Friends and Family Mourn Lisa Marie Presley at Graceland - The New York Times

MEMPHIS — To members of the public, Lisa Marie Presley was champion known arsenic the girl of 1 of the world’s biggest stars. To household and friends, she was a doting mother, a caring person and a pistillate who persevered done a beingness that for each its glamour was punctuated excessively often by grief.

Under slate-gray skies successful Memphis, loved ones and admirers — on with crowds that flanked a structure acceptable up astatine the entranceway of Graceland — paid tribute connected Sunday during a memorial work for Ms. Presley, the singer-songwriter and lone kid of Elvis Presley who died connected Jan. 12 successful Los Angeles astatine 54. The nonstop origin of decease has not been determined by the Los Angeles County coroner.

In Memphis, Ms. Presley was “the city’s precious jewel each time of her life,” said A C Wharton Jr., the city’s erstwhile mayor. And noting the “peaks and valleys” of her often tragic life, helium lauded her for “the sheer unit of volition it took Lisa to support climbing.”

Baz Luhrmann, the manager of the 2022 biopic “Elvis,” attended the ceremonial with his wife, the decorator Catherine Martin. He and Ms. Presley appeared unneurotic connected Jan. 10 astatine the Golden Globes, wherever Austin Butler’s portrayal of Elvis won him the grant for champion histrion successful a question representation drama.

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who said she called Ms. Presley “sissie,” gave a eulogy, and Ms. Presley’s mother, Priscilla, work a poem by 1 of her granddaughters.

Later, a missive by Riley Keough, Ms. Presley’s oldest daughter, was work aloud by Ms. Keough’s husband, Ben Smith-Petersen. “I anticipation you yet cognize however overmuch you were loved here,” she wrote.

Ms. Presley was famous from the infinitesimal she was born to the antheral known arsenic the king of stone ’n’ roll, who transformed American euphony successful the 1950s. But she had a tumultuous life. She mislaid her begetter erstwhile she was 9 and helium was 42. Her son, Benjamin Keough, died by termination successful 2020 astatine 27. Ms. Presley joined and divorced 4 times — she was joined to Michael Jackson from 1994 to 1996 — and she struggled with an opioid addiction.

Less than 5 months earlier her ain death, she wrote successful an effort successful People mag that Mr. Keough’s nonaccomplishment had “destroyed” her but that she had kept going for the involvement of her 3 daughters: Ms. Keough, 33, and Finley and Harper Lockwood, 14-year-old twins.

“With Ben’s passing, Lisa’s beingness and the remainder of her household and his loved ones’, took a crook down a hard roadworthy that she was honoring to the champion of her ability, seeking retired assistance and choosing to assistance others who experienced specified a nonaccomplishment and pain,” said the Guns N’ Roses frontman, Axl Rose, earlier a solo show of “November Rain.”

-The livestreamed nationalist memorial astatine Graceland, Elvis Presley’s eclectic eight-bedroom location that became a depository successful 1982, was a reflection of however important Ms. Presley’s fans person been to the household and however overmuch Graceland meant to her, according to David Beckwith, a spokesperson for Elvis Presley Enterprises.

“She ever called Memphis home,” helium said.

Ms. Presley was interred past week successful a backstage ceremonial astatine Graceland’s cemetery — adjacent to her father; her grandparents, Vernon and Gladys Presley; her great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley; and her son, Mr. Keough.

A procession took spot for fans aft the memorial truthful that they could presumption Ms. Presley’s headstone, wherever they were invited to permission flowers oregon different offerings.

As the work ended, Barbara Hawkins, who drove 9 hours from Houston with 3 different self-described Elvis fanatics, stood successful enactment to sojourn Ms. Presley’s grave.

“She was our past existent nexus to Elvis by blood,” said Ms. Hawkins, a jewel-encrusted Elvis pendant hanging from her hat. “She conscionable felt similar household to america Elvis people, and we’re conscionable shocked that she’s gone excessively soon.”

Though Ms. Presley spent astir of her beingness successful California, wherever she enjoyed the presumption of a large personage but struggled to separate herself arsenic a prima successful her ain right, she maintained ties to her hometown with predominant visits to Graceland, her puerility home. Her astir caller sojourn was this month, for a four-day solemnisation of what would person been Elvis Presley’s 88th birthday.

For Ms. Presley’s memorial service, Graceland’s 450-room hotel, a abstracted spot connected its grounds, sold retired “immediately,” said Kevin Kane, the main enforcement of Memphis Tourism, and hotels adjacent the depository and Beale Street, wherever musicians specified arsenic Elvis Presley and B.B. King recorded their music, were “seeing an uptick successful last-minute reservations for the weekend.”

Charlie Vergos Rendezvous, a beloved downtown Memphis barbecue restaurant, often feeds large groups of tourists going to Graceland. Dean Carayiannis, the longtime manager whose parent attended precocious schoolhouse with Elvis, said the edifice was nary busier than accustomed connected Saturday, “but the Presleys support bringing radical in.”

“Elvis and his household brought a batch to Memphis — a batch of notoriety, a batch of bully will,” helium said.

Graceland unit members had go accustomed to welcoming fans and mourners since Elvis Presley’s decease successful August 1977. That evening, much than 1,000 radical kept vigil outside Graceland. Solemnity turned into panic erstwhile fans tried to complaint the gates of the mansion and the cemetery.

Two women were killed and 1 was critically injured aft a car plowed into a assemblage of mourners successful the aboriginal morning.

The adjacent day, the gathering turned much carnivalesque, with hawkers selling Elvis memorabilia arsenic a procession of politicians and celebrities, including the vocalist James Brown, came to wage their respects.

Observing his decease astatine Graceland is present a weeklong lawsuit that includes a candlelight vigil connected Aug. 15.

Ms. Presley’s 3 surviving children volition inherit the estate, including the Graceland mansion “and each artifacts and everything wrong of it,” Mr. Beckwith said.

Because Ms. Presley’s duplicate daughters are inactive minors, “Riley volition beryllium the 1 successful charge” of the trust, helium added. “There volition beryllium nary changes astatine Graceland oregon the operations, it volition conscionable proceed connected arsenic it is now.”

Ms. Presley’s idiosyncratic nett worthy was not clear. As Elvis Presley’s sole heir, she inherited her father’s property successful 1993 aft the deaths of Vernon Presley and Minnie Mae Presley, according to tribunal records successful 2018.

The blockbuster “Elvis” whitethorn person boosted the star’s holdings — including Graceland, a opus catalog and a merchandise and licensing concern — to a billion-dollar valuation. But not each of the assets remained with Ms. Presley, who sold disconnected chunks of the concern to investors implicit the years.

At the work connected Sunday, however, the Presley luck was apt not connected people’s minds. The family’s past of heartbreak was.

In the effort she wrote for People, Ms. Presley said: “Death is portion of beingness whether we similar it oregon not — and truthful is grieving.”

Grayson Haver Currin reported from Memphis. Emily Schmall reported from New York. Dan Bilefsky and Claire Fahy contributed reporting.