# 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:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/61 "2019-12-30T16:46:52Z")
I’d say that it would be sort of like if Eminem were to turn up dead now. His time in the sun was at least a decade ago, he’s a bit older than Elvis was, and he’s been sort of out of the public eye for a while. But if he turned up dead, we’d all be rather shocked. Elvis was like that, only he’d been MORE popular as a younger man. ---
**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 30, 2019, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/62 "2019-12-30T17:02:30Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’d say that it would be sort of like if Eminem were to turn up dead now. His time in the sun was at least a decade ago, he’s a bit older than Elvis was, and he’s been sort of out of the public eye for a while. > > But if he turned up dead, we’d all be rather shocked. Elvis was like that, only he’d been MORE popular as a younger man. It didn’t start with Elvis, but there have been a lot of Dead Rock Stars, wouldn’t be that surprising anymore. Especially if drugs, or a car or plane crash was the cause of death. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/63 "2019-12-30T17:17:47Z")
I’d compare Elvis’s death to the very sudden death of Michael Jackson. Both died at a young age, with the cause of death being a heart attack by overdosing of legal drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/64 "2019-12-30T18:04:07Z")
Exdept the “revelation” that Jackson had a doctor on call to give him a surgical anaesthetic drug to help him sleep was sort of a “shrug - Jackson’s weird”. The idea that Elvis died from drug overdoses was a surprise. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/65 "2019-12-30T18:19:32Z")
It wasn’t so much that Elvis was fat in his last concert as much as he was very bloated. Opiates are notorious for causing constipation and it’s apparent that a big part of Elvis’ health problems related to that. I’m not entirely sure how accurate it is, but there are lots of stories of him having a seriously enlarged colon and was horribly clogged up with feces when he died. > **[Elvis Died of Constipation?](https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/elvis-died-of-constipation/)** > > The doctor who tried to revive Elvis claims that he did not die of heart disease as claimed but rather a severe case of constipation. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/66 "2019-12-30T18:45:04Z")
I was 15 when Elvis died. I was shocked, and so was my family. As others have noted, Elvis had gained weight which was impossible to conceal. But the drug use was unknown, or only noted on the “National Enquirer” which most took with a huge grain of salt if at all. We still believed that Celebrities were larger than life, and didn’t just kick it at 42. One other note, some have said since his last tour. I thought he was mid-tour when he died My mother-in-law said that she had a ticket to his next show in Portland Maine a couple of days after he died. Not sure if that’s accurate, but it might be. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/67 "2019-12-30T20:18:35Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Recorded in 1989, [Black Velvet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT4d1LQy4es) still gets pretty regular radio play, and it’s not a bad song. Lyrically, it is a tribute to Elvis Presley. There’s only one thing I’m confused about: > > The bridge of the song has the following lyrics: > > Now, when I think of my own perception of the death of Elvis, the words “in a flash he was gone, it happened so soon” are about the last thing on earth that comes to mind. My understanding of it is that he was the epitome of “past his prime, ill health, deteriorating” and that this was well known. Those lyrics make it sound like he was James Dean or something. But I thought everyone pretty much knew what Elvis’s situation was during his last years. I thought the drug problems, weight gain, lifestyle of excess, were public knowledge. > > Am I wrong though? Was his death surprising? Did he have really good PR that made him seem healthier and more together than he actually was, right up until he died? > > Or is the song just taking some artistic license with that line? Some people close to him may have seen Elvis that way, but I doubt it. The general public certainly did not. I remember the news as a huge, unwelcome surprise. While he may have been past his prime, he was steadily working in Vegas, still selling records and having occasional hits. His drugs came with prescriptions (too many to be sure, but he was not shooting up heroin). He did not smoke and was not known to be a heavy drinker. He carried a few extra pounds, but he was far from morbid obesity. Given all of this and the fact that he was only 42 years old, I doubt anyone saw that train wreck coming. Bad genes are, ultimately, what killed him. Remember, he did not OD. He died from a heart attack. Yeah, so did Whitney Houston (age 48); however, the lady had a long history of Coke use, plus she smoked 3 packs of Newports a day. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/68 "2019-12-30T20:23:34Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > If he had died today with gossip sites and twittering and 24 hour surveillance of celebrities like they do now, I don’t think it would be quite as shocking. Especially considering that he’d have been 84 years old… Back in ‘77? Yeah, everyone I knew was kinda gobsmacked. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/69 "2019-12-30T22:16:02Z")
Not all Elvis fans when he died were older people. Teenagers when he had his first hit song would only be late 30s in 1977. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/70 "2019-12-31T16:36:23Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Not all Elvis fans when he died were older people. Teenagers when he had his first hit song would only be late 30s in 1977. My guess is that ‘older people’ probably meant “not teenagers/college students” back then, which would have encompassed people in their mid-late 30s in 1977. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/71 "2020-01-01T03:45:26Z")
My sister and I were getting ready to go to a fraternity party. I was doing my hair and she was in the shower. A report came on the TV saying Elvis was dead. I went in and knocked on the shower door and told her. She came out dripping wet and we watched the report. We were too shocked to say anything. The party turned into a wake for Elvis. ETA: and we were teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/72 "2020-01-01T08:22:53Z")
I was late 20s and about to exit the US Army. I vaguely recall the news and, having seen so many musicians croak in prior years, I likely just thought, “There goes another one.” ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/73 "2020-01-01T19:25:45Z")
I was 11 when he died, and it didn’t have much effect on me. I knew who he was, but that’s about it. Neither of my parents were Elvis fans; I suppose they may have been saddened, but not demonstrably so. John Lennon’s death three years later had a much bigger effect on me, as I had just started to get into the Beatles - Lennon’s death is my personal “do you remember where you were when…” event (I was in my bedroom, doing homework with the radio on, when the DJ interrupted a song to make the announcement). My baby sister, though, ended up becoming a big Elvis fan, though that was long after his death. She was born just a month after Elvis’ death, and this thread has reminded me that she’s now the same age he was. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/74 "2020-01-05T03:33:47Z")
Elvis was not really extremely heavy until his final months, and the fact that he wore unflattering tight Nudie suits did not help when his weight gain became visible . But most of the comments on his health and appearance centered on how far he had fallen from the sex symbol he was in the 1950s, or even the condition he appeared to be in around 1973 in Aloha from Hawaii. Aside from his appearance, accounts of bizarre behavior began to mount in the last months. When (a few years later), Marlon Brando became morbidly obese, people made similar comments along the vein on how far he let himself go from his glory days in the 1950s. But no one expected him to suddenly die at the time - and he held on to live to 80. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/75 "2020-01-05T05:00:48Z")
> [@syncrolecyne](#): > > When (a few years later), Marlon Brando became morbidly obese, people made similar comments along the vein on how far he let himself go from his glory days in the 1950s. But no one expected him to suddenly die at the time - and he held on to live to 80. I do not recall anywhere near the shock and awe with Brando’s death that was evident with Elvis’. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469/76 "2020-01-05T08:09:59Z")
I heard the news on the radio. I was quite surprised. I was in college at the time, and had just passed up on an opportunity to see him in concert when he came to my college town, because I had too much studying to do, and figured I’d catch him next time he came to town. Alas, it was not to be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-death-of-elvis-presley-perceived-as-surprising/845469.md?page=3)