Evenings with Leith ForrestShouted, so you're welcome. So, as you know, we've been following this story about Graceland, Elvis's home and what was going to happen with it, would there be a foreclosure? Well, the good news is today that Riley Keo, Elvis's granddaughter, and the fight to save Elvis's estate, Graceland from a foreclosure has ended in a resounding victory, which is such great news for Elvis fans right across the globe and for my next guest, who is an extraordinary woman. She's a businesswoman, a speaker, a media personality, a filmmaker, an author, a mom twenty five plus books. She has a foundation called Women of True Grit. We need to get her on to talk about herself. She also just happens to be Elvis's cousin, Eadie hand Lovely to see you, Edie, thank you for coming on.
Lovely to see you. You know it is one place I would I have not visited that I would love to come to Australia, So maybe we can work.
That at We welcome you with open arms. We would love to have you say you've had an extraordinary life. I do need to get you back and speak to you about your life. But if we can just on this particular story. Yes, whow Elvis's cousin, you have seen firsthand what Grice's Land means to people. Tell us about your feeling when you found out this victory today.
I was thrilled. Of course, you know, I knew something was not right. There's no way Lisa Marie of knowing her and hearing the story, I thought this cannot be happening. And when I found out all the little specifics, like you couldn't get someone to return an email, or they weren't answering their phone, and then they didn't show up when this had already made it to court. Hello, that was like every I've been in business for forty years, and I'm going this makes no sense. But I am elated that Riley has this victory and that the Presley family and all the fans around the world we'll still be able to come to Grayson. I don't think there's any way you know it yourself. Elvis is an icon that is an extraordinary one that you just wouldn't let that happen. I think they would raise money overnight to have to help save something if it came to that. I just couldn't imagine, you know. And I actually got to see Lisa just nine days before she passed. I was actually at Graceland and I have, you know, since I was sixteen years old, I had been visiting there and here I am up in my seventies now, and I tell you I was inspired as a young girl to just be there. I mean I actually used to drive my car from college and drive around back when it was like a Church of Christ church there where there's an office now, and there were trailers in the back. Elvis had his own trailer park in the back, and I was thinking, how could for me to just drive around park and you know, your seven cars and my aunt had a trailer in the back of her husband took care of the grounds. This was Aunt Nash, which was Elvis's dad's youngest sister. But I knew then how special it was. But I would take my grandmother to visit, you know, her sister, and those were my great aunts, and I thought I just loved hearing their stories of telling me about Grandma Minnie. We called her Aunt Minnie. She'd say, you know, you see this red chair in my room? Yeah, well, I told that was if we ever if he ever made any money, I wanted to buy me a red wing backed chair and put it in my room. And that's what she set in and just the little thing. So and then when I started the shock of Elvis passing, but you know, I could walk around, I'd have lunch on the grounds. But to see the fans come the first time when they opened the house, I couldn't believe how many lives he had touched. And then what Graceland meant to so many others. It was an inspiration to me because I saw Elis firsthand pay life forward from being there, from this poor country boy with this enormous, big talent that would give back to Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital there in Memphis. And I met lifelong friends there with Terry Thomas. Danny's middle daughter is my son links God small world, and she lives in Beverly Hills. But I saw that say that I built friendships that lasted a lifetime for me. But I see the fans, I see that belongs to Middle America. I see the giant stars that I had been privileged to know through my own works and working with the late great Buddy Killen, who published Elvis's Heartbreak Hotel. We did a book to get are called a Country Music Christmas, and all the top sixty five country music stars are in it. And I'm thinking I would have never met these people had it not been that I was even though I wasn't the closest or. I didn't hang out all the time with the guys, but I was studying to do something with my life, and I didn't go down the path of hanging out to have parties or to do that, because, first of all, those strong women wouldn't have let me. I did love it. I did love seeing the joy on people's faces that come to Greace.
You mentioned you were with Lisa Marie a week two weeks just before she passed there at Graceland, so I'm sure you would have had a conversation with her about that how important this house was to her, how important this house is to the family. Arguably it's one of the most famous houses in the world. So the whole story that there was potentially this is put up for collateral. It just didn't make sense. Adie, No, she.
Oh, but think about it. She got on a private plane to get there that day. She wasn't even feeling well, and it would have been Elvis's eighty eighth birthday, I believe. And it was raining, and I normally don't go to these things. I mean, periodically, I'll show up because I meet some of my friends that are like me that we knew Elvis been there a long time or either I knew them through family. And I just got up that morning. You know, I'm going to go. I just feel the urge them. I want to see her, and so I called Jack Soden, it was the CEO, and I said, he said, well, just come on get over here. You know, they kind of let Lisa do what she wants to do. And I remember I was just standing in the wings where she could see me, and in the driveway at Grayson and I said Lisa, and she looks and oh, you know, of course we hug and she said, I said, you look so tired. She says, I, but I wouldn't miss this for anything, because the fans were expecting me. So I'm going to show up. And I wanted to be here for my dad. I wanted to be here for Ben because she'd lost her son tragically just the year before, and she was excited too about the Elvis film, you know, that was just coming out and the big Oscars were just days away. I saw her with mixed emotions, sadness of what was just beyond the steps of Graceland, the cemetery, and she had all these flowers everybody was giving her, and she just showed the folks that were going to put them put them on Ben's grave. And so I thought she made all that extra. There's no way she would have done something to jeopardize the legacy of her father of where she grew up as a child, mainly back and forth la with her, but no, and or jeopardize her daughter's inheritance. And again she loves the fans because they loved her father. Yeah, and so it was all just didn't seem true to me anyway. So I'm glad it was not true.
Yes, thankfully for that. I mean, there's always sharks in the water, isn't there anytime Elvis is mentioned, because he is so popular. But I was reading about the fact that you would babysit Lisa Marie Ewan, is it your aunt Delta. So again, when these stories come up, you think of the immediate family, like Riley and like Priscilla and I saw Priscilla put a post out as well. But it affects the whole family, isn't it the idea that this particular location, this iconic house, could be in complete strangers' hands and who knows what they do with it?
Oh my gosh, you know, yes, I mean, I'm from Afar, but I have fond memories close up. But when I was, like I said, in college, and I would come up to visit and I would go to church with my Aunt Nash, which was Burndon's youngest sister. Back then, Aunt Delta lived in the House of Grayson and acted as the host because her husband had passed away and she didn't have any children, so she was perfect to be there and look after Aunt Minnie, which was her mother that was in the wing. When she and she would take me upstairs, Delta gave me the VIP tour. I would go to Elvis's room. He wasn't there. I know he would die and you probably all the things she did, but it was like, oh my gosh, I thought I was in. I said, oh my gosh, who has this many clothes? And it was like a department store and I would go in, you know, he had a row of his costumes. He had his shoes, his boots, his belts, and she just took one of his shirts out and gave me and gave me a They gave me some beautiful jewelry and different things, and I'm just I will never forget those moments of going upstairs when I think about how many people would love to go upstairs and I But what was cute was one time I was visiting Nash had gone on to church and I was gonna have to get back to college and I hadn't driven up. I'm about three hours away, and I just thought, well, I'm going to walk over and say goodbye, and Vernon opened the door. It was his dad, and it's the first time I ever met Colonel Parker. He was there and saying he was kind of grouchy, but you know, he spoke to me and he introduced me as this is our pretty little cousin that's making something out of herself. She's going to college and you don't see her hanging out with the guys. She's good. And that's the way they Southern talk, you know, and real plain. And I remember Delta entered the room and I heard the pattern of little feet and it was Lisa Marie running through down from the stairs up there with her father, and she ran and jumped in my arms and it was so cute, and Delta asked me to help take care of her while I think Elvis was going to have some business, which he entered the room, and I'm telling you, when he entered the room, it was like Ef Hutton. Everything stopped, you know, so it was like and I, you know, I didn't know what to do. I was like, okay, and I just and I remember just getting a hug, and you know, we went outside. It was like any other family. You don't just hang and stand there with your mouth open, you know, you just interact. And so I remember going outside with Lisa and Delton. She said, will you take her for a ride on the golf cart? And I think she was probably around maybe four years old, I don't know, three or four, a little girl, and I said yes, And I remember she was one wild child. I mean that she oh, no, she was going to drive, you know, like she started out being in charge. And she only knew one throttle and that was full speed, so that I remember. But yes, those are precious memories for me.
A little bit of sash. You have written a number of books, haven't you, that people can look up and find online about Elvis. And also I love the idea of the Elvis cookbook. Like there's a number of recipe books about I guess food that Elvis ate and Elvis like that people can find.
Yes, they in that book. It was all cooked up. It was uh it's people could buy it online. I think they have used copies of things. It's been so long ago, it's not current publishing, but you can get them. Uh. But we had so much fun doing those. I cooked on the Today Show. I've cooked on every major show you know around that, and we would do one of Elvis's you know, favorite meals. They had me cooking fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches because he'd put he liked like a almost a stick of butter. I mean, oh, it was unbelievable. And I put that butter and I said, well, here goes the hardening of the arteries. And so we did. And I told the stories, you know, I told and I would do that. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, and from that inspired me to want to pay life forward being around Elvis, and it Gracelyn because of what I saw him do for Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital. You know, he gave his yacht to help raise money for cancer research for these kids. And I thought, when I grow up, I want to be able to do good things, and I've been blessed to get to do that and through this, Like you said, my current project I'm working on is if I get to come back with you, would be Edie Hand's Women a true grit, but it's telling stories of women that have been through hard things and how they turned them into beautiful situations and how I learned from many may my grandmother. They taught me about the pearls and the important spec of grit. And I would watch Elbie. It took a lot of grit to do what he did, and we'd say, like in an oyster shell, it takes a spec of grit to form a beautiful pearl, and in life we go through the same yeritatetionations to become who we need to be. And I watched Elvis and others. My mother's brothers were also talented musicians and they own recording studios in muscle shows at Alabama and where I'm from in Alabama near here, and I think I'm so blessed to have known these young people. But Elvis, I felt like I was able to learn how to stand on the shoulder of a giant and that I could do anything I wanted to do. It didn't matter g e brectly where I came. I received a couple of college degrees. I've been blessed to raise a wonderful actor son that lives in Burbank, California. There's another generation when you see link and he's got some new films coming out. You know that's from that Elvis limnage. And you know, I think that's pretty special that we can pass on and do great things. And no one wants Graceland to be passed on to anybody, but to be right there where it is. And I think it's all in good hands.
Absolutely, it is so in good hands. We will get you back, Edie, I promise, thank you so much for your time, lovely to meet you. Extraordinary story. And again, as we say, the fact that Riley is doing the fight to keep grace Land from foreclosure, it's been a resounding victory. It's all been dropped now so people can move on the homestays in the right hands. Tourists like me can come to your fair country, head to Memphis, go to Graceland, see the home of the King. Everything's good in the world.
I'll meet you in Memphis and we'll have a fried peanut, butter and banana sandwich.
How's that sounds amazing? Eadie hand thank you so much, lovely to speak to you.
Lovely to speak to you. And if you tell your fans if they'd like to learn more, they could go to eadihand dot com and check out what we're doing.
You're doing great work. Eadie hand e d I E hand h A n d dot com is the website dy of course businesswoman speaker does media, writes books, does it all. And of course the cousin of Elvis Presley. Beautiful, Thank you, Edie, You're a star. Lovely this speak to you. Thank you for that. Oh definitely, I will give you a buzz very soon. And yeah, we'd love to chat about your life more in detail. That would be excellent.
And hey, you found a way to get me booked there. Maybe somebody have me there. We could create something big, yes, and do some kind of fun fundraiser.
Well yeah, yeah, well we have we have like a writer's week here, so they often invite authors out. So no, I certainly put that forward. But yeah, I mean you could do this tour in two seconds in Australia because such is the fever and interest in Elvis that you know, you've got a fan base wherever you go. So I think I might have sent you on that Facebook link. There's a guy who lives out of here, just in a small country town. There's not a single spot of his house that doesn't have something Elvis on it. It's almost, yeah, it's borderline creepy, I'll be honest. Like he lifts the toilet seat and there's Elvis on the toilet. It's like, man, you know, like at least have one part of the home that's not adorned with the King.
Now now he's he is beyond obsessed. I have met one or two of those people in my life.
I'm sure there's a few of those around Eightie, Thanks so much, lovely to see you have a great night. All the best care see you
