The world was shocked when Elvis Presley died at only 42 in 1977. “I told him not to fall asleep in the bathroom and he said, ‘I won’t,'” his girlfriend, Ginger Alden, later told ET. “He turned, gave me a little wave, walked into the bathroom and I found him a little while later. It was a devastating day.” Although it was hidden from the public, his pathologists found Quaaludes and several opiates, like codeine, demerol, dilaudid, and percodan in his blood, per PBS News Hour. Elvis’ personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos (aka Dr. Nick), was later put on trial for over-prescribing opiates, per The New York Times, and the rock star’s fans discovered the vast scale of their idol’s private struggle.
His father, Vernon Presley, expressed his grief in Good Housekeeping, writing that he was “more heartbroken than I can express over Elvis’s death” and that since it was so sudden, he had not yet accepted that his son could really be gone. “Yet, even while grieving, I’ve been greatly comforted by the thousands of fans who loved Elvis and who have expressed their sympathy,” he added. Vernon would only live for almost another two years, before being struck down by cardiac arrest.
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“There were so many deaths,” Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, recalled, speaking to the Los Angeles Times about experiencing great sadness at Graceland as a 9-year-old. “Once he died, my grandmother died, then my grandfather, my aunt, my uncle. My God. It was like the house had lost its life.”
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