After looking at his rise to fame, this second instalment looks at Elvis' colossal fall from grace and remembers the icon that he was and always will be.
Read The Rise And Fall Of Elvis Presley Part One - The Rise To Fame here
Downfall
After his divorce in 1973, Presley became increasingly isolated and overweight, with prescription drugs affecting his health, mood and his stage act. He overdosed twice on barbiturates, spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first.
According to Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Presley's physician, the singer was "near death" in November of 1973 because of side effects of Demerol addiction.
Nichopoulos notes that the hospital admission "was crazy", because of the enormous attention Presley attracted, and the measures necessary to protect his medical details. This wasn't helped by the fact that lab technicians were even exploiting Presley's ill-health by selling samples of his blood and urine.
Despite his overwhelming problems, his thundering live version of "How Great Thou Art" won him a Grammy award in 1974 and in April of that same year, rumours began to circulate that he would finally be playing overseas after years of offers.
However, despite $1,000,000 from a source in Australia for him to tour there, his manager was uncharacteristically reluctant to accept such large sums and in doing so irradiated any notions Presley had of overseas work by citing poor security in other countries, and the lack of suitable venues for a star of his status, even worse, Presley apparently accepted such excuses, at the time.
Regardless of the critics, Elvis continued to play sell-out U.S gigs and the end of his 1975 tour was packed with over 62, 000 fans; yet this wasn't enough motivation to lose his extra pounds and soon he because very self-conscious and his confidence in front of audiences began to slip as headlines such as 'Elvis Battles Middle Age' began to plague his life.
Then his reputation took another hit when his father fired his "Memphis Mafia" bodyguards in July 1976; suggesting that he was too cowardly to face them himself after they were becoming increasingly outspoken over his drug dependence.
However, this ultimately led to him 'shooting himself in the foot' so to speak as the three of them came together to writer a devastating indictment of Presley in the book: Elvis: What Happened?, published August 1, 1977 which, ironically, was released just before his death.
In his final few years his record company had become more and more concerned over their falling star as Elvis could no longer be relied on to attend studio sessions as the only constant in his life appeared to be drink and drugs and even when he turned up to the studio, he would often be easily distracted.
Death
Elvis Presley's final performance took place on June 26 1977 at the Market Square Arena, Indianapolis and sadly, many of the people who accompanied him on the tour believed it to be one of the best shows he had given in a long time.
It seemed that his life might be on the up again after he scheduled another tour to begin on 17 August 1977 but it was just not to be as he was found dead on his bathroom floor the day before the tour was set to begin.
On the day of his funeral hundreds of thousands of fans, the press and celebrities lined the streets in the hope of seeing the open casket in Graceland.
Even in death Elvis was still being exploited as one of his cousins, Bobby Mann, accepted $18,000 to secretly photograph the corpse and as a result the picture was splashed across the cover of the National Enquirer, making it the largest and fastest selling issue of all time, despite breaking fundamental journalism ethics codes.
The funeral took place at Graceland on Thursday August 18 before he was finally laid to rest at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, next to his mother. Unsurprisingly, one morbid fan tried to steal the body on August 28, and with no sign of and attempt to tighten security at the cemetery his—and his mother's—remains were reburied at Graceland in the Meditation Garden in October.
The cause of death was initially thought to have been a drug overdose and astonishingly, it could actually have been his doctors which enabled the star to take his own life rather than prolong it!
Many doctors felt flattered to be associated with Presley and as a result supplied him with pills in order to remain close to the star; which in turn simply fed his addictions further. The singer allegedly spent at least $1 million every year on drugs and doctors' fees.
In the first eight months of 1977 alone, Elvis' doctor is believed to have prescribed more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and narcotics: all in Elvis' name and his license was duly suspended.
In 1994, the autopsy into Presley's death was re-opened and Coroner Dr. Joseph Davis declared: "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs [i.e. drug overdose]. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack." However, there is little doubt that long-term drug abuse caused his premature death.
Whatever the cause of death, no-one can deny that the light was taken from this young star far too early and resulted in a huge gap in the music industry which no musician will ever be able to fill in the same way Elvis Presley did.
One thing is for certain; Elvis was a star who certainly did it his way;
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison