Priscilla Presley, star of the Naked Gun series, has had a strange life. Married to Elvis at twenty-two, divorced at twenty-seven. Now things are getting really weird: her friend OJ Simpson is up on murder charges and her daughter Lisa Marie has married Michael Jackson.   Alan Corr reports.

Two disgraced American celebrities figure largely in Priscilla Presley's life right now. OJ Simpson  and Michael Jackson. The former is the alleged double-murderer who became Priscilla's close friend through the Naked Gun movies. The latter is the alleged child molester who has married her daughter, Lisa Marie.At the age of 49, Priscilla Presley, famous for being Elvis' one and only wife, for her role as Jenna Wade in Dallas, and for three Naked Gun movies, is perfectly entitled to feel bewildered by the upset the situations have brought her.

On OJ's beleaguered state, she comments as though sordid reality had just come crashing through the front door in al episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous:  "it looks, sounds and feels like he's guilty. I sit here and watch TV and think 'I knew this person and we were friends'." But it's Lisa Marie's decision to get hitched with Jackson after divorcing her first husband Danny Keough, that's really got her mad. In public, she has tempered that anger with media-friendly lines such as: "This was a surprise. I wish my daughter well. All I want for her is to be happy."

Then again, as a life-long pragmatist, Priscilla may look at the surreal tableau as another crazy lesson in a life that has been far from settled and ordinary. She's already seen her own fairytale marriage to Elvis Presley turn to farce and she could be easily forgiven for feeling that her only daughter's betrothal to Michael Jackson isn't the stuff of happy endings either.

The fascinations are many in the marriage of the twenty-six-year-old progeny of Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson, at thirty-five, the world's greatest entertainer since The King. Theories abound about the generation-spanning bonding of the House of Graceland with the ranch of Neverland: was it the Scientologists who put Lisa Marie up to converting a fat fish like Jackson to their cause, was it a cosmetic exercise to prove that Jackson was an adult heterosexual, was it a killer business move bringing together the $100 million Lisa Marie inherited last year from the Presley estate with Jackson's fortune of $150 million? But the wildest contention is that Jackson's lust for memorabilia - whether it's owning the rights to The Beatles back catalogue or coveting the bones of John Merrick - has lead him to the ultimate Elvis trophy, his daughter. Priscilla Beaulieu, an air force Colonel's daughter, was only fourteen when she met Elvis while he was on military service in Germany in 1959.

Two years later, after much pleading, her parents allowed her to visit him in Memphis. When she got to Graceland, one of the first things Elvis did was give the sixteen-year old Priscilla sleeping pills to overcome jet-lag. She nearly overdosed. He finally married her in 1967 and Lisa Marie Was born exactly nine month, later, "two months after Priscilla had turned down Elvis's unexpected request for a trial separation. When she married Elvis, Priscilla was vilified for robbing his fans of their idol's availability, subjecting her to the same hell that The Beatles' Wives had to endure. But behind the gates of Graceland, the marriage was heading towards disaster. Elvis was very rarely with Priscilla on her own and his punishing touring regime usually saw him play two shows a night for six months at a time, turning his nights into extended drug binges.

Then there was the double-edged sword of Elvis' infidelity and possessiveness. The marriage didn't have a chance. But Elvis doted on his daughter, naming his two jet planes after her and allowing her free rein around Graceland. However, according to Albert Goldman's incendiary biography of Presley, mother and father had diametrically opposed views on child rearing: "Priscilla is a great believer in discipline and character building. Elvis feels that the primary value of success lies in being able to do exactly as you please and granting the same privilege to those you love. Lisa Marie is being reared, therefore, in a totally schizophrenic manner. "Priscilla herself recalls Lisa Marie at the age of four threatening the servants in Graceland when she couldn't get what she wanted. "Lisa Marie would tell the help 'I'm gonna tell my daddy and you're gonna get fired.' "Used to seeing people jump at her father's command, Lisa took years to overcome the habit," she wrote. By the time their daughter was four, Priscilla and Elvis had divorced. She took Lisa Marie and joined her lover, Mike Stone, who had ironically been introduced to her by Elvis' personal bodyguard and karate instructor, Ed Parker. When Elvis died in August 1977, he left Priscilla and his girlfriend Ginger Alden (20) out of his will, leaving everything to his grandmother, his father Vernon and the then nine-year-old Lisa Marie. Undaunted, Priscilla was to prove her resilience and strength by turning down a series of ghoulish deals to cash in on her husband's death.

 She took control of Lisa Marie's interest in the Presley estate, opened up Graceland to the public and set up Elvis Presley Enterprises. Above all, she displayed remarkable business acumen by placing such a high premium on Elvis that he never appears on cash-in compilation albums and his face or name have never been used for commercial reasons. Priscilla also has her own perfume called Moments, worth $70m a year, a business side-line she's currently expanding into to a full range of personal products. She lives with her boyfriend, computer programmer, Marco Garibaldi, and their seven year-old son, Navarone. But the most interesting part of the whole story is the sudden transformation of Lisa Marie.

Over the last three months she's changed from the shy Presley princess, kept hidden like a President's daughter, into a publicity-gunning media debutante. She may be rebelling against her mother  although after the initial chill at the wedding announcement, they're reported to be back on speaking terms  and grabbing a bit of the spotlight enjoyed by her father and her new husband. "You always want to be a mom, you want to put in your two cents," Priscilla has said. "Lisa and I know what to talk about together and what not to talk about. "While Priscilla seeks to maintain a quiet dignity after the upheaval of her life with Elvis, it is Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie who may be gaining most, at least in money-making terms.

 Sources close to Graceland are reporting that the estate's staff now includes an increasing number of Jackson's men. Lisa Marie's grandmother, Dee Presley, could have been speaking for millions of Elvis fans the world over when she snapped: "I would like to say to Michael Jackson that there was one King and that was Elvis Presley." At this year's MTV Video Music Awards, Jackson tried to assure the world that everything was OK when he gave his new wife that celebrated kiss and said: 'Just think - they said it wouldn't last." But Lisa Marie may be facing a sorry situation. At twenty-six, a divorcee with two children couldn't possibly see marriage with the boy/man/android Jackson as the path to a life of contentment and peace. Lisa Marie obviously thinks she has nothing to learn from her mother's experience with Elvis. Elvis Presley led a larger-than-life existence.

Maybe we should applaud Lisa Marie for carrying on a great family tradition by bonding with the self-styled king of pop, rock, fink and dance, Michael Jackson. As for Priscilla Presley, she's proved that she's more than just a footnote to one famous rock 'n' roll marriage; but can she overcome the problems that may come with another?