# Was the death of Elvis Presley perceived as surprising? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 27, 2019, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469 "2019-12-27T20:50:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/41 "2019-12-28T20:02:20Z")
The death of almost any non-elderly celebrity is surprising. The “we all saw that coming” deaths like Chris Farley or Amy Winehouse are the exceptions. Elvis’ death wasn’t one of those. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/42 "2019-12-28T20:15:53Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I remember it being a huge surprise. I personally knew ladies who broke down in tears including some teenaged ones who could have been his daughters. My mom cried. That’s what I remember about the death of Elvis. I was 12 at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/43 "2019-12-28T21:46:22Z")
I was 14 and sitting in a beauty salon In Saskatoon waiting for my mom to get her hair done when the news came over the radio. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the women, My mom was actually in tears. Everyone was completely shocked. I think the stories of Elvis’s fat and out of shape body were emphasized and exaggerated after he died, in part because of how unbelievable it was. But as the video shows, at least in terms of weight he wasn’t much different than lots of young stars who develop a gut when they get older. If he had lived, at some point he probably would have shaped up again everyone would have been talking about how great he looked. He was maybe 30-40 lbs overweight. By today’s standards, it’s nothing. It was the pills and lifestyle that got him, not his weight. I’m sure weight was a contributing factor, but it wasn’t the cause. And he wasn’t grossly obese. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/44 "2019-12-28T23:05:46Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Wow, you’re not kidding. Other than him not being as fat as I expected, he looks hideous. He looks way older than most people I know in their forties, including myself. I don’t know if I’d say he looked ‘hideous.’ Actually, my main takeaway from that video is that the extent to which he had gained weight has been exaggerated. Yeah he looks a lot heavier than early Elvis, but he still doesn’t look like the caricature of obesity that I’ve consistently heard him described as in pop culture. Hot stage lights and sweat are never flattering to anyone. I think he still looked relatively youthful in the face in that video. It’s his body postures which are indicative to me of a decline in facilities…he looks and moves like someone who’s been rendered sluggish by a lot of drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/45 "2019-12-28T23:24:57Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I read somewhere at one of the network newscasts some reporters were upset that his death was the lead story , I think it was CBS. They were OK with running the story just not as the lead. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > I don’t remember any other significant story that day that should’ve pushed Elvis’ death out of the lead on newscasts. I also was working at a radio station that day (I had finished my on-air shift and spent several hours pulling the latest bulletins of the teletype and helping the on air DJ track down every Elvis song we had in the building.) There was no significant other news, but the producers at _CBS Evening News_ believed that the death of an entertainer didn’t merit being the lead story. They went with some not particularly earth-shattering story from Washington. A lot of people believe it was Walter Cronkite who made that decision, but Cronkite was actually on vacation that week. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/46 "2019-12-28T23:51:29Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I don’t know if I’d say he looked ‘hideous.’ Actually, my main takeaway from that video is that the extent to which he had gained weight has been exaggerated. Yeah he looks a lot heavier than early Elvis, but he still doesn’t look like the caricature of obesity that I’ve consistently heard him described as in pop culture. > > Hot stage lights and sweat are never flattering to anyone. I think he still looked relatively youthful in the face in that video. It’s his body postures which are indicative to me of a decline in facilities…he looks and moves like someone who’s been rendered sluggish by a lot of drugs. Well, maybe not “hideous”, but when you compare it to how he used to look, it’s certainly a down grade. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/47 "2019-12-29T00:11:07Z")
[Here’s Elvis in 1969 at the age of 34](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065537/mediaviewer/rm2720750848). That’s Mary Tyler Moore next to him in his last movie. She was just one year younger than Elvis. There were a lot of exaggerated caricatures of him after his death making him look 100 pounds heavier, but it was the drugs that made him looked horrible, and killed him. [The details of the last few years of his life are horrendous.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley#1973%E2%80%931977:_Health_deterioration_and_death). The public didn’t know about this. Just the weight gain alone, unexaggerated, was a surprise. The story about his health and drug use was a bigger surprise than his death. ---
**Author:** ![Kelby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@Kelby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelby)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/48 "2019-12-29T00:26:37Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > [Here’s Elvis in 1969 at the age of 34](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065537/mediaviewer/rm2720750848). That’s Mary Tyler Moore next to him in his last movie. She was just one year younger than Elvis. There were a lot of exaggerated caricatures of him after his death making him look 100 pounds heavier, but it was the drugs that made him looked horrible, and killed him. [The details of the last few years of his life are horrendous.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley#1973%E2%80%931977:_Health_deterioration_and_death). The public didn’t know about this. Just the weight gain alone, unexaggerated, was a surprise. The story about his health and drug use was a bigger surprise than his death. It was still an “innocent” age in many respects, at least where the behavior/reputation of iconic celebrities was concerned. My mother loved Elvis and was shocked by his death. She shook her head for years about him dying from a heart attack, since there was never any indication of that type of health problem brought up before. Nowadays, the accidental/preventable deaths of stars like Tom Petty, Prince, and Michael Jackson leave us less surprised. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/49 "2019-12-29T03:01:26Z")
1977, age 42. Many younger rock stars had already discorporated by then, via substance abuse as well as vehicle crashes and occasional shootings. See the [lists of deaths in rock’n’roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll). 42 was pretty much old age for rockers. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/50 "2019-12-29T03:45:46Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I don’t know if I’d say he looked ‘hideous.’ Actually, my main takeaway from that video is that the extent to which he had gained weight has been exaggerated. Yeah he looks a lot heavier than early Elvis, but he still doesn’t look like the caricature of obesity that I’ve consistently heard him described as in pop culture. > > Hot stage lights and sweat are never flattering to anyone. I think he still looked relatively youthful in the face in that video. It’s his body postures which are indicative to me of a decline in facilities…he looks and moves like someone who’s been rendered sluggish by a lot of drugs. My understanding was that Elvis lost weight before going out on that last tour (although he still had the full-blown drug habit). Albert Goldman’s book (which I know was a hatchet job) had a picture where he definitely looked heavier than in the linked video. The review of the April 1977 concert in **kenobi 65** ’s post, which said the jumpsuit looked loose on him? I recall reading in _Playboy_ (possibly a 1976 end-of-the-year music scene summary) that Elvis had split his pants during a concert. So he seems to have lost weight by his last months. Nonetheless, **Sam Stone** ’s point is true: it was the drugs that were the cause of his death. The obesity didn’t help, but that alone wouldn’t have killed him, or enfeebled his performances. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/51 "2019-12-29T04:57:49Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > How close a parallel is the death of Michael Jackson? Pretty close… I’m not a gossip junkie, but I, like most others, knew that Jackson, while enormously talented, was a strange guy. Most people eventually acknowledged that he was a weird man who’d slept with young kids and had once dangled his baby son from a balcony. And all that plastic surgery! But none of that indicated a premature death, and people didn’t know about the propofol. So yeah, he was an icon and on the shelf, and people were shocked, and he _didn’t_ have plastic surgery or lawsuits alleging he was a pedophile or photos of him dangling one of his kids by the feet. ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/52 "2019-12-29T08:36:02Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > …photos of him dangling one of his kids by the feet. Getting off topic, but I don’t think it was by the feet. I just checked, and the footage (video, not photos) is as I remember it. He had an arm around the kid’s upper torso and dangled the kid’s feet over the railing. Without distorting any of the facts, his life was sad and disturbing enough. Here’s a [Quorum](https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-Michael-Jackson-baby-dangling-incident-so-appalling-to-the-world)article. ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/53 "2019-12-29T08:40:33Z")
Sorry, forgot to add (back on topic) that the day we heard that Elvis died, our high-school teachers were visibly shaken, and we laughed at them, cruel adolescent jerks that we were. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/54 "2019-12-29T08:51:19Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Pretty close… > > I’m not a gossip junkie, but I, like most others, knew that Jackson, while enormously talented, was a strange guy. Most people eventually acknowledged that he was a weird man who’d slept with young kids and had once dangled his baby son from a balcony. And all that plastic surgery! But none of that indicated a premature death, and people didn’t know about the propofol. So yeah, he was an icon and on the shelf, and people were shocked, and he _didn’t_ have plastic surgery or lawsuits alleging he was a pedophile or photos of him dangling one of his kids by the feet. Living in Los Angeles, I was subjected to daily live video, during his trial, of a frail, dangerously thin MJ hobbling into the courthouse. I predicted that he’d be lucky to live five more years. That was 2005, so he didn’t. As for the baby dangling, I think he wanted to recreate that scene from The Lion King and almost immediately thought better of it. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/55 "2019-12-29T17:25:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > 1. He was only 42. > 2. His career was in decline, modern rock had taken over, he was a joke to younger people, somebody your parents listened to like Frank Sinatra. It was expected Fat Elvis would perform now and again, show up on talk shows, fade away maybe, but not just keel over. I don’t think it was just to younger people. He was pretty much a joke period. He wasn’t in the news much, and when he was it was usually just a filler piece about how he’d ripped his pants on stage (which was an old Stan Freberg joke come to life). I was genuinely surprised at the reaction - how so many people I knew who had derided him as a joke and a has-been suddenly became his biggest worshipers. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/56 "2019-12-29T17:45:55Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > I don’t think it was just to younger people. He was pretty much a joke period. He wasn’t in the news much, and when he was it was usually just a filler piece about how he’d ripped his pants on stage (which was an old Stan Freberg joke come to life). I was genuinely surprised at the reaction - how so many people I knew who had derided him as a joke and a has-been suddenly became his biggest worshipers. There were a fair number of his fans who had grown older and were laughing at their younger selves as much as him. But they didn’t know how he had degraded and didn’t expect his death. If he had stayed reasonably fit, worn clothes suitable for a middle aged man, and didn’t think he was some kind of demi-god, he could have continued a career in entertainment quite easily. The joke was that he thought he was still a teen idol. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/57 "2019-12-30T05:03:09Z")
I remember once reading an account by someone (a publicist? a music writer?) who was briefly drawn into Elvis’s inner circle in the last year or so of his life, and was saddened to see that there were dozens and dozens of people in his entourage who were happy to sponge off him and spend his money, but none who really had his best interests at heart, and none who could - or would - help him either get the professional help he needed or make the changes that would lead to a healthier, longer life. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/58 "2019-12-30T05:22:41Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > … and when he was it was usually just a filler piece about how he’d ripped his pants on stage (which was an old Stan Freberg joke come to life). Third pair today. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/59 "2019-12-30T05:41:27Z")
I think it’s been stated up thread but it might bear repeating, the general public didn’t know about all of the things that seem like general knowledge today: drugs, etc. Sure he was fat and out of shape but so is half of America. And they aren’t all going to die in two weeks. It was a big shock. I liked Elvis. He wasn’t past his prime to me. I was working on a construction site when a delivery truck pulled up. The driver jumped out and said, hey Elvis died. I had a hard time believing it. Also, the perception was that E was an all American boy. No drugs for him we thought. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/60 "2019-12-30T15:59:57Z")
I was 25 when Elvis died. He had been somewhat important to my generation when we were kids, but was quickly dispatched as irrelevant once the Beatles arrived. I was Program Director of a Top 40 station at the time, and we began playing a couple of his hits per hour in remembrance. We never played any of his older stuff in regular rotation, just a few of his late 60s hits, but we made an exception that day. His death did come as a surprise, though. No one really knew anything about the struggles and excesses of his private life, and at 42 he was young. It was only later I began to appreciate him. Listen to his SUN recordings, made when he was 18 or 19, like “That’s Alright Mama” and “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” and tell me he was not an extraordinary talent in his prime. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469.md?page=4)