Elvis Presley
"Until we meet again, may god bless you as he has blessed me."
Elvis Aaron Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi in January 8, 1935. He was an American singer and actor and regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century.
The Beginning
His parents were Gladys Love and Vernon Elvis Presley.
The family attended an Assembly of God church, where he found his initial musical inspiration. His family was so poor that they often relied on government support. In 1938, they lost their home after his dad was found guilty of altering a check written by his landowner and sometime employer. He received his first guitar for his birthday in 1941. He failed a music class during his high school and was considered quiet and an outsider.
He intended to give his first recordings, “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” as a gift to his mother in 1953. His music career began there in 1954, when he was 19 years old. He recorded at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. He was accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. In 1955, he signed with RCA Records and drummer D. J. Fontana joined the group.
In January 1956, he delivered his first No. 1 single with “Heartbreak Hotel.”
He signed a movie contract with Paramount Pictures in 1956 and as expected, “Love Me Tender,” proved to be his 1st box office hit.
Elvis bought his mansion, Graceland, in Memphis, TN in 1957 for $100,000.
He was inducted into the Army in 1957 and served in Germany till 1960. During this period, his mother, Gladys, died.
While in Germany, his spirits were lifted when he met his future wife, Priscilla Beaulieu. She was 14 years old. Elvis was a sleepwalker when he was a kid. The sleep disorders continued when he was in the army, where he found it difficult to wake up early every morning as he couldn’t sleep all night. He donated his army pay to charities.Leaving behind his army life in 1960, Presley revived his music career with commercially successful work. He devoted much of the 1960s to making Hollywood movies and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. Shortly before Christmas 1966, Elvis proposed to Priscilla Beaulieu.
They were married on May 1, 1967, in a brief ceremony in their suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.
His only child, Lisa Marie, was born on February 1, 1968, during a period when he had grown deeply unhappy with his career. In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours.
Cassandra Peterson, later television's Elvira, met Presley during this period in Las Vegas. She was working as a showgirl.
This is what she had to say about meeting Elvis:
"He was so anti-drug when I met him. I mentioned to him that I smoked marijuana, and he was just appalled. He said, 'Don't ever do that again.'"
On December 21, 1970, Elvis met with President Richard Nixon at the White House. He expressed his patriotism and explained how he believed he could reach out to the hippies to help combat the drug culture he and the president abhorred.
In 1971, an affair he had with Joyce Bova resulted, without his knowledge, in her pregnancy and an abortion.
The Presleys separated on February 23, 1972, after Priscilla told Elvis she had a relationship with Mike Stone, a karate instructor Elvis had recommended to her.
Five months later, Presley's new girlfriend, Linda Thompson, a songwriter and one-time Memphis beauty queen, moved in with him.
In 1973, six years after their marriage, Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley got divorced. Also in 1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. At a midnight in February, four men rushed onto the stage in an apparent attack. Security men came to Elvis' defense, and the singer's karate instinct took over as he ejected one of them from the stage himself. Following the show, he became obsessed with the idea that the men had been sent by Mike Stone to kill him. Elvis raged, "There's too much pain in me ... Stone (must) die."
After another two full days of raging, Red West, his friend and bodyguard, felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley decided, "Aw hell, let's just leave it for now. Maybe it's a bit heavy."
Twice during the year, he overdosed on barbiturates. He spent three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first incident. Towards the end of 1973, he was hospitalized, semi-comatose from the effects of pethidine addiction. According to his primary care physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Presley "felt that by getting (drugs) from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something off the street".
Despite his failing health, in 1974, he undertook another intensive touring schedule. In 1976, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame.
Elvis and Linda Thompson split in November 1976, and he took up with a new girlfriend, Ginger Alden.
He proposed to Ginger and gave her an engagement ring two months later.
Later
Journalist Tony Scherman wrote early 1977, "Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self. Hugely overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopia he daily ingested, he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts."
"Way Down", Elvis' last single issued during his career, was released on June 6.
During the last six months of his life, he only performed one the song “Unchained Melody.” He was a broken man and even pleaded with Priscilla for the reunion. He suffered from multiple ailments: glaucoma, high blood pressure, liver damage, and an enlarged colon. Years of prescription drug abuse severely compromised his health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42. Elvis was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to begin another tour. He was found dead that afternoon on his bathroom floor, by Ginger Alden. One witness stated "Elvis looked as if his entire body had completely frozen in a seated position while using the commode and then had fallen forward, in that fixed position, directly in front of it. It was clear that, from the time whatever hit him to the moment he had landed on the floor, Elvis hadn't moved."
His death was officially pronounced at 3:30 p.m. at the Baptist Memorial Hospital.
His actual cause of death is still a bit of a mistery, but it was officially told that he died due to an overdose of prescription drugs that caused him a heart attack.
President Jimmy Carter credited Elvis with having "permanently changed the face of American popular culture".
Thousands of people gathered outside Graceland to view the open casket. One of Elvis' cousins, Billy Mann, accepted $18,000 to secretly photograph the corpse. Alden struck a $105,000 deal with the Enquirer for her story, but settled for less when she broke her exclusivity agreement.
Elvis Presley's funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday, August 18. Outside the gates, a car plowed into a group of fans, killing two women and critically injuring a third. A funeral procession of 17 white Cadillacs and a hearse carrying the body of of the “King of Rock and Roll” slowly made its way from Graceland to Forrest Hill Cemetery. Under heavy guard, a simple ceremony was conducted.
About 80,000 people lined the processional route to where Elvis was buried next to his mother. Following an attempt to steal the singer's body in late August, the remains of both Elvis and his mother were reburied in Graceland's Meditation Garden on October 2.
A ground-level gravestone reads "Elvis Aaron Presley", followed by the singer's dates, the names of his parents and daughter, and several paragraphs of smaller text. It is surrounded by flowers, a small American flag. Similar grave markers are visible on either side. In the background is a small round pool, with a low decorative metal fence and several fountains.
Questions
An autopsy, undertaken the same day Elvis died, and was still in progress, when Memphis medical examiner Dr. Jerry Francisco announced that the immediate cause of death was cardiac arrest.
Cardiac arrhythmia(cardiac arrest), is a condition that can be determined only in someone who is still alive. When Elvis was found, he was lifeless and blue. When asked if drugs were involved, he declared that "drugs played no role in Presley's death". "Drug use was heavily implicated" in Elvis' death, writes Guralnick.
The pathologists conducting the autopsy thought it possible, that he had suffered "anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to have had a mild allergy".
A pair of lab reports filed two months later strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death.
One report stated that "fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity".
In 1979, forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht conducted a review of the reports. He concluded that a combination of central nervous system depressants had resulted in Elvis' accidental death. Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden said that "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."
A 1981 trial of Elvis' main physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, exonerated him of criminal liability for the singer's death.
"In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had (prescribed) more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and narcotics: all in Elvis's name."
His license was suspended for three months. It was permanently revoked in the 1990's after the Tennessee Medical Board brought new charges of over-prescription. In 1994, Elvis' autopsy report was reopened. Dr. Joseph Davis declared at its completion, "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs.
In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack."
In the last years some apparent new evidence came out about his death. More recent research has revealed that it was only Dr. Francisco who told the news people that Elvis apparently died of heart failure. The doctors "could say nothing with confidence until they got the results back from the laboratories, if then.
That would be a matter of weeks."
One of the examiners, Dr. E. Eric Muirhead stated that he "could not believe his ears. Francisco had not only presumed to speak for the hospital's team of pathologists, he had announced a conclusion that they had not reached. Early on, a meticulous dissection of the body ... confirmed (that)Elvis was chronically ill with diabetes, glaucoma, and constipation. As they proceeded, the doctors saw evidence that his body had been wracked over a span of years by a large and constant stream of drugs. They had also studied his hospital records, which included two admissions for drug detoxification and methadone treatments."
So, Frank Coffey's opinion that the cause of Elvis' death is "a phenomenon called the Valsalva maneuver"(straining on the toilet leading to heart stoppage)plausible because Elvis suffered constipation, (a common reaction to drug use). In 2013, Dr. Forest Tennant, who had testified as a defense witness in Nichopoulos's trial, described his own analysis of all of Elvis' available medical records. He stated that the "drug abuse had led to falls, head trauma, and overdoses that damaged his brain", and that his death was due in part to a toxic reaction to codeine, exacerbated by an undetected liver enzyme defect, which can cause sudden cardiac arrhythmia. DNA analysis in 2014 of a hair sample reported to be Elvis' found evidence of genetic variants that can lead to glaucoma, migraines, and obesity; which is associated with the heart-muscle disease hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was also identified.
Interesting Facts
Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered 35 minutes before him, stillborn.
Elvis loved go-carting, karate, touch football, gospel singing, numerology. Along with that, he also enjoyed board games like Monopoly and Yahtzee.
Elvis had movie idol, Tony Curtis, who had shiny black hair.
Elvis' natural hair color was brown and he used to dye his hair in black. However, he also dyed his eyelashes.
He is the best-selling solo artist in the history of recorded music.
He won three competitive Grammys.
Elvis recorded 15 songs with the word “blue” in the title.
He received no formal music training and could not read music. He played by ear.
He was told that he would never make it as a singer.
When Elvis was discharged from the army he was a sergeant.
Elvis endorsed only one product in his entire life i.e. Texas-based Southern Maid Doughnuts.
He received a kidnap-assassination threat. As a safety measure, he performed with a pistol in each of his boots.
There were around 170 impersonators when he died in 1977. Today, there are around 250,000 impersonators.
Graceland was opened to the public in 1982. It attracts over half a million visitors annually. It is the second most-visited home in the United States, after the White House. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
Elvis has been inducted into five music halls of fame: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001), the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2007), and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame (2012).
In 1984, he received the W. C. Handy Award from the Blues Foundation and the Academy of Country Music's Golden Hat Award. In 1987, he received the American Music Awards' Award of Merit.
Elvis was 6 feet tall and wore a size 11 shoe.
Graceland Mansion was named by its previous owner after his daughter, Grace.
In Las Vegas in 1969, while performing "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", 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?"
Elvis' 1960 hit "It's Now or Never" inspired a prisoner who heard it in jail. The prisoner he vowed to pursue a career in music upon his release. The artist, Barry White, was then serving a 4-month sentence for stealing tires.
He was distantly related to former U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jimmy Carter.
Elvis recorded more than 600 songs, but did not write any of them.
In 1958, he was trained in martial arts under Jurgen Seydel; during his army duties in Germany, and was awarded the Black Belt before his return to the United States by Hank Slemansky. His karate name was “Tiger.”
Elvis bought Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential yacht and donated it to St. Jude Children's Hospital. In addition to giving away cars, jewelry and cash to friends and strangers, he performed a number of benefit concerts. In 1961, he generated more than $50,000 toward the completion of the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii.
He worked on the project, a tribute to the more than 1,100 men who died aboard the USS Arizona during the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, had begun years earlier then stalled due to a lack of funds.
Elvis’ concert, for which tickets ranged from $3 to $100, helped reinvigorate fund-raising efforts for the memorial, and it was dedicated the following year.
Is he still alive?
Since his death, there have been numerous alleged sightings of Elvis Presley. A long-standing conspiracy theory is that he faked his death. There was alleged discrepancies in the death certificate.
Reports of a wax dummy in his original coffin, and accounts of Elvis planning a diversion so he could retire in peace. There were reports at the time that a black helicopter landed at Graceland just before his body was discovered.
In January last year, a new picture taken at Elvis Presley 's former home supposedly offered fans proof he is still alive. Fans are now saying the singer visited his Graceland home on his 82nd birthday last year. Images show a large man with white hair and a white beard standing among the crowd as a cake-cutting ceremony took place last Sunday on the front lawn of the King's house. He was wearing a dark jacket, a black baseball cap as well as sunglasses and watches on as the birthday celebrations take place at the home in Memphis, Tennessee.
Some people claimed he appeared as an extra in the 1990 blockbuster, Home Alone and say he appeared in the background of the scene when Kevin McCallister's mum unsuccessfully attempts to to Chicago.
One of the biggest theories on why Presley may have faked his death is because he had to in order to escape the mob. Gail Brewer-Giorgio, the author of the 1988 bestselling book Is Elvis Alive , said how she pored through thousands of FBI documents to come to the conclusion that Presley was an American hero who had to go into witness protection.
“Do I know if Elvis is alive today? No, I don’t know," she said. "But I know he didn’t die on Aug. 16.”
In a 2005 interview with Oprah, Elvis' wife Priscilla was addressing how Presley spoiled their daughter, Lisa Marie. Priscilla said: “It’s exactly what he said the other day” before correcting herself and saying, “you said,” to Oprah. They also say Lisa Marie evaded Larry King’s question during a 2003 chat when the host asked if she ever feels “communication" with her father.
Do you think Elvis is still alive?
