprawling Tennessee property where the King of Rock and Roll held court. Elvis maintained a particular set of rules for Graceland that kept his guests out of the upper floors, which were reserved for Presley and his family. However, Lisa Marie would reportedly always feel ill at ease there and when she plucked something from within its walls, it was very different from the opulence of the house.
Lisa Marie was not comfortable at Graceland
In her book, Roosk details how Lisa Marie never quite felt at ease at Graceland or with other members of her extended family. Whenever possible, Lisa Marie avoided staying there overnight and preferred to stay with her cousin Patsy. Eventually, this would help her avoid her Aunt Delta, who “didn’t have that warm and caring way about her like some of the other family members did.”
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As a result, Rooks observed, “she didn’t feel as comfortable around Aunt Delta as she did some of the other members of the family.” Avoiding her became hard to pull off, however, as Aunt Delta helped run Graceland and the two butted heads on more than one occasion.
It also didn’t help that Lisa Marie lived in fear of a break-in. Indeed, “She and a friend of hers had spent the night in Aunt Delta’s room, (Aunt Delta was away), and they had been awakened in the middle of the night by noises outside the bedroom window. We never did figure out if it was really something that they heard or if they had imagined it, but, in any case, it left a lasting impression on Lisa and she did not like to stay at the house after that.”
Lisa Marie took just one item from Elvis’ closet after he died
While the upper levels were reserved for the Presleys by order of the King, off limits even to the Memphis Mafia without express permission, Lisa Marie avoided those floors. But there was a subtle yet impactful change “whenever she came to the house after his passing.”
“The only time I remember her going upstairs was one time, several years after he had died, when she asked me to go up to his bedroom with her,” recalled Rooks. “She got very quiet as we entered the room, and stopped, looked around for a few minutes, and then went over and got a black and white ballcap from his closet and walked out of the room with it.”
She continued, “I think that just knowing that her father had died up there was too much for her. I guess it would be for most children her age.”