Introduction
On August 16, 1977 newspapers, radio stations, and television programs all boomed with the same headline: Elvis Presley, The King of Rock and Roll, has died at 42. A heart attack caused his death, sparking an uproar amongst the public and bringing controversy around the circumstances of his passing.
In this article, we will examine Elvis Presley’s death and the circumstances that may have led to his untimely passing.
The Autopsy of Elvis Presley
On the afternoon of August 16th, Elvis Presley’s then fiancé Ginger Alden found him unresponsive on the bathroom floor of his Graceland mansion. He had been in the position for an unknown length of time when emergency services took him to Baptist Memorial Hospital. Attempts to revive him there failed, and his official time of death was announced at 3:30 pm that same day.
Medical examiners conducted an autopsy, and before this procedure completed, another witnessing medical examiner confirmed cardiac arrest as the cause of death. He further went on to claim that drugs had no role in the singer’s demise, despite a toxicology report not being complete.
Controversy surrounding the singer’s death arose as Presley abused drugs throughout his life. Some believed that a cover-up was taking place, as Presley’s family did not want his death associated with drug use. Yet, accounts from members of his family, friends, and partners recount his dependency on opiates years later.
In 1994, seventeen years after his passing, Elvis Presley’s autopsy reopened. The coroner assigned to review the autopsy, Joseph Davis, MD, reaffirmed the findings that drugs had no role in the singer’s death, quieting the controversy.
Murdered by Maladies
Although the official cause of death was a heart attack, there is no denying that multiple factors led to the singer’s early passing. As previously mentioned, he abused drugs and had numerous medical professionals supply him with prescription medication at different periods of his life.
In 2013, a journal article written by Forest Tennant, MD, DrPH provided a unique look at the singer’s passing. Dr. Tennant was in a unique position, having reviewed Presley’s medical records himself in 1981. He offers his insights and evidence that highlight the multiple medical conditions and circumstances that led to the King of Rock and Roll’s early demise.
Feast of the King
Presley’s career and legacy endure to this day, his singing coupled with a bombastic personality and affinity for flashy outfits. Something less talked about in the media though was his affinity for food.
Elvis Presley was generally fit and healthy as a teen and in the early days of his career, even engaging in martial arts. Yet his diet mostly consisted of items high in fat and carbohydrates, most likely a result of growing up eating “Southern Cooking”. A testament to this is his favorite sandwich: the Peanut Butter, Banana, and Bacon Sandwich. His meals mostly consisted of bacon, biscuits slathered in butter or grease, barbecued meats, and the like.
Presley’s diet likely contributed to his having hypertension, which was first noted when he was 32. While he would attempt different ways to stay in shape throughout his life, his diet remained fairly consistent until the end, and by the time he passed away, he weighed 350 lbs (around 159 kg).
Meds, Drugs, and Rock n’ Roll
Despite the weight he was at the time of his death, Elvis was relatively healthy for most of his career. As mentioned earlier he did martial arts after being drafted into the army and obtained a first-degree black belt in 1960, then progressed to an eight-degree blackbelt in 1974. It was only in the last few years of his life that his health would decline, which was only sped up by his lifestyle at that point.
After his death, the singer’s toxicology report revealed that there had been no less than ten different drugs in his body when he passed. A few of the drugs found in his system were morphine, diazepam, butabarbital, and codeine. An important note is that almost all of the drugs found in his system were below or within their respective therapeutic ranges, except for codeine which was found approximately 10 times more than the prescribed therapeutic amount.
Dr.Tennant explains the effects of excess codeine in the system in his journal article:
“Toxic accumulation of codeine may cause cardiac arrhythmia, particularly if other drugs are in the serum and the heart is already damaged.”
In addition to this, Elvis was allergic to codeine according to previous hospital records.
Presley’s Medical Past
In 1980 Dr. George C. Nichopoulos (Dr. Nick) was indicted for overprescribing drugs to his patients including Presley. He was acquitted of all charges the following year. Despite the verdict, it was found that he had prescribed Presley more than 10,000 doses of various drugs including narcotics, amphetamines, and tranquilizers just to name a few. Even more jarring, these prescriptions were for the first eight months of 1977 alone.
Elvis Presley first met Dr. Nick in 1965 but the latter would only be his regular physician two years later in 1967. Before Dr. Nick became the singer’s regular physician, it appeared Elvis had no notable health concerns besides hypertension.
Elvis sought out Dr. Nick complaining of vertigo, back pain, and insomnia. He would have a diagnosis of labyrinthitis and receive treatment. His vertigo resolved after a week, yet he developed tonsillitis soon after. This pattern of treating one condition only for another to pop up would be a constant that plagued the doctor-patient relationship until the singer’s death as his conditions and need for prescriptions got progressively worse.
The Fall of the King
Presley’s health suffered from conditions affecting his heart, spine, eyes, stomach, and liver for the last 10 years of his life. He often complained of aches and pains in different parts of his body and was in and out of the hospital.
One instance in 1973 saw Elvis Presley fall into a semi-coma. Nine physicians attended and consulted on his case. He was jaundiced, barely conscious, with a swollen face and findings discovered that he was suffering from multiple conditions: hepatitis, Cushing’s Syndrome, a gastric bleeding ulcer, and glaucoma in both eyes.
His unchecked drug habit and lifestyle choices were making his health decline further, according to his uncle:
“He was fine from 1957 to 1974. But from 1974 onward, he didn’t really feel good. You couldn’t talk to him even if you wanted to.” At one point, The Houston Post wrote, “Presley looked, talked, walked, and sang like a very ill man.”
By 1975 the singer required full-time care, prompting Dr. Nick to assign him a nurse named Tish Henley who was to accompany him as he toured and stayed with him at his Graceland mansion. Later that same year, Baptist Memorial Hospital admitted Elvis once again after he collapsed while performing in Las Vegas.
During his stay doctors discovered that he had developed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Emphysema), as well as Megacolon which increased the burden on Elvis’ liver and kidneys. These vital organs—situated in the upper abdomen and alongside the spine, respectively—were critical in managing the effects of his prescriptions and illnesses. However, their compromised function underscored the toll his lifestyle and medical regimen had taken.
“I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell”
In 1961 Elvis Presley released the song “I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell” as part of his album “Something for Everybody”, little did he know how prophetic his song would be to his death years later.
Dr. Tennant’s review of Presley’s health in the last few years of his life mainly focuses on the effects of the drugs on the singer, and the development of his various health conditions. However, he does highlight the role of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) as the possible starting point for Elvis’ rapid decline in health. In his journal, he highlights four events where Presley suffered head trauma.
Incidents of the King’s Head Injuries
- Elvis Presley experienced two occurrences of head trauma in 1956. The first instance occurred at a gas station in Memphis when he needed his car’s air conditioner checked. Fans noticed him and suddenly swarmed him, angering the gas station attendant who slapped the singer across the face. A fight would break out with another attendant joining the skirmish.
- The second instance would happen later that year after he and some colleagues performed two shows in Toledo, Ohio. Presley and his friends were at the Commodore Perry Hotel when a 19-year-old construction worker went over to him and punched him in the face.
- The third instance would happen two years later in 1958 before Elvis would join the army. Presley rented out the Rainbow Rollerdome in Memphis, where he and his friends would engage in skating “war” games. These games would lead to the singer getting the brunt of full-body tackles multiple times. Allegedly it got so bad that the singer would take copious amounts of Percodan.
- The fourth and most significant instance happened in 1967. Elvis was in Bel Air, Los Angeles when he stumbled on a television cord in his hotel room bathroom and fell head-first, hitting the porcelain bathtub. It is unsure how long Presley was unconscious, but upon waking up he started cursing and woke up his then-girlfriend Priscilla Beaulieu. She would find her partner slumped on the floor, cradling his head in his hands where a large lump had developed.
Elvis’ Traumatic Brain Injury
Whether it was the culmination of all these injuries or just the sheer impact of the latest one, the damage to Elvis’ cognition was quite obvious. After the last head injury, he would exhibit odd behaviors such as the time he requested a Memphis DJ to play Tom Jones’ song “Green Green Grass of Home” on repeat several times.
Over time his condition got worse, as he became more erratic and irrational. He would often claim to see his deceased mother in his Graceland mansion, refuse to bathe to the point he developed bed sores, became an insomniac, and often complained of headaches and general body pain.
Suspicious Mind: The Effects of Auto-Immune Inflammatory Disease
While there has been no evidence of Elvis Presley being born with any sort of autoimmune disease, his repeated traumatic brain injuries either caused him to develop or exacerbated an already existing autoimmune condition.
Dr. Tennant explains in his article that the development of an autoimmune disease after a traumatic brain injury is a result of brain tissue coming loose and leaking through the blood-brain barrier. Brain tissue entering the bloodstream is antigenic causing antibodies to form and attack the healthy tissues of the body, which may also cause further brain damage.
Auto-immune inflammatory disease can also explain the sudden deterioration of Elvis’ internal organs. Autoantibodies attack randomly, targeting and damaging different parts of the body. The singer most likely suffered from multi-organ attacks, which worsened over time.
In Summary
Elvis Presley’s legacy still endures to this day, 47 years after his death. Despite little attention given to the circumstances around his passing, his legacy still stands.
While he had a well-known drug habit, it is less privy to the public how this was further intensified by the multiple medical conditions he would develop later in life. His eating habits, multiple traumatic brain injuries, and auto-immune disorder all contributed to his early death.
At the time of his demise, much of the information regarding his condition was still unknown and required further research. While doctors did their best to provide him with the best possible care, the limits of medical science, and Elvis himself could only slow the effects of the multiple things that ailed him. Today, medical science has improved and is still improving to treat the conditions that once plagued the beloved singer better.
Want to learn more about health and disease? Then read our article “Brain Power: The Effects of Physical Activity on Brain Health”
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