45 years since the death of Elvis Presley
Aug. 16, 2022 marks the 45th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. The iconic singer’s popularity has not faded through the years. Fans continue to flock to Graceland on the anniversary of Presley’s death to pay tribute to the King of Rock 'n' Roll.
Elvis Presley is shown performing in Providence, R.I. on May 23, 1977, three months before his death. (AP Photo)
Hundreds of people wait outside the late Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion before the gates are opened for the public to view the body of the rock 'n' roll singer in Memphis, Tenn., Aug. 17, 1977. (AP Photo)
A string of white vehicles follow the hearse carrying the body of rock and roll musician Elvis Presley along Elvis Presley Boulevard on the way to Forest Hills Cemetery in Memphis, Tenn., Aug. 19, 1977. (AP Photo)
The following excerpt is from an AP story reported on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 1977.
Elvis Presley, the Mississippi boy whose country rock guitar and gyrating hips launched a new style in popular music, died today in Baptist Hospital, police said. He was 42.
Presley, who parlayed a $4 trip to a recording studio into a multimillion-dollar business, was taken to the emergency room of Baptist Hospital in serious condition, suffering from what hospital officials said was respiratory distress.
Singer Elvis Presley smiles during a press conference inside his private railroad car at Los Angeles Union Station as he arrived to make a movie on April 20, 1960. (AP Photo/HPM)
Singer Elvis Presley gets his hair cut before entering the Army at Fort Chaffee in Barling, Ark. on March 24, 1958. (AP Photo)
Elvis Presley in his apartment in Bad Nauheim, Germany on Jan. 21, 1960. Recently promoted to sergeant, Presley is leading a Jeep company in the 32nd American tank division in Friedberg, Germany. (AP Photo)
He was taken from his Graceland mansion to the hospital in a fire department ambulance. He had been hospitalized several times in recent years for rest and for eye problems.
Presley’s gyrating hips were only mildly suggestive compared with most of today’s rock performers. But when he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1950s fears about his sexuality seemed so overt that he was shown only from the waist up.
HIS SHAKE, rattle and roll showmanship - with such million sellers as “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Love me Tender,” kept teen-age girls sighing.
Presley made several movies in Hawaii, including “Blue Hawaii.”
Members of Duke University’s football team cluster around Elvis Presley for his autograph during a visit to Twentieth Century-Fox studio, where Presley is making a movie in Hollywood on Dec. 2, 1960. (AP Photo/Ellis R. Bosworth)
He performed with slick back hair, sideburns and a perpetual sneer.
He went from driving a truck to driving the girls crazy in the mid 1950s. They screamed, jumped and hollered as Elvis gyrated about the stage in sequined skin-tight outfits.
Frank Sinatra had had that impact on females a decade before, but with a different style. No one else did until the Beatles came along almost a decade later.
Rock 'n' roll star Elvis Presley plays with his puppy Sweet Pea after a brief fistfight the evening of Oct. 18, 1956. (AP Photo/Gene Herrick)
This unidentified teenager found Elvis Presley "too much" when he appeared at the Philadelphia Arena in Philadelphia, on April 6, 1957. (AP Photo/Bill Ingraham)
HE ONCE ASKED his mother: “Momma, you think ahm vulgah on the stage?”
Presley said his mother replied: “You’re not vulgah, but you’re puttin’ too much into your singin’. Keep that up, you won’t live to be 30.”
Elvis Aron Presley was born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Miss., on Jan. 8, 1935. During his prime in the 1960s he carried about 175 pounds on his six-foot frame but in recent years was plagued by weight problems as well as fatigue.
The two-room "shotgun" shack in Tupelo, Miss., where Elvis Presley was born Jan. 8, 1935, is seen in this Aug. 15, 1979 photo. Although Memphis, where the King of Rock 'n Roll had his home and the town in which he died, has cashed in on the late singer's popularity, Tupelo has found the going much tougher. (AP Photo)
He didn’t smoke and didn’t drink.
He had a generous habit of giving cars away, to friends, policemen and admirers.
He had more than 30 gold records — million-sellers.
His popularity made him a movie actor, too, and he appeared in about 25 films.
Elvis Presley and his new bride Priscilla cut the cake at their wedding reception in Las Vegas on May 1, 1967. (AP Photo)
Thousands of his followers were proud members of the Elvis Presley National Fan Club, which once had 400,000 members in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, England, France and Australia.
At its headquarters in Madison, Tenn., as many as 4,000 letters a day poured in. Each was processed by one of Presley’s disciples.
Anyone who wrote in was sent a free membership card - and an invitation to purchase autographed photos of the singing star.
Lisa Smallwood, of Nashville, Tenn., lights candles at her tribute to Elvis Presley in front of Graceland in Memphis, Tenn., Friday, Aug. 15, 2003. (AP Photo/Greg Campbell)
Fans hold candles during a vigil for Elvis Presley at Graceland, Presley's Memphis home, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill)
Text from AP News story, From Respiratory Trouble Elvis Presley Dead at 42, by Les Seago, in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 1977.