24. In 1959, while serving overseas in Germany, Elvis (then 24 years old) met his future wife, 14 year-old Priscilla Beaulieu. They were married 8 years later.
Elvis Presley, one of our great pop culture icons, was found unresponsive on the bathroom floor at his home, Graceland, in Memphis on August 16, 1977. He was officially pronounced dead at 3:30 pm at Baptist Memorial Hospital. What took his life at 42?
The coroner recorded the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia, a condition that can be determined only in someone who is still alive. This has caused claims of a cover-up. What was not recorded was Elvis’s addiction to the drugs codeine, Valium, morphine, and Demerol, just to name a few. While Presley’s main physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, was exonerated of criminal liability for the singer’s death, the facts were startling. The Tennessee Medical Board, which investigated the case, found that Nichopoulos had prescribed Presley more than 10,000 doses of narcotics, amphetamines, and sedatives, and that was just in the first 8 months of 1977. The medical board suspended Nichopoulos for 3 months, and in 1995, his license was permanently revoked.
In 1994, coroner Dr. Joseph Davis reopened the Presley autopsy and stated “There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack.” Polypharmacy undoubtedly contributed to Elvis’s premature death, even if it was not the final cause.
Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden views the situation as more complex: “Elvis had had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a judgment call.”
Nichopoulos, who acted as Elvis’s personal physician for the last 12 years of his life, claims chronic constipation killed Elvis in his bookThe King and Dr. Nick.
In a 2010 Fox News interview, he stated, “We didn’t realize until the autopsy that his constipation was as bad-we knew it was because it was hard for us to treat, but we didn’t realize what it had done.”
According his autopsy, the diameter of Elvis’s colon was 5 to 6 inches, which is about double the size of the typical person’s, and instead of being 4 to 5 feet long, his colon was 8 to 9 feet in length.
“We found stool in his colon which had been there for four or five months because of the poor motility of the bowel.”
Nichopoulos noted that Elvis had inherited a condition called bowel paralysis, which made defecating difficult.
“He would get embarrassed,” he said. “He’d have accidents onstage. He’d have to change clothes and come back because of the way we were trying to treat his constipation.”
Treating the problem correctly in the early 1970s would have necessitated performing a colostomy. Elvis didn’t want to have anything to do with it. “If they had done the colostomy then, he’d probably still be here,” Nichopoulos said.
Presley’s funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday, August 18. Approximately 80,000 people lined the processional route to Forest Hill Cemetery. Outside the gates, a car plowed into a group of fans, killing 2 women and critically injuring a third. Presley was buried next to his mother. Later in August, there was an attempt to steal “The King’s” body, which prompted authorities to exhume and rebury the remains of both Elvis Presley and his mother in Graceland’s Meditation Garden.
The coroner recorded the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia, a condition that can be determined only in someone who is still alive. This has caused claims of a cover-up. What was not recorded was Elvis’s addiction to the drugs codeine, Valium, morphine, and Demerol, just to name a few. While Presley’s main physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, was exonerated of criminal liability for the singer’s death, the facts were startling. The Tennessee Medical Board, which investigated the case, found that Nichopoulos had prescribed Presley more than 10,000 doses of narcotics, amphetamines, and sedatives, and that was just in the first 8 months of 1977. The medical board suspended Nichopoulos for 3 months, and in 1995, his license was permanently revoked.
In 1994, coroner Dr. Joseph Davis reopened the Presley autopsy and stated “There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack.” Polypharmacy undoubtedly contributed to Elvis’s premature death, even if it was not the final cause.
Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden views the situation as more complex: “Elvis had had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a judgment call.”
Nichopoulos, who acted as Elvis’s personal physician for the last 12 years of his life, claims chronic constipation killed Elvis in his bookThe King and Dr. Nick.
In a 2010 Fox News interview, he stated, “We didn’t realize until the autopsy that his constipation was as bad-we knew it was because it was hard for us to treat, but we didn’t realize what it had done.”
According his autopsy, the diameter of Elvis’s colon was 5 to 6 inches, which is about double the size of the typical person’s, and instead of being 4 to 5 feet long, his colon was 8 to 9 feet in length.
“We found stool in his colon which had been there for four or five months because of the poor motility of the bowel.”
Nichopoulos noted that Elvis had inherited a condition called bowel paralysis, which made defecating difficult.
“He would get embarrassed,” he said. “He’d have accidents onstage. He’d have to change clothes and come back because of the way we were trying to treat his constipation.”
Treating the problem correctly in the early 1970s would have necessitated performing a colostomy. Elvis didn’t want to have anything to do with it. “If they had done the colostomy then, he’d probably still be here,” Nichopoulos said.
Presley’s funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday, August 18. Approximately 80,000 people lined the processional route to Forest Hill Cemetery. Outside the gates, a car plowed into a group of fans, killing 2 women and critically injuring a third. Presley was buried next to his mother. Later in August, there was an attempt to steal “The King’s” body, which prompted authorities to exhume and rebury the remains of both Elvis Presley and his mother in Graceland’s Meditation Garden.
Elvis Presley would have turned 79 today, so here are 79 fun facts about The King!
1. Elvis’ famous black hair was dyed – his natural color was brown. Presley used Miss Clairol 51 D, “Black Velvet.”
2. He also dyed his eyelashes, which caused health problems later in life.
4. In 1947, a local radio show offered a young Elvis (age 12) a chance to sing live on air, but he was too shy.
5. The first time Elvis recorded, it was for his mother. He paid $4 to Sun Studio to press two songs — My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.
6. In 1954, Elvis auditioned for a gospel quartet named the Songf
7. That same year, a local radio DJ played Elvis’ version of That’s All Right. He went on to play it 13 more times that day, but had trouble convincing his audience that Elvis was white.
8. His breakthrough hit was Heartbreak Hotel, released in 1956 – a song inspired by a newspaper article about a local suicide.
10. A Florida judge called Elvis “a savage” that same year because he said that his music was “undermining the youth.” He was subsequently forbidden from shaking his body at a gig, so he waggled his finger instead in protest.
12. Elvis had a slight stutter.
13. Col. Parker is said to have always had an eye for talent and for a quick buck – prior to managing Elvis, Parker reportedly painted sparrows yellow to sell them as canaries.
14. After Elvis’ first TV appearance in 1956, Jackie Gleason said, “The kid has no right behaving like a sex maniac on a national show.”
15. Elvis was 6 feet tall and wore a size 11 shoe.
16. Recording Hound Dog in the studio, Elvis reportedly demanded 31 takes.
17. Elvis bought his mansion, Graceland, in Memphis, TN in 1957 for $100,000. It was named by its previous owner after his daughter, Grace.
18. Performing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” in Las Vegas in 1969, Elvis did one of his frequent lyric changes to amuse himself. Instead of “Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?”, he sang “Do you look at your bald head and wish you had hair?”
19. In 1965, Elvis talked about entering a monastery.
21. Cultural historian Gilbert B. Rodman argues that the album’s cover image, “of Elvis having the time of his life on stage with a guitar in his hands played a crucial role in positioning the guitar … as the instrument that best captured the style and spirit of this new music.
22. In 1956, he began his film career with a western, Love Me Tender. His second film, Loving You, featured his parents as audience members. Following his mother’s death in 1957, he never watched the film again. He went on to make a total of 31 movies in his career.
23. In December 1957, Elvis was drafted into the U.S. Army, earning a $78 monthly salary. During his brief two-year stint on active duty, he was unable to access his music-generated income of $400,000.
26. Research shows that “Elvis” is one of the most popular passwords for computers.
27. He hated fish and wouldn’t allow Priscilla to eat it at Graceland.
28. Elvis’ first appearance on The Steve Allen Show, on September 9, 1956, was seen by approximately 60 million viewers — a record 82.6 percent of the television audience.
29. Elvis’ 1960 hit “It’s Now or Never” so
30. Elvis started wearing a chai necklace because his mother, Gladys’ maternal grandmother was Jewish — the reason he added a Star of David on his mother’s gravestone.
31. Elvis and Priscilla’s only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was born in 1968. Lisa Marie later married Michael Jackson and actor (and Elvis obsessive) Nicholas Cage. Mr. Cage is reportedly the only person outside of Presley’s immediate family to have ever seen Elvis’ Graceland bedroom.
32. Following his divorce from Priscilla in 1972, Elvis was said to have allowed ‘good-looking girls’ who waited outside Graceland to enter afterhours.
33. In the 1970s, Elvis would start every concert with Also Sprach Zarathustra, a 19th-century Richard Strauss tone poem and the theme of the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
34. Elvis’ popularity faded in the 1960′s with the rise of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and others. He successfully relaunched his career with a 1968 television special that came about because Elvis had walked down a busy Los Angeles street and had no one recognize or approach him.
35. He was distantly related to former U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jimmy Carter.
37. Elvis recorded more than 600 songs, but did not write any of them.
38. Last year, Elvis was second in the Forbes list of top-earning dead musicians behind Michael Jackson.
39. His estimated earnings for 2012 were $55 million.
40. The name Elvis comes from an Old Norse word meaning SSLqall wise’.
41. Although Elvis’s middle name on his birth certificate was ‘Aron’, his grave has it as ‘Aaron’, which was his own preferred spelling.
42. Elvis had a pet chimp called Scatter, which developed a taste for Scotch and bourbon.
43. It’s not clear where Scatter is buried. Some think the hard-drinking animal died of liver disease; others say he was poisoned by a maid he had bitten.
44. Elvis had a pet turkey. His name was Bowtie.
45. He also owned a basset hound, two great Danes, a chow chow, a Pomeranian, several horses, some donkeys, some peacocks and guinea hens, ducks, chickens, a chimpanzee, a monkey and a mynah bird.
46. His golden palomino quarter horse, Rising Sun, is buried at Graceland.
47. St Elvis is a small parish in Pembrokeshire named after the Irish bishop St Ailbe, also known as Elvis of Munster, who died in 528.
48. After receiving a kidnap-assassination threat, Elvis performed with a pistol in each of his boots.
49. The minor planet 17059 Elvis was discovered by Australian astronomer John Broughton in 1999 and named after Elvis Presley.
51. Elvis’s only TV commercial was for Southern Made Doughnuts in 1954. His only line of dialogue was: You get ‘em piping hot after 4am.
52. At the age of 36, Elvis Presley became the youngest recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement
53. His entourage was referred to as the Memphis Mafia. All members wore diamond and gold rings with the letters TCB imprinted which stood for “Take Care of Business.”
54. Despite his huge worldly following, Elvis only performed 5 shows outside the US and all of them were in Canada.
55. Actor Nicolas Cage, who was briefly married to Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley, was the only person aside from Presley’s immediate family to see the inside of Elvis’s Graceland bedroom.
56. Here’s what Elvis and President Richard Nixon said during their 1970 meeting: “You dress kind of strange, don’t you?” Nixon said, to which Elvis responded, “Well, Mr. President, you got your show, and I got mine.”
57. The meeting was a secret until the Washington Post broke the story a year later.
59. Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’ personal, business and financial manager, handled Elvis’ entire career from beginning to end.
60. Approximately 600,000 people visit Elvis’s home, Graceland, each year. Graceland was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
61. The alphabet positions of the letters in ‘Presley’’ add up to 100.
62. He was nominated for 14 Grammys and won three, receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36.
63. B.B. King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular, when they both used to frequent Beale Street. By the time he graduated from high school in June 1953, Presley had already singled out music as his future.
64. The first post-death Presley spotting was in Kalamazoo, Mich., where a woman said she saw him in a grocery store and at a Burger King.
65. When first motion picture, Love Me Tender, was released, he was not top billed.
66. The film’s original title — The Reno Brothers — was changed to capitalize on his latest number one record: “Love Me Tender” had hit the top of the charts earlier that month. Elvis would receive top billing on every subsequent film he made.
67. In his first full year at RCA, one of the music industry’s largest companies, Presley had accounted for over 50 percent of the label’s singles sales.
69. Several of Elvis’ family members had been alcoholics, a fate he intended to avoid.
70. In 1971, an affair Elvis had with Joyce Bova resulted—unbeknownst to him—in her pregnancy and an abortion.
71. Elvis was scheduled to fly out of Memphis on the evening of August 16, 1977, to begin a
72. Between 1977 and 1981, six posthumously released singles by Elvis were top ten country hits.
73. A Junkie XL remix of Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” (credited as “Elvis Vs JXL”) was used in a Nike advertising campaign during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It topped the charts in over 20 countries.
74. Elvis holds the records for most songs charting in Billboard’s top 40 and top 100: chart statistician Joel Whitburn calculates the respective totals as 104 and 151.
76. Although some pronounce his surname “PREZ-lee”, Presley himself used the pronunciation of the American South, “PRESS-lee”, as did his family and those who worked with him.
77. VH1 ranked Presley No. 8 among the “100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll” in 1998. The BBC ranked him as the No. 2 “Voice of the Century” in 2001. Rolling Stone placed him No. 3 in its list of “The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time” in 2004. CMT ranked him No. 15 among the “40 Greatest Men in Country Music” in 2005. The Discovery Channel placed him No. 8 on its “Greatest American” list in 2005. Variety put him in the top ten of its “100 Icons of the Century” in 2005. The Atlantic Monthly ranked him No. 66 among the “100 Most Influential Figures in American History” in 2006.
78. Elvis died at his Memphis home, Graceland, on August 16, 1977.
79. Two trademark phrases: “Thank ya!” and “Thank ya’ very much!”
Last hours before Elvis presley´s death
August 16, 1977 - Last hours before Elvis Presley´s death
12:00 midnight: Elvis and his girlfriend Ginger Alden return to Graceland after a 10:30 pm dentist's appointment with Dr. Hofman.
2:30 am: Elvis calls his doctor to ask for painkillers, supposedly for the tooth pain he was enduring due to his earlier trip to the dentist. Ricky Stanley, Elvis' stepbrother, picks up six Dilaudid pills for Elvis from the all-night pharmacy at Baptist Memorial Hospital.
4:00 am: Elvis gets his first cousin Billy Smith and wife, Jo, up from bed so that they can play a game of racquetball with him. Presley, as anticipated, plays the game while barely moving.
4:30 am: Elvis sits at his piano and performs two unidentified gospel numbers and the song "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."
5:00 am: Elvis and Ginger go up to Elvis' bedroom. He takes a package of pills put together by his doctor for twice-daily use.
7:00 am: Elvis takes a second package of pills.
8:00 am: Unable to sleep, Elvis has his Aunt Delta Mae Biggs bring him a third package of pills.
9:30 am: Elvis heads for the bathroom carrying the book, Frank Adams' The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. While on his way, Ginger calls out "Don't fall asleep in there." "Okay, I won't," are Elvis' last words.
1:30 pm: Ginger gets no reply when she knocks on the bathroom door. She then enters and finds Elvis' motionless body on the floor in front of the toilet. She frantically calls out for Elvis' associates Al Strada and Joe Esposito, who quickly arrive and call an ambulance.
2:56 pm: Elvis Presley arrives via ambulance to the Baptist Medical Center in Memphis.
3:30 pm: Elvis pronounced dead. - Elvis Presley Death
4:00 pm: On the steps of Graceland, Elvis' father Vernon Presley tells the gathered reporters: "My son is dead."
2:30 am: Elvis calls his doctor to ask for painkillers, supposedly for the tooth pain he was enduring due to his earlier trip to the dentist. Ricky Stanley, Elvis' stepbrother, picks up six Dilaudid pills for Elvis from the all-night pharmacy at Baptist Memorial Hospital.
4:00 am: Elvis gets his first cousin Billy Smith and wife, Jo, up from bed so that they can play a game of racquetball with him. Presley, as anticipated, plays the game while barely moving.
4:30 am: Elvis sits at his piano and performs two unidentified gospel numbers and the song "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."
5:00 am: Elvis and Ginger go up to Elvis' bedroom. He takes a package of pills put together by his doctor for twice-daily use.
7:00 am: Elvis takes a second package of pills.
8:00 am: Unable to sleep, Elvis has his Aunt Delta Mae Biggs bring him a third package of pills.
9:30 am: Elvis heads for the bathroom carrying the book, Frank Adams' The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. While on his way, Ginger calls out "Don't fall asleep in there." "Okay, I won't," are Elvis' last words.
1:30 pm: Ginger gets no reply when she knocks on the bathroom door. She then enters and finds Elvis' motionless body on the floor in front of the toilet. She frantically calls out for Elvis' associates Al Strada and Joe Esposito, who quickly arrive and call an ambulance.
2:56 pm: Elvis Presley arrives via ambulance to the Baptist Medical Center in Memphis.
3:30 pm: Elvis pronounced dead. - Elvis Presley Death
4:00 pm: On the steps of Graceland, Elvis' father Vernon Presley tells the gathered reporters: "My son is dead."
The Death Of Elvis Presley - Last Hours
Elvis Death August 16, 1977
Last Photo Before Elvis Presley´s Death
Elvis Presley´s last known photo before death.
August 16, 1977 - 12.28 a. m.
Last known photo Elvis Presley alive!
The Death Of Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley´s Last Hours - The Death - The Autopsy:
On Monday, August 15th, Elvis arose late, as was his custom. (The Memphis Commercial Appeal's editorial on his passing noted that "if he kept late hours, he also kept the peace."(After nightfall, he took one of his Stutz-Bearcats out for a drive through Memphis. After returning to Graceland he went to his racquet ball court and played until about six a.m. Tuesday, August 16th.
At 2:33 p.m. the call came to the Memphis Fire Department's Engine House No. 29 on 2147 Elvis Presley Boulevard. The call, from Elvis' road manager Joe Esposito, said that someone was having trouble breathing at Graceland. That is not an unusual complaint, since fans often faint outside the Presley mansion. Charlie Crosby and Ulysses S. Jones Jr. jumped into Unit No. 6, a "Modular Rev Ambulance" -- an orange and white boxlike structure affixed to a GMC chassis--turned on the siren and headed south. At 3746 Elvis Presley Boulevard (no one here calls it just Presley or just Elvis) the ambulance was led up the winding driveway of Graceland by a waiting car.
Crosby and Jones were brought upstairs, where Presley was lying on the floor of his bathroom. His personal doctor. George Nichopoulos was administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
They put Elvis, in his blue pajamas, into Unit No. 6 and sped north on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Crosby was driving and Jones was helping with revival attempts in the back. A number of Elvis' employees followed. They turned left on Union and raced to Baptist Memorial Hospital's emergency room entrance, just four-tenths of a mile east of the original Sun Records studio at 706 Union -- now a vacant and padlocked yellow, one-story building -- where Elvis first recorded. "Breathe, Presley, breathe!" the Commercial Appeal quoted his doctor as saying on the way to the hospital. It was more than too late. Presley's body was already blue.
Even so, at 2:56 p.m. he was rushed into the emergency room, which was then closed to all other cases. A "Harvey Team," which is trained in all means of reviving a dying person, worked on him without success. Dr. Nichopoulos finally pronounced Elvis Presley dead at 3:30 p.m.
His body, which was becoming bloated, was moved to the hospital morgue on the second floor. The morgue was sealed off by tight security and the preliminary autopsy began, with every important doctor in the hospital present. Also called in was Dr. Jerry Francisco, the Shelby County medical examiner. Their preliminary ruling was cardiac arrhythmia and hardening of the arteries.
"Elvis had the arteries of an eighty-year-old man," a Baptist Hospital employee said. "His body was just worn out. His arteries and veins were terribly corroded."
"He had been hospitalized here on five occasions," the employee said. "Usually, he would go home to Graceland first. But the last time, in April, they flew him directly here from Louisiana. Every time, the security got tighter. This time, when he was dead, it was tight.
"An autopsy usually takes twenty-four hours. Usually, any vital organs that are removed for study are returned and put into a bag and dropped into the coffin before burial. But not in Elvis' case. His brain, his heart, his liver, his kidneys and all the rest have been kept out for tests here." (Maurice Elliott, Baptist Hospital's vice-president, said, "All organs were removed, and that is not unusual." Elliott added that "we don't have a definite cause of death yet, and as the coroner, Dr. [Jerry] Francisco said, we may never know the exact cause of death. Since Dr. Francisco ruled death by natural causes, it then became a private case. So, all autopsy findings will be referred to the family and then any public announcement of the results will be up to the family.")
"He was hospitalized here from April 1st to 6th of this year, after cutting short a tour. And Elvis was here for two weeks in January and February of '75, for two weeks in August and September of '75, for two weeks in October of '73, the hospital employee said. "They were treating him for everything -- hypertension, enlarged colon, gastroenteritis stomach inflammation. He was getting cortisone treatments, and I heard that was for arthritis, but our doctor said Elvis might have had systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus is an extremely rare, chronic inflammation of the nervous systems kidneys and skin. It is treated with cortisone. He also had a severe liver condition. Cortisone might have explained his weight -- he was a big man; he was weighing at least 230 pounds."
Doctors at Baptist Memorial discounted the lupus theory and said final autopsy results may not be known for weeks.
Elvis' body was removed by hearse from Baptist Memorial at 8:10 p.m. and taken up Union to the Memphis Funeral Home for embalming. The nest morning he was taken to the foyer of Graceland to lie in state.
Almost immediately after his death was announced at four p.m. on Tuesday, mourners began gathering outside Graceland, a surprisingly modest, eighteen-room former church that Elvis bought for his mother in 1957.
To reach Graceland you head south on Elvis Presley Boulevard, that portion of Bellevue which was renamed after Memphis' favorite son in 1972, and pass through a steadily deteriorating neighborhood past Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown where his mother, Gladys Smith Presley, was buried in 1958, also at the age of forty-two, past Denny's Restaurant, past an open field of eleven acres that Elvis owns, and there, at 3746, is a low, rock fence with a jagged top, a white iron gate and a red brick gatehouse to guard Elvis' privacy.
Elvis' father, Vernon, had decided to let the mourners file past the open casket in Graceland from three to five p.m. on Wednesday, and the crush of humanity out on Elvis Presley Boulevard had become fearsome. Literally miles of mourners stretched in both directions, waiting for a last glimpse. Is was as comprehensive a cross section of America as one could ever wish to see: bikers, businessmen, children, Shriners in clown shirts and phalanxes of middle-aged women, many of them sobbing.
The grounds of Graceland Christian Church, which is Elvis' neighbor on the north (on the south is the podiatry clinic), were soon littered with soft-drink cans and film wrappers. The church's trees were snapping under the weight of people trying to see beyond the rock fence. And the shopping center across the street from Graceland quickly overflowed with cars and people and souvenir vendors. A woman leaned against she signpost for "Mr. Toy of America" and openly sobbed as she listened to "Love Me Tender" coming from a nearby car radio.
Inside the grounds, once you got past the press compound and the roped off medical area, the pastoral quiet was stunning. At the top of the circular sloping driveway there were more flowers than one could count: dozens of floral guitars and hound dogs and hearts. Eventually, a hundred vans decreed 3166 floral arrangements sent by everyone from the Soviet Union to Elton John to the Memphis Police Department.
Graceland is an understated, two-story white brick colonial building. Two massive, white stone lions flank the doorway. Behind them Air National Guardsmen stood at stiff attention. Just inside the foyer, Elvis was laid out in a 900-pound copper-lined coffin underneath a crystal chandelier. White linen was spread on the floor and grim, silent bodyguards were fanned out around the room. Elvis was dressed is a pure white suit, light blue shirt and white tie. The face was riveting: terribly pale and puffy but still handsome. The woman just in front of me in line, when she saw that face, sagged visibly as though she has just taken a bullet. Her sobs were the only sounds in the room.
In the midst of the plainness and glory of death, kids were skateboarding right beside a crying girl who was clutching at least twenty-five copies of the Press-Scimitar with its headline: A LONELY LIFE ENDS ON ELVIS PE5LEY BOULEVARD. Other kids were scouting she parking lot with shopping bags, looking for returnable soft-drink bottles.
At fine p.m. a gentle rain began but no one was about to leave. The gates were to close then, but the police had to deal with about 10,000 people. Finally the order can't from "the family": she gates would be shut at 6:30. They were. In seemed touch-and-go for a while--an awesome crowd surged at the gates amid boos and tears and sobs. Eventually, the crowd gave up. The rock wall facing on Elvis Presley Boulevard is low enough to jump over but no one tried.
The last people in line were Mike and Cheryl Smelser, of Memphis. How did it feel to be last in line? "Right now it does not feel all that good," said Mike.
The crowds outside Graceland did not let up. In the early morning hours of Thursday, August 18th, the first two Elvis Presley-related fatalities occurred. At four a.m., Alice Hovatar and Juanita Johnson, both from Monroe, Louisiana, and Tammy Baiter of St. Clair, Missouri, went out to the median strip of Elvis Presley Boulevard to talk to Officer W. C. Greenwood. Alice said to him, "I can't believe he's dead." Then, according so witnesses a 1963 white Ford driven by a man identified as Treatise Wheeler, eighteen, headed south slowly and did a sudden U-turn in the shopping center parking lot in front of the Hickory Log. Tires smoking, the Ford headed north straight far the median strip, at 50 mph. Officer Greenwood threw his flashlight at the windshield bar is was too late.
The car hit the three girls and tossed them like matchsticks. Johnson and Hovatar, their bodies mangled beyond recognition, died instantly. Baiter remains in critical condition. Officers immediately arrested Wheeler.
Wheeler appeared in court on Friday and, after his mother said that he had mental problems, was held without bail.
About the same time, 1700 copies of the Commercial-Appeal were stolen and were being hawked at prices ranging up to five dollars.
On Monday, August 15th, Elvis arose late, as was his custom. (The Memphis Commercial Appeal's editorial on his passing noted that "if he kept late hours, he also kept the peace."(After nightfall, he took one of his Stutz-Bearcats out for a drive through Memphis. After returning to Graceland he went to his racquet ball court and played until about six a.m. Tuesday, August 16th.
At 2:33 p.m. the call came to the Memphis Fire Department's Engine House No. 29 on 2147 Elvis Presley Boulevard. The call, from Elvis' road manager Joe Esposito, said that someone was having trouble breathing at Graceland. That is not an unusual complaint, since fans often faint outside the Presley mansion. Charlie Crosby and Ulysses S. Jones Jr. jumped into Unit No. 6, a "Modular Rev Ambulance" -- an orange and white boxlike structure affixed to a GMC chassis--turned on the siren and headed south. At 3746 Elvis Presley Boulevard (no one here calls it just Presley or just Elvis) the ambulance was led up the winding driveway of Graceland by a waiting car.
Crosby and Jones were brought upstairs, where Presley was lying on the floor of his bathroom. His personal doctor. George Nichopoulos was administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
They put Elvis, in his blue pajamas, into Unit No. 6 and sped north on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Crosby was driving and Jones was helping with revival attempts in the back. A number of Elvis' employees followed. They turned left on Union and raced to Baptist Memorial Hospital's emergency room entrance, just four-tenths of a mile east of the original Sun Records studio at 706 Union -- now a vacant and padlocked yellow, one-story building -- where Elvis first recorded. "Breathe, Presley, breathe!" the Commercial Appeal quoted his doctor as saying on the way to the hospital. It was more than too late. Presley's body was already blue.
Even so, at 2:56 p.m. he was rushed into the emergency room, which was then closed to all other cases. A "Harvey Team," which is trained in all means of reviving a dying person, worked on him without success. Dr. Nichopoulos finally pronounced Elvis Presley dead at 3:30 p.m.
His body, which was becoming bloated, was moved to the hospital morgue on the second floor. The morgue was sealed off by tight security and the preliminary autopsy began, with every important doctor in the hospital present. Also called in was Dr. Jerry Francisco, the Shelby County medical examiner. Their preliminary ruling was cardiac arrhythmia and hardening of the arteries.
"Elvis had the arteries of an eighty-year-old man," a Baptist Hospital employee said. "His body was just worn out. His arteries and veins were terribly corroded."
"He had been hospitalized here on five occasions," the employee said. "Usually, he would go home to Graceland first. But the last time, in April, they flew him directly here from Louisiana. Every time, the security got tighter. This time, when he was dead, it was tight.
"An autopsy usually takes twenty-four hours. Usually, any vital organs that are removed for study are returned and put into a bag and dropped into the coffin before burial. But not in Elvis' case. His brain, his heart, his liver, his kidneys and all the rest have been kept out for tests here." (Maurice Elliott, Baptist Hospital's vice-president, said, "All organs were removed, and that is not unusual." Elliott added that "we don't have a definite cause of death yet, and as the coroner, Dr. [Jerry] Francisco said, we may never know the exact cause of death. Since Dr. Francisco ruled death by natural causes, it then became a private case. So, all autopsy findings will be referred to the family and then any public announcement of the results will be up to the family.")
"He was hospitalized here from April 1st to 6th of this year, after cutting short a tour. And Elvis was here for two weeks in January and February of '75, for two weeks in August and September of '75, for two weeks in October of '73, the hospital employee said. "They were treating him for everything -- hypertension, enlarged colon, gastroenteritis stomach inflammation. He was getting cortisone treatments, and I heard that was for arthritis, but our doctor said Elvis might have had systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus is an extremely rare, chronic inflammation of the nervous systems kidneys and skin. It is treated with cortisone. He also had a severe liver condition. Cortisone might have explained his weight -- he was a big man; he was weighing at least 230 pounds."
Doctors at Baptist Memorial discounted the lupus theory and said final autopsy results may not be known for weeks.
Elvis' body was removed by hearse from Baptist Memorial at 8:10 p.m. and taken up Union to the Memphis Funeral Home for embalming. The nest morning he was taken to the foyer of Graceland to lie in state.
Almost immediately after his death was announced at four p.m. on Tuesday, mourners began gathering outside Graceland, a surprisingly modest, eighteen-room former church that Elvis bought for his mother in 1957.
To reach Graceland you head south on Elvis Presley Boulevard, that portion of Bellevue which was renamed after Memphis' favorite son in 1972, and pass through a steadily deteriorating neighborhood past Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown where his mother, Gladys Smith Presley, was buried in 1958, also at the age of forty-two, past Denny's Restaurant, past an open field of eleven acres that Elvis owns, and there, at 3746, is a low, rock fence with a jagged top, a white iron gate and a red brick gatehouse to guard Elvis' privacy.
Elvis' father, Vernon, had decided to let the mourners file past the open casket in Graceland from three to five p.m. on Wednesday, and the crush of humanity out on Elvis Presley Boulevard had become fearsome. Literally miles of mourners stretched in both directions, waiting for a last glimpse. Is was as comprehensive a cross section of America as one could ever wish to see: bikers, businessmen, children, Shriners in clown shirts and phalanxes of middle-aged women, many of them sobbing.
The grounds of Graceland Christian Church, which is Elvis' neighbor on the north (on the south is the podiatry clinic), were soon littered with soft-drink cans and film wrappers. The church's trees were snapping under the weight of people trying to see beyond the rock fence. And the shopping center across the street from Graceland quickly overflowed with cars and people and souvenir vendors. A woman leaned against she signpost for "Mr. Toy of America" and openly sobbed as she listened to "Love Me Tender" coming from a nearby car radio.
Inside the grounds, once you got past the press compound and the roped off medical area, the pastoral quiet was stunning. At the top of the circular sloping driveway there were more flowers than one could count: dozens of floral guitars and hound dogs and hearts. Eventually, a hundred vans decreed 3166 floral arrangements sent by everyone from the Soviet Union to Elton John to the Memphis Police Department.
Graceland is an understated, two-story white brick colonial building. Two massive, white stone lions flank the doorway. Behind them Air National Guardsmen stood at stiff attention. Just inside the foyer, Elvis was laid out in a 900-pound copper-lined coffin underneath a crystal chandelier. White linen was spread on the floor and grim, silent bodyguards were fanned out around the room. Elvis was dressed is a pure white suit, light blue shirt and white tie. The face was riveting: terribly pale and puffy but still handsome. The woman just in front of me in line, when she saw that face, sagged visibly as though she has just taken a bullet. Her sobs were the only sounds in the room.
In the midst of the plainness and glory of death, kids were skateboarding right beside a crying girl who was clutching at least twenty-five copies of the Press-Scimitar with its headline: A LONELY LIFE ENDS ON ELVIS PE5LEY BOULEVARD. Other kids were scouting she parking lot with shopping bags, looking for returnable soft-drink bottles.
At fine p.m. a gentle rain began but no one was about to leave. The gates were to close then, but the police had to deal with about 10,000 people. Finally the order can't from "the family": she gates would be shut at 6:30. They were. In seemed touch-and-go for a while--an awesome crowd surged at the gates amid boos and tears and sobs. Eventually, the crowd gave up. The rock wall facing on Elvis Presley Boulevard is low enough to jump over but no one tried.
The last people in line were Mike and Cheryl Smelser, of Memphis. How did it feel to be last in line? "Right now it does not feel all that good," said Mike.
The crowds outside Graceland did not let up. In the early morning hours of Thursday, August 18th, the first two Elvis Presley-related fatalities occurred. At four a.m., Alice Hovatar and Juanita Johnson, both from Monroe, Louisiana, and Tammy Baiter of St. Clair, Missouri, went out to the median strip of Elvis Presley Boulevard to talk to Officer W. C. Greenwood. Alice said to him, "I can't believe he's dead." Then, according so witnesses a 1963 white Ford driven by a man identified as Treatise Wheeler, eighteen, headed south slowly and did a sudden U-turn in the shopping center parking lot in front of the Hickory Log. Tires smoking, the Ford headed north straight far the median strip, at 50 mph. Officer Greenwood threw his flashlight at the windshield bar is was too late.
The car hit the three girls and tossed them like matchsticks. Johnson and Hovatar, their bodies mangled beyond recognition, died instantly. Baiter remains in critical condition. Officers immediately arrested Wheeler.
Wheeler appeared in court on Friday and, after his mother said that he had mental problems, was held without bail.
About the same time, 1700 copies of the Commercial-Appeal were stolen and were being hawked at prices ranging up to five dollars.
Elvis Presley Death Photo In Coffin
Photo of Elvis death in coffin
Death Elvis in coffin
Last photo of death Elvis in coffin - is it real?
Enquirer - Last picture of death Elvis in coffin - is it real?
Elvis Presley´s Death Autopsy Photo
The Death Of Elvis Presley - Autopsy Photo
Elvis Presley´s autopsy - Originally article appeared in the Salt Lake City Tribune on January 29th, 1978:
Toxicologists based at the University of Utah have
completed laboratory studies of autopsy specimens from the body of Elvis
Presley and have found that 11 drugs were present in the singer's
system at the time of his death, The Tribune has learned.
All of those drugs were consistent with medical
treatment, said the director of the Center for Human Toxicology, Dr.
Bryan S. Finkle. He spoke to The Tribune in an exclusive interview. The
Center had been called in to provide a third toxicological analysis of
typical autopsy specimens from Presley's body.
He reported, "We have not detected any drug in Elvis
that doesn't have a medical rationale to it - only agents prescribed for
perfectly normal, rational medical reasons."
Dr. Finkle said the singer had not been drinking
prior to his sudden death, which reportedly was blamed on an erratic
heartbeat, last Aug. 16. Efforts by the Tribune to obtain a copy of the
report by the Center for Human Toxicology have not been successful.
The Center received the first of the autopsy
specimens on Oct. 4, and when The Tribune learned of this Dr. Finkle
postponed requested interviews for professional reasons as he was acting
in a consultant's role and in that, cannot talk in specifics.
He spoke, when interviewed, in general that, yes, he
had been involved in the case and that he found 11 drugs, all consistent
with medical treatment. Of course, that the entertainer did have
prescription drugs in Elvis Presley´s system at the time of death has
previously been reported. Most accounts mentioned from eight to 10
drugs.
The Center for Human Toxicology, which has an
international reputation among toxicologists and forensic scientists,
was the third organization called in in this phase of the Presley
autopsy. The others were the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis,
Tenn.,and Bio-Science Laboratories, Van Nuys, Calif. Bio-Science
requested the Center of Human Toxicology conduct the third examination,
said Dr. Finkle.
While certain agencies, including the center based at
the University of Utah, and the Shelby County, Tennessee, Medical
Examiner's Office, involved in this story receive public monies, it
appears unlikely that there will be disclosure of specifics about the
toxicological analysis. The autopsy performed was done at the request of
the Presley family.
In a nutshell, rights of privacy prevail and the
parties appear to have no legal duty and are not compelled to disclose
certain documents, in particular the toxicological report of the Center
for Human Toxicology.
Dr. Finkle, as a consultant in the Elvis Presley
case, said he wrote a two-page report based on his findings at the
request of Bio-Science. In it he lists the found drugs, their
concentrations and he concludes with an opinion as to the potential or
possible toxicological consequences of having this number of drugs in
these concentrations in a body.
The laboratory results here apparently satisfied
Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Jerry T. Francisco that Elvis
Presley's death could not be attributed to drug overdose. However , it
was learned that the death certificate was signed before the final
Finkle report was mailed. Dr. Finkle's opinion was solicited earlier by a
phone call, and Dr. Francisco later said publicly that the
prescriptions drugs found in the singer's system were not a contributing
factor.
The Associated Press, reporting on a press conference
Dr. Francisco called last Oct. 21, quoted the medical examiner as
saying that four drugs were found in significant quantities in the
entertainer's bloodstream.
They are Ethinamate, Methaqualone, codeine and
barbiturates. The first two are sedatives; codeine is a narcotic
analgesic or milder, secondary pain killer, and barbiturates are
"downers" or sedatives or depressants. Dr. Francisco was quoted as
saying that four other drugs-the antihistamine chlorpheniramine,
meperidine, morphine and Valium-were found in what were said to be
insignificant amounts.
Meperidine and morphine are pain killers and Valium
is a tranquilizer. Presley was not taking morphine ; the morphine was a
byproduct of the codeine. The AP said Dr. Francisco said the amount of
drugs found in Presley's body, collectively, would not have constituted a
drug overdose. And he said it was unlikely that the drugs' chemical
reactions within the body could have contributed to his death.
He said Elvis Presley died of a heart disease. "Had
these drugs not been there, he still would have died." Dr. Francisco was
quoted as saying that the press conference. But at this time the Finkle
report was not in hand. It was not completed until December.
Nonetheless, the death certificate was signed at a
point-just prior to the release of the Finkle report-where tests were
sufficiently completed so that authorities could conclude that the drugs
did not contribute to the death.
Officially, Dr. Francisco said in Memphis in October
that Elvis Presley's death was caused by hypertensive heart disease with
coronary artery disease as a contributing factor. The autopsy was
conducted by Dr. Eric Muirhead, chief of pathology at Baptist Memorial
Hospital. The autopsy was reportedly most thorough.
While Dr. Finkle would not be specific, he did give
some solid information. He said that he found no Ritalin in the
specimens. Ritalin is a stimulant and a trade name for preparations of
methylphenidate. Dr. Finkle said he had been specifically asked to look
for this drug among other agents.
As a toxicologist and not a medical doctor, Dr.
Finkle will not even remotely discuss or determine cause of death. If he
has an opinion he is keeping it to himself.
The 42-year-old- Elvis Presley was found face down on
the floor of a bathroom at Graceland, his 18-room mansion, at 2:30 p.m.
Aug. 16. He had been last seen alive that day about 6 a.m. after
playing racquet ball with members of his entourage. He was a sick man.
He had hypertension and a colon problem. Efforts to revive the singer
were abandoned that day at 3:30 p.m. at Baptist Memorial Hospital.
The autopsy was reportedly very thorough and careful
with several doctors participating. Dr. Finkle explained that it is
routine in any medical-legal investigation for there to be three facets
to a scene investigation of what were the circumstances surrounding the
death; the medical-legal autopsy, and support investigation in clinical
or toxicological laboratories.
And, the Elvis Presley case was reportedly conducted
along routine lines. When taken to the hospital, there was reportedly
suspicion that Presley died of what might loosely be called a heart
attack; there were signs of cardiac arrest and cardiovascular blood flow
problems. Autopsy specimens were routinely sent to the laboratory, and
it was decided to have two toxicology labs do the work-the hospital's
and Bio-Science. Dr. Finkle said, "as far as I know" there was no
conflict between the two toxicologists, but there was some medical
opinion differences as to what quantitative amounts of the drugs might
mean relative to Elvis Presley's death.
The physician who conducted the autopsy, Dr.
Muirhead, did not respond to a telephone call and letters from The
Tribune. Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco responded that the
autopsy was done at the family request and with family authorization by
the pathology staff of Baptist Memorial Hospital. This separated him
for authorized toxicology studied and he is unauthorized to release any
reports, he said.
"What he have done," said Dr. Finkle, "is to conduct a
routine, complete series of forensic toxicological analyses on
specimens and determine quantitatively what drugs were present in the
victim and in what breakdown and we were asked what this means: is it
germane to Elvis death, did he die of drugs or didn't he?" said Dr.
Finkle.
Elvis Presley's illnesses included hypertension, some
cardiovascular compromise and a colon obstruction. He fought a losing
battle with a weight problem for several years.
"As a toxicologist, if you ask me why he had the
drugs (in Elvis system), the answer is that he needed them medically.
All the drugs were in a range consistent with therapy and therapeutic
requirements for known conditions of illnesses which he had," Dr.
Finkle.
Elvis Presley´s Death - Autopsy Photo Page 1:
Elvis Presley´s Death - Autopsy Photo Page 2:
Elvis Presley´s Funeral Death
Elvis Presley´s Funeral on August 18, 1977
The private funeral an Thursday was plain and simple. Pallbearers were longtime friends Lamar Fike, George Klein and Joe Esposito, guitarist Charlie Hodge, cousins Billy and Gene Smith, Beach Bays road manager Jerry Schilling, personal physician Dr. George Nichopoulos and record producer Felton Jarvis. About 200 persons crowded into and out of Elvis' music room at Graceland at two p.m. to hear remarks by Rex Humbard, the TV evangelist from Akron, Ohio; comedian Jack Kahane, who had opened shows for Elvis; and the Reverend C.W. Bradley, pastor of Memphis' Wooddale Church of Christ. Bradley gave the main eulogy.
Then the caravan, led by a silver Cadillac followed by the white Cadillac hearse with Elvis' body and seventeen white Cadillac limousines, toiled its way past bystanders the two and a half miles to Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown.
A short ceremony followed in the white marble mausoleum where Elvis was entombed at 4:24 p.m. in a sixcrypt family chamber. Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, sat outside an a police motorcycle far a while. Elvis' friends said the Colonel was not letting anyone know how he felt. (There was open speculation that Colonel Parker had earlier canceled his contract with Elvis. Road manager Joe Esposito said that was ridiculous: "I called the Colonel about that. He laughed and said, 'Where do these stories start?' The Colonel's plans are the same today as if Elvis were still here. They had a written contract.")
Vernon Presley stayed with his son after everyone else left the mausoleum and emerged visibly shaken.
Family and friends returned to Graceland for a Southern supper. Vernon Presley decided to give all the flowers to fans, and at 8:25 a.m. Friday the gates to Forest Hill were opened. By 11:30 the flowers were gone.
Elvis' first producer, Sam Phillips of Sun Records fame, said he thought it was possible that Elvis died of a broken heart, since he could never find any true friends. Elvis' last producer, Felton Jarvis, said that maybe Elvis had a death wish and that it wasn't the fans who billed hint, it was the people around him. A young woman named Vicki said, "Hey, all you have to do is stand on any corner here in Whitehaven and you'll find people who've been to parties at his house. High-school girls got new cars from him. He hired a guy just to play racquet ball with him--that was his only job. Elvis always had someone carry his black hag with his 'credentials': that was all his police badges."
After the funeral, after it was all over, the crowds continued to grow outside Graceland. One caravan of six cars arrived late Thursday. Wanda Magyor, thirty-three, of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, jiggled a baby on her hip as she told of her love for Elvis. "We'll stay out here all night just to get into the cemetery. We drove all night to get here. I will get a flower from the cemetery."
One of her companions, Myrtle Smith said, "Thirty of us decided to come down here because there'll never be another one like him. He was the king of everyone and especially of our people. He was the king of the gypsies. He was ours."
Elvis Presley Death Videos Photos
Elvis Presley Death Videos
Elvis Presley - My Way - Elvis Death Funeral
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRzSJ4nNE4
Elvis Presley - He´s Gone But Not Forgotten - Elvis Death Funeral
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley - Cry Like Memphis - Elvis Death Funeral
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley - I Remember Elvis Presley - Elvis Death Funeral
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley - Cause Of Death - Press Conference Dr. Francisco after autopsy
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley Death Photos
Elvis Presley in Coffin Photo
Elvis Presley in coffin photo
Elvis Presley Funeral Photo
Elvis Presley - My Way - Elvis Death Funeral
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRzSJ4nNE4
Elvis Presley - He´s Gone But Not Forgotten - Elvis Death Funeral
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley - Cry Like Memphis - Elvis Death Funeral
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley - I Remember Elvis Presley - Elvis Death Funeral
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley - Cause Of Death - Press Conference Dr. Francisco after autopsy
www.youtube.com/watch
Elvis Presley Death Photos
Elvis Presley in Coffin Photo
Elvis Presley in coffin photo
Elvis Presley Funeral Photo