Why was Lisa's inheritance to be held in trust?

[MissyM]

I know it's common to do that with a young child but why would Elvis do that knowing that Priscilla might need the money to help raise her? And since the court gave her a legal guardian to that trust...why was that done??? I don't understand the legal part of doing that?

[KPM]

I know it's common to do that with a young child but why would Elvis do that knowing that Priscilla might need the money to help raise her? And since the court gave her a legal guardian to that trust...why was that done??? I don't understand the legal part of doing that?

It is very common to provide for children in this fashion. (even for adult children who the deceased parent did not feel was mature enough to handle their affairs) The legal guardian for the trust is just a way of covering a childs interests- in the best most informed way that the court sees fit. All trusts have their own rules which might be spelled out by the deceased persons will but most trusts do allow money to be advanced for the best interests and needs of the child. So Lisa was never in danger of not having proper money to be raised (unless the money in the trust was totally spent) The trustees and the guardian are suppose to try to keep the money and property safe and growing so the estate is not exhausted.
If Lisa at any time was in want of something-her guardian and trustess could decide to advance money to provide for that.

[MissyM]

Ok then, how did they get the money to open Graceland? Out of her trust? They didn't have cash flow so I think they took out loans against it right? If so then they must have thought that would not put the trust at risk? And so they all had to decide that. I mean if the trust was in deficit, how can you take money out of it, which it was till they opened it? Oh also if Lisa had a mother/guardian why does the court need one?

[presley31]

Estate of Elvis Presley/The Elvis Presley Trust
Elvis Presley died at Graceland on August 16, 1977. His will appointed his father, Vernon Presley, who had long handled Elvis's personal, non-career business affairs, as executor and trustee. The beneficiaries were Elvis's grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley; his father, Vernon Presley; and his only child, Lisa Marie Presley. The will provided that Vernon Presley could, at his discretion, provide funds to other family members as needed. Vernon Presley died in 1979. Minnie Mae Presley died in 1980. This left Lisa Marie Presley as the sole heir to the estate. Elvis's will stated that her inheritance was to be held in trust for her until her twenty-fifth birthday, February 1, 1993.

Vernon Presley's will brought about the appointment of three co-executors/co-trustees to succeed him. They were: the National Bank of Commerce in Memphis, which was the bank Elvis and Vernon had done business with; Joseph Hanks, who had been Elvis and Vernon's accountant for a number of years; and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, who had divorced Elvis in 1973, but had continued a close friendship with him and was Lisa's legal guardian. Joseph Hanks retired from his post in 1990.

Upon Lisa Presley's twenty-fifth birthday in 1993, the trust automatically dissolved and Lisa chose to form a new trust, The Elvis Presley Trust, to continue the successful management of the estate, with Priscilla Presley and the National Bank of Commerce continuing to serve as co-trustees.

In 1998, as Lisa Marie Presley's role in the management grew, Priscilla Presley chose to redirect her efforts by moving to an advisory position, continuing her close involvement and support while focusing more time on her own ever-expanding individual pursuits as a successful actress and businessperson.

Lisa Marie Presley became more closely involved with the management team of The Elvis Presley Trust and its business entity, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.(EPE), of which she was owner and Chairman of the Board until February 2005 when she sold a major interest in the company.

The Graceland Operation
Elvis Presley could have left one of the great fortunes of entertainment history, had he been one to worry about financial planning, rather than freely enjoying and sharing his wealth as he did. While the estate he left was by no means broke, there was a cash flow problem, especially with Graceland costing over half a million dollars a year in maintenance and taxes. It seemed logical for Priscilla and the executors to open Graceland to the public. In late 1981, they hired Jack Soden, at the time a Kansas City, Missouri investment counselor, to plan and execute the opening of Graceland to the public and oversee the total operation. Graceland opened for tours on June 7, 1982.

In 1983, through a long-term lease, EPE acquired the shopping center plaza across the street from the mansion. From the time the plaza was built in the sixties, it had been a typical suburban strip shopping center. However, almost overnight after Elvis's death, it became an unsightly blemish of tacky Elvis souvenir shops, which carried mostly bootleg items not licensed by the Presley Estate. Upon assuming management of the shopping center property, EPE began policing the bootleg activities and began an overall facelift, while continuing to honor the existing leases of the plaza tenants. By 1987, all the leases had expired and Graceland began major renovations, which continue to this day. In 1993, Graceland purchased the property. Today, all shops and attractions in what is now known as Graceland Plaza are owned and operated by EPE. The land where Graceland visitor parking and the airplanes exhibit are located was already owned by the EPE. (Elvis had purchased it in 1962 and had never developed it.)

One important development for the Graceland visitor experience was the addition of Elvis's Lisa Marie jet and Hound Dog II JetStar planes, which Elvis's father had sold in 1978. They were brought back home to Memphis in a joint venture with the current owners and opened for on-board tours in 1984. Another major development was the opening of The Elvis Presley Automobile Museum in Graceland Plaza in 1989.

Graceland Crossing, a neighboring shopping center with stores that featured Elvis-related items, situated just north of Graceland Plaza, was built in the latter half of the 1980's and was independently owned until Graceland purchased it in the fall of 1997 as an addition to its visitor amenities. The next major development was the purchase of an existing nearby hotel property, renovating it and renaming it Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel in 1999. Continued expansion and enhancement of visitor facilities and the development of new Elvis exhibition projects are planned for the Graceland complex.

Since opening to the public in 1982, Graceland has hosted millions of visitors from every state in the union and nearly every country of the world. Prior to Graceland's opening, there was minimal tourism trade in Memphis. Graceland quickly became the cornerstone of the industry for the city and the region. The Memphis tourism industry has expanded greatly with the development of attractions such as the FedEx Forum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the National Civil Rights Museum, and the Wonders Series exhibits, and with the continued growth and development of the Beale Street entertainment district, Memphis in May, and a host of other attractions, museums, and special events.

Graceland welcomes over 600,000 visitors each year, is one of the five most visited home tours in the United States, and is the most famous home in America after The White House. In 1991, Graceland was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The peak season for visitorship is Memorial Day through Labor Day. Attendance ranges from a few hundred visitors on a weekday in the dead of winter to 2,000 - 3,500 visitors per day in the spring and early summer, to over 4,000 per day in July at the height of the travel season. The total economic impact on the city of Memphis from Graceland visitors is estimated to be $150 million per year or possibly much more. A major part of that impact is that most Graceland visitors come from outside the city, bringing new dollars into the community, not only touring Graceland, but also patronizing other attractions in the area as well as area hotels, restaurants, shops and other businesses while they are in town. Further benefiting the city is the intense worldwide publicity that Graceland and the Elvis Presley phenomenon continually bring to Memphis. Contributing to the local impact is the fact that EPE employs approximately 350 people part-time and full-time year 'round, a number that swells to as many as 450 in the busy summer season.

Graceland visitors come from all walks of life, all ages, all musical tastes, all income levels, all educational backgrounds, and all parts of the world. The demographics are broad. Over half of Graceland's visitors are under the age of 35. Graceland is a must-see for visiting dignitaries, touring Broadway show casts, touring rock stars, and people of virtually every description coming to Memphis.

Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. (EPE) is the corporate entity that was created by the Elvis Presley Trust to conduct business and manage its assets. EPE was wholly owned by the Elvis Presley Trust/Lisa Marie Presley until 2005.

In February 2005, Robert F.X. Sillerman and his then new media and entertainment company CKX, Inc. acquired an 85% interest in the company Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc., including its physical and intellectual properties. Lisa Marie Presley retains a 15% ownership in the company and continues to be involved, as does her mother Priscilla. The pre-existing EPE management team remains in place and the company's operations, including the Graceland tour, continue uninterrupted, only with a much brighter future and wider global outreach made possible with the new partnership. EPE is a subsidiary of CKX, Inc., which is a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq National Market System (NMS) under the ticker symbol CKXE.

Lisa Marie Presley retains 100% sole personal ownership of Graceland Mansion itself and its over 13-acre original grounds and her father's personal effects - meaning costumes, wardrobe, awards, furniture, cars, etc.. She has made the mansion property and her father's personal effects permanently available for tours of Graceland and for use in all of EPE's operations.

Jack Soden is the Chief Executive Officer of EPE and is based in the Memphis office. Gary Hovey is Executive Vice-President and is based in the Los Angeles office. This top management team is supported by the vice-presidents, directors, managers and staff of the various departments of EPE, including merchandise, worldwide licensing, marketing, media & creative development, sales, accounting, operations, human resources and the various sub-departments within these.

EPE's business extends far beyond the Graceland operation. It includes worldwide licensing of Elvis-related products and ventures, the development of Elvis-related music, film, video, television and stage productions, the ongoing development of EPE's Internet presence, the management of significant music publishing assets and more.

[cameron]

Ok then, how did they get the money to open Graceland? Out of her trust? They didn't have cash flow so I think they took out loans against it right? If so then they must have thought that would not put the trust at risk? And so they all had to decide that. I mean if the trust was in deficit, how can you take money out of it, which it was till they opened it? Oh also if Lisa had a mother/guardian why does the court need one?

The trust was not just money. It comprised anything that was Elvis'.
To be sold, if needed to care for Lisa or Minnie .

Yes, all the executors would have had to agree to use the "cash money" to open Graceland. {not just Priscilla}
Evidently, from what I've found -- they didn't have much of a choice.
The city nor the state was interested in Graceland.
{ City's nor states are in the habit of running a business . They just let banks foreclose to get their tax dollars. }


Priscilla was only Lisa's mother . To protect a child; a guardian ad litem is appointed by the court to watch out for the childs interest.

[MissyM]

The trust was not just money. It comprised anything that was Elvis'.
To be sold, if needed to care for Lisa or Minnie .

Yes, all the executors would have had to agree to use the "cash money" to open Graceland.
_________________
I understand that but what confuses me is that there was a "cash flow" problem. So where did they get the money to fix Graceland up to open it? And if they took out a loan, that would risk the inheritance. In a way that would make it a gamble. Ok, maybe well calculated but none the less, a gamble. And so the bank/other trustees/guardian and Priscilla in essense invested by way of doing so. Wouldn't they have to put a lean against the property?
And I still wonder why the age 25. Because what if Lisa had wanted to go to College or something?

[utmom2008]

And I still wonder why the age 25. Because what if Lisa had wanted to go to College or something?

She would first need to graduate from a High School with a diploma. Still something that I find absolutely mind-boggling. Who lets their kid drop out of school??

[utmom2008]

Priscilla was only Lisa's mother . To protect a child; a guardian ad litem is appointed by the court to watch out for the childs interest.

This is true....a guardian ad litem was also appointed to go along with Jamie Spears when he was granted temporary control of Britney Spears and her assets.

[cameron]

_________________
I understand that but what confuses me is that there was a "cash flow" problem. So where did they get the money to fix Graceland up to open it? And if they took out a loan, that would risk the inheritance. In a way that would make it a gamble. Ok, maybe well calculated but none the less, a gamble. And so the bank/other trustees/guardian and Priscilla in essense invested by way of doing so. Wouldn't they have to put a lean against the property?
And I still wonder why the age 25. Because what if Lisa had wanted to go to College or something?

There's quite a bit on how it started . It's hard to read, but hope this helps.
From what I can tell, if the bank hadn't done something to create an income, it would all have been lost by 1993.

http://simplycilla.com/mp/simplycill...es%20Times.htm

The final blow came in 1981: The federal government, taking into account the money made since Elvis' death, reappraised the estate at $22.5 million, up from $4.9 million, and slapped on a $10-million inheritance tax.
Priscilla decided to open Graceland right away on a minimal $560,000 investment. The estate only had about $500,000 in liquid assets at the time (the colossal tax bill made it impossible to borrow any more money), and it would take all of that, plus about $60,000 in advance ticket sales, to get the house ready.

[The King's Queen]

She would first need to graduate from a High School with a diploma. Still something that I find absolutely mind-boggling. Who lets their kid drop out of school??

True Rosie! I cannot imagine knowing that my child would inherit bookoo's of money someday, and not INSIST that she have an education (preferably a business/accounting degree). I figure that somehow this could have been a tactic to somehow stay in the 'driver's seat' if you know what I mean...

[presley31]

There's quite a bit on how it started . It's hard to read, but hope this helps.
From what I can tell, if the bank hadn't done something to create an income, it would all have been lost by 1993.

http://simplycilla.com/mp/simplycill...es%20Times.htm

The final blow came in 1981: The federal government, taking into account the money made since Elvis' death, reappraised the estate at $22.5 million, up from $4.9 million, and slapped on a $10-million inheritance tax.
Priscilla decided to open Graceland right away on a minimal $560,000 investment. The estate only had about $500,000 in liquid assets at the time (the colossal tax bill made it impossible to borrow any more money), and it would take all of that, plus about $60,000 in advance ticket sales, to get the house ready.

thanks cameron interesting reading.

[MissyM]

Well, I don't know how the liguid assests could only be 500,00.00 if Graceland's estimated value was $22 mil. Because Graceland itself would be a "liquid assest". So I assume they meant everything but the House and property itself. So the personal effects must be the items in which they base the figure for liquid assests.
So it seems the estate was bringing in money ("taking into account the money made since Elvis' death")and held a lot of personal effects.
Then another question, why wasn't the inheritance tax paid when the worth was at 4.5 mil?

[cameron]

Well, I don't know how the liguid assests could only be 500,00.00 if Graceland's estimated value was $22 mil. Because Graceland itself would be a "liquid assest". So I assume they meant everything but the House and property itself. So the personal effects must be the items in which they base the figure for liquid assests.
So it seems the estate was bringing in money ("taking into account the money made since Elvis' death")and held a lot of personal effects.
Then another question, why wasn't the inheritance tax paid when the worth was at 4.5 mil?

I've explained it the best I can on a MB. You'd need to get an attorney to explain further .
Your last question: You'd have to ask Vernon Presley.He was in charge then.

[KPM]

Ok then, how did they get the money to open Graceland? Out of her trust? They didn't have cash flow so I think they took out loans against it right? If so then they must have thought that would not put the trust at risk? And so they all had to decide that. I mean if the trust was in deficit, how can you take money out of it, which it was till they opened it? Oh also if Lisa had a mother/guardian why does the court need one?

IF the Trustees see need to invest money to keep the trust solvent (which often is in the stock market when trusts are concerned and that is pretty risky at times) then they can do so.(That is why there are "Court appointed" Trustees-to do whatever is needed to keep the estate solvent to protect its assets) They took a chance that Elvis's memory to his fans and his talent would draw people to pay to see his home and keep the estate growing-obviously they were correct.
I have always read they used the last $500,000 to get Graceland ready to open to the public. I have never read anywhere a loan was taken against Graceland to get it ready. It seems to me we went over this not to long ago in a similar thread-or am I wrong?
It seems you are wanting to find some evidence that illegal activity was somehow involved. That the court appointed trustees did not explore all reasonable ways to keep the trust solvent. I don't think we can give you the answers to whether they looked at every alternative. I have read the estate was in bad shape in most books. I have never read that Elvis had a $22,000,000 dollar estate at death-that is IRS double talk. They can "appraise all his property and assets" at $22 million-does that mean you have $22 million on hand? An estimate of value is a subjective guess-which maybe could have been fought in court but if it was lowered to say $15 million-that would still be a lot and you still would not have had $15 million on hand. You may have to sell every single item to come even close to that figure. So what then have you gained if you sell the estate?
Unless the court Judge who appointed the Trustees was a *****, and did not do he job in making sure the Trustees were honest, smart, trustworthy people then I am fairly sure nothing was overlooked in deciding on what way was best to keep the estate "intact and growing" and to meet the obigations of Gracelands yearly expenses.

[presley31]

Eternal Revenue
Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1989
By Robert Hilburn

In 1979, Priscilla Presley discovered that Elvis, her former husband and the father of her child, left a $4.9 million fortune that was disappearing fast. Concerned for her daughter's financial security, she assembled a management team, opened Graceland to the public and parlayed the King's dwindling legacy into a flourishing $75 million enterprise. Today, Elvis dead generates more income than some living pop stars, including Sting, Neil Diamond and the entire rock band U2.

Three days after her former father-in-law, Vernon Presley, died in June of 1979, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley sat in a downtown Memphis office and tried to comprehend the sobering news she had just heard: Without drastic action, everything that Elvis Presley had left their daughter, Lisa Marie, cou! ld be lost. Even his beloved home, Graceland.

Joseph A. Hanks, the Presley family accountant since 1969, is a conservative, soft-spoken man not given to dramatics. But the facts he had just outlined for Priscilla spoke for themselves: Income was dropping while expenses were rising, and at some point the lines would cross.

Priscilla had never gotten involved with budgets during her six-year marriage to Elvis, but she knew that the only thing Elvis ever did with money was spend it. He didn't just buy things for himself. He also loved giving friends--and even strangers--Cadillacs and other things he knew they couldn't afford. If his father or Joseph Hanks complained that money was running low, Elvis just did what he had done since 1956, the year "Heartbreak Hotel" kicked off the most successful career in the history of recorded music. He made more money.

He would call his flamboyant manager, Col. Tom Parker, and ask Parker to book another tour (Presley! 's average concert gross in the mid-'70s was $130,000 a night) or schedule another recording session (each new album would mean at least $250,000 in royalties) or line up another film (usual fee per picture: $1 million).

But after Elvis died on Aug. 16, 1977, there were no more concerts, films or records. There was an estate valued at $4.9 million, and there were mounting bills. The cost of maintaining Graceland was about $480,000 a year-most of it going to taxes, insurance and 24-hour security for Elvis' grave site. The estate was generating an annual income of about $1 million in 1979, and, with no new albums or movies to release, that figure was expected to drop below $500,000. What's more, royalties from the vast majority of Presley's recordings were going not to his estate but to RCA, which had bought the rights to them in 1973.

In his will, Elvis had named Vernon executor of the estate and Lisa Marie his sole heir. Two years later, Vernon's will passed the ! responsibility to Priscilla and Hanks, along with the National Bank of Commerce in Memphis. It would be their job to oversee the estate until Lisa Marie turned 25 on Feb. 1, 1993. As Priscilla flew back home to Los Angeles after the Memphis briefing, she was consumed by the unthinkable: By 1993, there might be nothing left to oversee.

"A million things flashed through my mind," Priscilla says now, remembering the weeks after the Memphis meeting. "I worried about my daughter's future and about Graceland and the people who had worked for us for 20 years. I couldn't comprehend them not having jobs or a place to stay. The question I kept asking myself over and over was, 'What are we ever going to do?' "

Ten years later, Priscilla, 44, is sifting in a Westwood hotel room, the financial fears of 1979 long past. The Presley estate, under her guidance, is now worth more than $75 million and brings in an estimated $15 million a year in gross income. That's more than Elvis! himself made in any one year of his life.

It's also the most income generated last year by a dead entertainer and, according to Forbes magazine, enough to put Elvis in the Top 10 moneymakers among pop music stars. Presley dead earned more in 1988, Forbes says, than Sting, Neil Diamond or any of the four members of the Irish rock band U2. More than two-thirds of the $15 million is generated at Graceland, with other revenue sources ranging from licensing of souvenirs to royalties from records, music publishing and videos.

The estate under Priscilla is doing so well that the Memphis probate court that oversees the executors has decided to leave it in place until Lisa Mane turns 30.

Priscilla hasn't achieved this dramatic turnaround in the Presley finances single-handedly. Since that 1979 meeting, she and Hanks (with Bank of Commerce representative Fletcher Haaga) have hired a management team of Los Angeles businessmen and Memphis lawyers and bankers to guide the estate's operations. They are Jack Soden, executive director of Graceland; attorney C. Barry Ward; business manager Joseph F. Rascoff, and creative affairs director Jerry Schilling.

The management team talks regularly by telephone and gathers formally six to 10 times a year, usually in a Los Angeles hotel. On days when there is a lot of paper work, the committee reserves a conference room, but most of the meetings are held informally--in shirt sleeves around a coffee table--in one of the four visiting Memphians' mini-suites. Lisa Marie, now 21, married and living in Los Angeles, frequently joins the sessions.

On this April day in Westwood, the agenda includes a progress report on "Elvis: Good Rockin' Tonight," a TV series on Elvis' early life that the estate is developing. The team also discusses an Elvis home video featuring some of the singer's key concert performances and a $1-million museum of cars the singer owned that is being added to the Graceland tour.

The turnaround in finances has been about as unexpected as Priscilla's role in it. Whoever would have imagined that this woman--who moved in with Elvis when she was just 17 and let him shape her personality and appearance--would assume the financial responsibility that her former husband never did?

Priscilla has come a long way since the Elvis years--she is confident and sophisticated, no longer the tentative young girl of two decades ago, hidden beneath beehive hairdos and smudged eyeliner. Since her 1973 divorce from Elvis, she has built a career as an actress and lives in Be! verly Hills with screenwriter-director Marco Garibaldi; they have a 2-year-old son, Navarone.

Members of the management team say outsiders frequently assume that Priscilla is just a figurehead. "Reporters are always asking about Priscilla's real role, and sometimes they're very skeptical," Soden says. "They don't expect her to be very active, but she is involved in every decision. I've met a lot of Harvard MBAs that I'd be far less inclined to want to be in a partnership with than Priscilla. I'd take her common sense every time when it applies to business."

Although part of Priscilla's motivation in guiding the estate during the past decade has been protecting the interests of her daughter, she has had a second, less-tangible goal: preservation of the Elvis legacy. She's talking about more than money when she says, "We are into preserving Elvis' name and image." She's also speaking with a pride in her former husband's accomplishments. It's as if she feels a cultural responsibility.

"First, there's his talent . . . his individuality, his charisma," she says. "I still don't think I have met anyone who has as much charisma as he had. I think he was very misunderstood in the beginning, when he started out. I'd like to have people know him mostly for those early years ... because of that raw talent. We'd like to preserve that."

Elvis' importance in the '50s went far beyond music, and that influence continues to be felt today. Born in poverty in the South, he had barely reached his 20s when he touched off a one-man cultural explosion that brought him a life of unending adoration and massive wealth; he was a living symbol of the American Dream. It was a sign of Elvis' phenomenal connection with his fans when thousands of mourners from all over the country gathered in front of Graceland in the days after his death. And, 12 years later, 650,000 people visit his house and grave annually. In the words of one recent Graceland visitor, "I just wanted to be close to him."

However absurd the "Elvis is alive" rumors of the past year, Elvis' legacy is very much alive for millions of people--and the seven members of the estate's management team are its life-support system.

The last thing Priscilla wanted to do when she became a co-executor of the Presley estate was open Graceland to the public. She was a Southern Californian, but Graceland was still the family home. Some of Elvis' relatives lived there, and Lisa Mane might choose to move in someday. Priscilla recoiled at the idea of visitors trampling through the house, stealing pieces of wallpaper and dripping ice cream on the carpets.

"Graceland was the only thing Elvis and I had that wasn't [on public view]," Priscilla says. "To open up your home was like being robbed."

Elvis bought Graceland and 13.8 adjoining acres in suburban Whitehaven in 1957 for slightly more than $100,000. By the time of his death at age 42, the hou! se had been expanded to 23 rooms, including eight bathrooms, a den with a soda fountain and three TV sets placed side by side on a wall and another den--the Jungle Room--decorated in what has been described as Tahitian Provincial.

Priscilla and Hanks realized just days after Vernon Presley's death that opening the house to the public was the surest way to raise money. For almost two years, however, Priscilla explored alternatives. Maybe, she hoped, merchandising would raise enough money. Maybe the record royalties would rise again. Maybe ....

But in the end, there was only Graceland. The final blow came in 1981: The federal government, taking into account the money made since Elvis' death, reappraised the estate at $22.5 million, up from $4.9 million, and slapped on a $10-million inheritance tax.

In the fall of 1981, Priscilla visited famous houses and museums around the country. "Hearst Castle was the one that impressed me the most because there was nothing [commercial] on the grounds. It was kept exactly the same as when people had lived there. That's what I wanted, too, so that if Lisa wanted to move in right now, she could go in with a toothbrush and that's it."

It was the opening move in Priscilla's businesswoman makeover. She decided to keep direct control of Graceland, establishing Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. to represent the estate. In late 1981, she hired Soden to oversee the project. A former Kansas City investment banker and stockbroker, he had no experience in show business or running a tourist attraction, but Priscilla had been impressed by his "intelligence and sensitivity" when she met with him to discuss her personal finances.

After two years of trying to avoid turning Graceland into a tourist attraction, the race was suddenly on to open the doors. Soden met with experts in tour management, most of whom came up with elaborate $2.5-million-to-$3-million proposals that would, he says dryly, have left "Graceland with all the warmth and charm of your average airport." They also advised yearlong surveys to determine just what the average Elvis fan would want to see in a Graceland tour.

But Soden wanted to take advantage of the summer tourist season. He and Priscilla decided to open Graceland right away on a minimal $560,000 investment. The estate only had about $500,000 in liquid assets at the time (the colossal tax bill made it impossible to borrow any more money), and it would take all of that, plus about $60,000 in advance ticket sales, to get the house ready. Soden says now that putting the $500,000 on the line wasn't exactly reckless--he was confident that Graceland would eventually pay for itself--"but still it was one shot, for all the marbles."

The estate didn't have to hold its breath for long. Opened to the public in July, 1982, just before the fifth anniversary of Elvis' death, the tour earned back the $560,000 investment in 38 days.

Priscilla Presley's life with Elvis was a little like a modern fairy tale. Elvis--the prince of rock 'n' roll--spotted his 14-year-old Cinderella in 1959 while stationed with the Army in West Germany. A much-traveled Air Force brat, Priscilla was living in Germany because her father, a captain, was on duty there.

After returning to Graceland in 1960, Elvis missed Priscilla and eventually persuaded her parents to let her come live with him so that she could finish high school in the United States. They married in 1967, and Lisa Marie was born in 1968. A few years later, Priscilla began to want a life of her own, something apparently impossible in Elvis' world. They divorced in 1973.

Life with Elvis was unpredictable, but the one thing Priscilla didn't expect was money problems. Even knowing Elvis' spending habits, she always thought Lisa Marie would, financially speaking, live happily ever after. It was impossible to think of the world's most popular entertainer being in financial trouble.

How could it have happened? The answer eventually leads to Col. Tom Parker, the colorful and eccentric ex-carnival barker who managed Elvis' career from the mid-'50s until his death. No one debates the promotional genius of Parker, whose military title is honorary, but questions have arisen over Parker's financial dealings with his star.

Joseph Rascoff, whose business-management firm represents such acts as the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Pink Floyd, has a reputation in the record industry as a tough businessman. But he refuses to criticize Parker's handling of Elvis' affairs. You can't apply '80s business sophistication to the '50s and '60s, Rascoff says. Back then, the business of pop stardom was uncharted territory. Still, he does suggest that Parker's decisions over the years cost Elvis and the estate "an inestimable amount of money"--certainly in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The most flagrant deal was the March, 1973, agreement with RCA Records which controlled the rights to all of Elvis' recordings. For $5.4 million, Elvis waived his right to future royalties on the estimated 700 recordings he had made up to that time. To make matters worse, Presley's contract with Parker--which gave the manager a whopping 50% of the star's concert and record income--meant that Elvis only received $2.7 million of the RCA payment. After taxes, that left him with $1.35 million for the rights to what is arguably the most valuable body of work ever recorded. One statistic demonstrates what Elvis gave away: He had 66 Top 20 hits before March, 1973; after that date, he had two.

The shortsightedness of the deal is especially clear when you consider what happened after Elvis died. Pressing plants throughout the United States worked around the clock in the weeks afterward to fill the demand for his albums. Estimates of Elvis' sales during the year after his death range from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. If, for example, 50 million Elvis records were sold, at the average royalty rate of $1 per record at that time, the estate would have received $12.5 million after taxes and the colonel's cut. Instead, it received virtually nothing.

And then there's the matter of percentages: Why, when most managers received 10% to 25% of their artist's income, did Parker receive 50% from Elvis? The co-executors were beginning to ask themselves this question, but in 1980 they decided to continue the arrangement anyway. When they submitted plans for managing the estate to a Memphis probate judge in a routine court review, his reaction turned the Presley world upside-down.

Judge Joseph W. Evans questioned the agreement and named Blanchard E. Tual, a Memphis attorney, to protect Lisa Marie's interest in the case. Tual undertook an extensive review of the Parker-Presley relationship. In a 300-page report filed in December, 1980, Tual charged that Parker, since Elvis' death, ! "violated his duty both to Elvis and to the estate ... [by charging commissions] that were ... excessive, imprudent ... and beyond all reasonable bounds of industry standards."

The report also accused Parker of failing to strike the best deals for his client during the singer's lifetime and of not organizing Presley's finances to minimize his taxes.

When contacted by The Times, Parker, 79 and living in Las Vegas, referred all questions about the estate to Soden or Priscilla. But he did defend himself in 1981 against the Tual accusations. In a phone call to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, he said: "Elvis and Vernon were well pleased with my services and desired to continue them over the years. Detailed explanations were regularly made of the transactions pertaining to Elvis and the companies with which we dealt."

Tual, in his report, eluded Presley for his role in accepting the arrangements: "Elvis was naive shy and unassertive. Parker was aggressive, shrewd! and tough. His strong personality dominated Elvis, his father and all others in Elvis' entourage."

At the court's direction, estate lawyers filed suit to recover money from Parker and to recapture from RCA royalties that Rascoff felt were outstanding on post-1973 recordings. The result was a 1983 settlement in which Parker agreed to sever all ties with the estate and RCA agreed to pay the estate $1.1 million. RCA continues to pay the estate royalties on recordings made after March, 1973, but none on the infinitely more valuable, pre-1973 products.

All parties were ordered not to discuss the settlement, so Priscilla and Hanks will speak about the Parker days only in general terms. "I don't think I was angry as much as I was disturbed," Priscilla says now of Parker and Elvis' financial affairs. "I saw how Elvis lived and saw his relationship with Col. Parker, so I think I have a much better understanding of it than the outsider who comes in and says, 'Oh my God, this was robbery."'

Another record company insider is less generous: "You can talk all you want about '60s business sophistication and '80s business sophistication, but Parker seems to have been pretty sophisticated when it came to his own contracts."

In the months after Graceland was opened, Soden called Elvis Presley Boulevard the DMZ. On one side was Graceland and on the other was a string of souvenir shops that represented, to Soden and Priscilla, a gross exploitation of Elvis' legacy. Fans could buy everything from a copy of Elvis' death certificate to bottles of "Elvis sweat."

"At times, we start to sound like old war veterans when we talk about all the battles we've been through, but nothing was a bigger nightmare for me than those shops," Soden says, sitting in his office in a converted church next door to Graceland. A bubbly, enthusiastic man with twinkling eyes, he all but hops from the chair to the window when he wants to point to the strip of la! nd that used to be occupied by the "enemy.~

"They were sitting over there selling everything you could imagine with Elvis' picture on it, and Lisa Mane's trust [the estate] was picking up the tab on the carrot [Graceland] that was bringing people from all over the world," he says.

Part of the solution was obvious: Get control of the land on which the shops were situated. Soden speaks of the conquest with the pride of a military strategist. He arranged for a group of investor friends from Kansas City to bid on the property and instructed them not to mention the Presley estate. Soden knows that the price always goes up when Presley's name comes into play: "Everyone thinks there is no end to the money."

Sure enough, he says, the Kansas City group ended up paying $2.5 million in 1983 for the 7.3 acres--$I million less than the price the owner was reportedly quoting the estate. When the last of the leases expired last year, the estate built a $1.5-million strip of buildings to house the Graceland ticket booth and its own souvenir shops.

Some of the "enemy" souvenir sellers moved to another mini-shopping center next door to the Graceland shops. Soden wasn't pleased to see the rivals stay in the neighborhood and he built a big fence between the properties, but he feels that the competitors will. eventually go out of business because tourists can get anything they want in the estate's shops. But if the estate hasn't been able to wipe the shops off the landscape, at least it can control what they sell.

It wasn't always that way. In the early '80s, when the estate was battling for its financial life, Priscilla and Hanks were frustrated to see merchandisers and Elvis impersonators making millions of dollars off Presley's fame. The estate maintained at the time that one asset Elvis had left his daughter was his image and name. If Presley's name was valuable, then Lisa Mane should not only share in the rewards but also determi! ne how the name could be used for commercial purposes.

The law did not support that view. Estate attorney C. Barry Ward said rulings supported the contention that celebrities have an exclusive right, through copyright laws, to control and profit from the commercial use of their name and image during their lifetime. But there was debate in legal circles about whether that right was passed on to heirs.

To complicate matters, the estate no longer had even a legal basis to sue copyright infringers. During his lifetime, Elvis had assigned the exclusive right to market souvenirs carrying his name or likeness to Boxcar Enterprises, a company controlled by Parker. Two days after the singer's death, Boxcar and the estate issued a license for $150,000 to exploit those rights for three years--with options to renew--to Factors, a New York-based firm.

In 1979, Factors tried to establish its exclusive right to merchandising, as granted by the estate, by suing a nonprofi! t corporation that wanted to erect a statue of Presley in downtown Memphis. To help pay for the statue, the Memphis Development Foundation gave donors who contributed $25 or more an 8-inch pewter replica of the proposed statue. Factors maintained that the Foundation couldn't "sell" the little statues without its permission.

The U.S. District Court in Memphis agreed with Factors, but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision. In effect, the appeals court said that once a celebrity died, his name and image passed into the public domain.

"It was a terrible blow," says Ward, who was already working on behalf of the estate to regain the licensing rights from Factors. "The court was saying it didn't believe the law of Tennessee passed the right of publicity to someone's heirs."

In 1983, the estate began lobbying for a Tennessee law to guarantee that a celebrity's commercial rights would be passed on to his heirs. The estate won a major victory when! such a law, the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, was enacted by the Tennessee Legislature; it was later upheld in both state and federal courts. (Eleven other states, including California, have similar laws.) The estate, which ultimately did regain the licensing rights from Factors, has brought violators to court more than two dozen times, Ward says. "The law of the state of Tennessee," he says, "is now extremely strong for Elvis Presley."

Ward echoes Soden's war-veteran imagery when he talks about the management team's work during the past eight years. "The co-executors had to affirmatively change the law and draw their own map. But the estate now has this tremendous bundle of rights that it can and does exercise for the benefit of the estate, including copyrights and trademarks throughout the world. We view [the estate] as literally a sovereign state with alliances, a gross national product and a mission."

Sometimes that mission is a little hard to figure. Licensed Elvis souvenirs often invite employment of the word tacky. The Graceland shops offer everything from a clock sporting Elvis in a gold lame suit ($19.95) to a sort of Elvis-in-ice sculpture that lights up ($49.95). The licensing of such souvenirs brought the estate $750,000 last year.

Soden shakes his head when the matter of taste is mentioned. "I can see how someone might hear us talk about our horror at what used to go on and then go to the gift shop and think maybe the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," he says. "We've got almost 2,700 different things, if you count all the different post cards and T-shirt designs as separate items. I look at our inventory sheet and ask, 'What are we, Sears?'

"Well, I'll tell you. I had this great soapbox philosophy about how we were going to change the world's attitude about Elvis souvenirs. We were somehow going to hypnotize them and change their tastes so they'd buy better stuff."
Soden actually had some "better stuff' made--such as cocktail glasses with gold-leaf rims--that now sits in a warehouse. Elvis fans just didn't want them. So, Elvis Presley Enterprises adopted a more playful posture.

"Remember," Soden says, "we're not marketing a President of the United States. Elvis was an entertainer. He brought happiness and smiles to people's faces. He also had a great sense of humor, as you can tell by the history of Elvis merchandise, clear back to '56. We've got some of it on display in the trophy building--the little overnight bags that girls took to slumber parties, the Elvis record players, Elvis lipstick and dog tags. That stuff was fun, and it should have been. It was the '50s."

One of his own favorite souvenirs is a pair of fuzzy slippers with Elvis heads on the toes. They showed up on the David Letterman TV show one night. But the media made such fun of them that the co-executors refused to renew the manufacturer's license. "Now, they are collectors' items," Soden says. "Everybody wants them.... Let me take a look, I've got a pair around here somewhere."

Soden admits that he sometimes loses track of the fact that he is not helping guide the career of a living person. "A lot of what we are doing is like managing a live entertainer," he says. "We're doing these things a manager or agent or public-relations person would be concerned with--positioning, imaging."

The difference is that Elvis' career was cut short; the challenge for the estate's brain trust is to package and repackage that finite career in creative new ways.

One recent idea is "Elvis: Good Rockin' Tonight," the docudrama series being developed as a mid-season replacement for ABC- TV. "The series will deal with what, to me, is the most untapped and most exciting part of Elvis' career," says creative affairs director Jerry Schilling. "It is about the early days of rock 'n' roll, and Elvis will be the focal point. In the pi! lot, we start with Elvis as a young kid who is just getting a little noise around Memphis on 'That's All Right, Mama' in 1954--and is taking his first trip on the road to see the reaction. It's like a band on the run, like 'Route 66' with a touch of 'The Waltons."'

And if Elvis isn't alive to produce anything new and repackaging reaches the saturation point, there are still corners of the world where he is nearly unknown. For example, the management team hopes to build a new audience for "Hound Dog" in China later this year. As Rascoff says, "It will be a whole new Elvis Presley career."

Although the brain trust is concerned about the political situation in China, it still plans to introduce Elvis through Chinese television, using both Elvis videos and vignettes ("little bicentennial minutes," Rascoff says, "except it is a little snippet about Elvis"). This will be combined with the sale of records, movies and videos. "We hope to introduce Elvis to China and let it build, just as it did in the rest of the world," Rascoff says. "Western culture and entertainment are coming there, and we hope to be in the forefront."

One thing Chinese and American pop fans alike won't see for a long time, apparently, is footage of the tragic, bloated Elvis of his final years. Although all of Elvis' other TV specials--including the 1968 NBC-TV "comeback" program--are available on home video, the estate has not released the CBS-TV concert special that was taped just weeks before Elvis' death.

Committee members reject the notion that they are trying to rewrite history by not re-releasing unflattering footage. They say they are simply trying to put Elvis in proper perspective. "One of the goals is to humanize Elvis.... make sure people remember him as a human being, not as a caricature," Rascoff says. "That's hard enough to do when you are dealing with [a generation] that actually saw Elvis. But 20 years from now, it will be even harder, becau! se those people won't have had that opportunity. To me, that's the greatest challenge."

Adds Schilling: "We don't want to try to change history. At the same time, we don't want history to be concentrating on a small portion of his career that may not be as illustrious as the rest of the career. We don't want the image of Elvis in future history to be that he was an overweight guy eating a cheeseburger in a white jumpsuit. We want it to be the Elvis as the world knew him for the first 20 years of his career."

One of the most popular souvenir items along Elvis Presley Boulevard is a T-shirt that has fun with the notion that Elvis is alive. The front reads: "Elvis Tour 1988 / 89." The back of the shirt lists alleged sightings of Elvis during the past year:

Burger King/Kalamazoo, Mich.
Walking Around Town/Encino, Ca.
Donald Trump's Yacht/New York Harbor
On a Parachute Ride at a Carnival/Denton, Tx.
Passing By a Bathroom Window/Syracuse, N. Y.
In a '60 Plymouth with Colorado Tags/Pigeon Forge, Tn.

The shirt isn't licensed by Elvis Presley Enterprises because it is considered to be in bad taste. Soden won't necessarily sue the manufacturer; he picks his battles, preferring to go after more flagrant, widespread violations. Besides, he is as fascinated by the whole "Elvis is alive" issue as the shirt buyers may be.

"Now, everyone knows it's crazy because Elvis died in 1977, but the media started calling us asking for a serious comment, which I always thought was amazing because Elvis didn't just vanish like Jimmy Hoffa," Soden says.

"He died, was taken to this busy city hospital where all kinds of people who knew him dealt physically with him. They also opened the casket and let [thousands of] people walk past it in the living room in Graceland and see him lying there. Elvis' death was anything but quiet and mysterious."

He pauses and shakes his head.

"I don't know exactly what is going on, but there is something deeper than just music that keeps this Elvis-is-alive business from going away. Johnny Carson still can't get through a week of monologues without doing an Elvis-is-alive joke. Elvis represents something [special] to people.... He represents an era and someone's dreams, a memory of a time in postwar America when maybe life was at its best."

It's an important part of any explanation for the success of Priscilla and company. It is what they exploit and seek to keep alive as a cultural legacy--and for future exploitation. The businesslike approach, savvy fiscal maneuvers and legal battles wouldn't mean much without the basic appeal of Elvis and the way it creates fans and consumers. Like Soden, Priscilla and the rest of the management team shake their heads at the Elvis-is-alive rumors; they refuse to directly condone them through licensing. But the whole notion validates their success as Elvis estate managers and! keepers of the Elvis flame.

Consider Ben and Thelma Ritter. They are typical of the 650,000 tourists, who spend about $20 apiece on souvenirs and tickets when they come to Graceland. The retired couple, from Texas, wanted to "pay respects" to Elvis, so they made Graceland the first stop on a three-month tour of "places we always wanted to see."

"You know, I never liked Elvis when he first came out--all that rock 'n' roll stuff," the husband says, sitting on a bench near the area where tourists board the shuttle van to Graceland. "But then I heard his gospel albums, and I tell you, that boy could sing. We became two of his biggest fans."

The Ritters certainly do not buy into the notion that Elvis is alive. But they did buy into Elvis Presley Enterprises: Their deluxe-tour tickets cost $12.50 each, and they spent $61 in authorized souvenir stores for licensed memorabilia: a replica of Elvis' 1953 high school yearbook ($29.95), four Elvis place mats ($4.99 each) and an "I Love Elvis" ink stamp ($4.95).

As, they gather their purchases and head for the parking lot, Thelma looks back across the street at the mansion and unwittingly assesses the accomplishment of Elvis Presley Enterprises. "We never got to see him in person, but there's something about that place that makes me feel real close to him. I know that sounds silly.

"There were times," she says finally, "when I expected to turn around and have Elvis standing there."
_________________

[MissyM]

It seems to me we went over this not to long ago in a similar thread-or am I wrong?
It seems you are wanting to find some evidence that illegal activity was somehow involved.
_______________________
Excuse me for asking about legal matters I know nothing about. Excuse me for asking for others opinions about why Elvis may have made provisions a certain way for his daughter!

[KPM]

It seems to me we went over this not to long ago in a similar thread-or am I wrong?
It seems you are wanting to find some evidence that illegal activity was somehow involved.
_______________________
Excuse me for asking about legal matters I know nothing about. Excuse me for asking for others opinions about why Elvis may have made provisions a certain way for his daughter!

I meant no disrespect at all. If you took it that way I am sorry.
You have the right to bring up the subject and I am all for that-what I meant was I don't know what more we can come up with on this which we did not cover before.
Elvis's will was not contested, a judge appointed the trustees/co-directors after Vernon passed away. Up until Lisa hit the age specified in his will-they legally had control of the estate with court supervision. Then a new trust was formed (at Lisa's request) when she hit 25. Nothing unusual to me.
Every step of the way its been supervised and has had to met the legal standards of Tennessee. But unless someone who was directly involved comes into our forum I don't think we'll know all the ins and outs of why things were done as they were. But I am reasonalbly sure that there was no court involved effort to somehow break laws and precedents to do anything which was not legal.

[MissyM]

Maybe I did take it wrong. Perhaps I am cranky today. There are just things I don't get. Like not leaving money alloted for Lisa's education. I always wished Graceland would have been held so Lisa could have made the decision. I'm not so sure it couldn't have financially. I think that's what Elvis would have wanted. It just seems like the money situation doesn't add up. And to me it seems like a risk was taken with her inheritance. And whatever comes from Priscilla I tend not to believe. So I figured that someone who had more expert knowledge could explain it. I have no doubt that everything they did was legal! But was it right. I guess I don't think so.

[0349054]

Maybe I did take it wrong. Perhaps I am cranky today. There are just things I don't get. Like not leaving money alloted for Lisa's education. I always wished Graceland would have been held so Lisa could have made the decision. I'm not so sure it couldn't have financially. I think that's what Elvis would have wanted. It just seems like the money situation doesn't add up. And to me it seems like a risk was taken with her inheritance. And whatever comes from Priscilla I tend not to believe. So I figured that someone who had more expert knowledge could explain it. I have no doubt that everything they did was legal! But was it right. I guess I don't think so.

The place was losing money the way it was.

They had to open it to the public or else they would have been forced to sell it.

It's really quite simple.

[utmom2008]

True Rosie! I cannot imagine knowing that my child would inherit bookoo's of money someday, and not INSIST that she have an education (preferably a business/accounting degree). I figure that somehow this could have been a tactic to somehow stay in the 'driver's seat' if you know what I mean...

Of course she was in the driver's seat...wearing those high-heeled sneakers with that wig slapped on her head.