Killing the Legends: The Lethal Danger of Celebrity

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PROLOGUE I

AUGUST 16, 1977

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

1:30 P.M.

The King is dead.

Nobody knows—not yet. Elvis Aaron Presley lies alone on his bathroom floor, his depleted body struck down by years of narcotics and unhealthy living. Death came so suddenly that he could not even call for help or struggle to his feet. Thick red shag carpet muffled his fall from the commode. So, while Presley’s girlfriend sleeps peacefully just a few feet away in the master bedroom, she is completely unaware of the corpse on the other side of the bathroom door.

Elvis, as he was known all over the world, was forty-two at the time of his death. He was once widely acclaimed as the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. But by this point, the King, as he was still called by legions of fans, was no longer relevant in the music world. Presley had become an oldies act, still performing hits from a decade and a half earlier after being displaced from the Top 40 pop charts by bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Recently, he was also eclipsed by rising stars like Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen.

Although he still made millions of dollars playing Las Vegas and other concert venues, Elvis Presley was a physical mess. In his early twenties, he was a virile and handsome man, a sex symbol whose hit records and movie roles made him one of the biggest stars on earth. But at the end, that was no more. His slide into debauchery was long and pronounced, and the sycophants who depended on him for money and prestige did nothing to stop his decline. Onstage, Presley, though still charismatic, had become a garish caricature of himself: swollen, obese, and often unable to remember lyrics due to a barbiturate addiction. And while Elvis was still a relatively young man, his drug addiction and gluttony destroyed his overall health and aged his body well beyond its years.

There was a time when the blue-eyed singer was fastidious about his personal appearance, dying his sandy blond hair and eyebrows a deep black to imitate the look of Tony Curtis, his favorite actor. Presley also had his teeth capped and his nose straightened, and he took up karate for exercise. But by the time of his death, that regimen was long gone. In addition to popping amphetamines to maintain his energy during concerts, and sleeping pills to come back down, Elvis gorged on biscuits and gravy, potato cheese soup, and loaves of Italian bread stuffed with pounds of bacon, peanut butter, and grape jelly. Once svelte, the King now weighs almost three hundred pounds as he lies comatose on the bathroom floor.

In recent years, Elvis overdosed twice, yet he continued taking pills, rationalizing that he was not a drug addict because he didn’t purchase the drugs from street dealers. Instead, the narcotics were prescribed by his longtime personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos.

But Elvis Presley was, indeed, addicted. In the first seven months of 1977, Dr. Nick prescribed more than ten thousand doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and other narcotics to the ailing singer. Truth be told, before his collapse, Elvis Presley was living in an almost constant state of inebriation.

Divorced from his first wife, Priscilla, Presley lived with a tall brunette twenty years his junior, named Ginger Alden. The couple resided in his mansion, Graceland, where he maintained a nocturnal lifestyle. The King purchased the thirteen-acre property for $102,500 ($945,000 in today’s dollars) in 1957 and decorated it in garish fashion, particularly the Jungle Room, where he famously shot out a television screen with a revolver because he was bored. For more than two decades, venturing outside during daylight had been a challenge for him. Presley’s fame meant he was instantly recognized no matter where he went, so he slept all day and went out only after dark. This led to eccentricities—like a ten thirty p.m. visit to the dentist and a game of racquetball in his private court at four a.m. At four thirty, he sat at the piano singing gospel music, finally calling it a night at five.

As he did most every day, the King ingested a packet of pills in order to fall asleep. The pills did not work. At seven a.m., he downed another packet. This was in addition to the codeine the dentist had given him the night before.

At eight a.m., Elvis Presley took a third packet of pills, this time a drug known as Valmid, used to treat insomnia.

I’m going into the bathroom to read, the singer, still unable to sleep, told Ginger Alden at nine thirty. He grabbed a book off the nightstand—The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus—and walked into the bathroom. He wore gold pajamas.

Don’t fall asleep in there, Alden called after him, a subtle reminder that the King had done so in the past. He suffered from chronic constipation brought on by his drug use, and as a result, he spent hours in the bathroom.

I won’t, said Presley, uttering his last words.

Ginger Alden, to whom Elvis Presley had proposed but whom he never intended to marry, fell back asleep. She woke at one thirty in the afternoon to find the space beside her in bed empty. Knowing that Elvis needed to catch a seven p.m. private flight to Portland, Maine, for a concert, Alden thought he must be awake somewhere in the house. She phoned her mother, got dressed, and put on makeup. Then, after Elvis still hadn’t returned to the bedroom, she went to the bathroom and knocked on the door.

There was no response. Slowly turning the knob, she pushed the door open and screamed. There, head on the floor, posterior in the air, lay an unresponsive Elvis. His gold pajama bottoms were down around his ankles, and his face lay in a pool of vomit. The singer’s body was cold, and his tongue was clenched between his teeth, nearly bitten in two. Alden peeled back one of the King’s eyelids, only to see a lifeless blue eye framed in blood. Ginger Alden screamed again.

The lifeless body was rushed to Baptist Medical Center in Memphis, where Elvis Presley was pronounced dead shortly after three p.m. Newspaper reporters calling the emergency room to check on Elvis’s status were instead directed to the morgue.

News traveled fast. At four p.m., Vernon Presley, the singer’s sixty-one-year-old father, stood on the front steps of Graceland to address a crowd of journalists. He had been a steadfast presence in his boy’s career and knew firsthand the source of the King’s destruction.

A devastated Vernon was succinct in his remarks: My son is dead.

PROLOGUE II

DECEMBER 8, 1980

NEW YORK CITY

10:48 P.M.

The Walrus has been shot.

John Winston Ono Lennon staggers up the six steps leading into the main security office of the Dakota apartment building. Blood flows from the four .38-caliber hollow-point-bullet holes in his torso: two in the back, two in the shoulder. The projectiles’ hollow points expanded upon impact, as they are designed to do, instantly shredding Lennon’s internal organs.

I’m shot, Lennon cries, blood dripping from his mouth. I’m shot.

The shooter, Mark David Chapman, a twenty-five-year-old security guard from Texas, calmly places his Charter Arms revolver on the pavement and removes his long green jacket—in order to show the police who will arrive that he is unarmed. As he waits to be arrested, Chapman opens a copy of A Catcher in the Rye, a book with which he is obsessed. Then he sits down on the curb to read.

Do you know what you’ve done? Dakota doorman José Perdomo screams at a gloating Chapman.

Yes, comes the answer. I’ve just shot John Lennon.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

In the 1960s, John Lennon was famously a member of the Beatles, the most popular pop group in music history. A dry wit and contrarian demeanor were Lennon’s trademarks, on display in song lyrics and the group’s motion picture appearances, leading one fellow songwriter to label him the Walrus.

In 1970, the Beatles shocked the world when they split up, in part because of Lennon’s heroin use. However, this detail was kept quiet, and many fans chose to blame thirty-seven-year-old Yoko Ono, who had become Lennon’s muse and girlfriend in 1966. The couple’s connection was so strong that Lennon legally added Ono to his name on April 22 of that year.

John Lennon strayed from the relationship during a period of separation in 1973, taking up with his personal assistant, May Pang. But Ono and Lennon reconciled in 1975. At the time he was shot, the singer was almost totally emotionally dependent on her.

John Lennon is forty years old, five foot ten, and a slender 139 pounds. The brown-eyed John was raised by his grandmother in Liverpool, England, and married Cynthia Powell at the age of twenty-two after she became pregnant. In 1963, she gave birth to a son they named Julian.

The breakup of the Beatles was mourned by fans the world over. Even now, ten years afterward, cries for a reunion album and concert tour are still voiced hopefully by the faithful.

But, at the time of his shooting, John Lennon has no plans ever to reunite the band. He is enjoying life far too much after the pandemonium and celebrity of his Beatles experience. After their breakup, Lennon took a lengthy sabbatical from music, a period that coincided with the 1975 birth of another son, Sean, with Yoko.

Having grown up without a father, John Lennon relished the chance to raise Sean. He ensconced himself in the family’s apartment at New York’s exclusive Dakota and spent his days parenting. John and Yoko own five apartments in the Dakota, and Lennon has turned one of them into a recording studio. In the late 1970s, when he finally felt like making music again, the singer recorded part of Double Fantasy, a two-disc album, in that apartment.¹

Released to critical acclaim, Double Fantasy officially went gold—that is, it reached sales of a half-million copies—just this morning. In fact, this day is one of the best in recent memory for John Lennon. It began with eggs Benedict and a Gitane cigarette at Café La Fortuna, on Seventy-First Street. Then Lennon agreed to a photo shoot with Rolling Stone photographer Annie Leibovitz, followed by a three-hour radio interview to promote the new album. We’re either going to live or we’re going to die, Lennon tells interviewer Dave Sholin. I consider that my work won’t be finished until I’m dead and buried.

Shortly after completing the interview, Lennon leaves the Dakota with Ono to go to a nearby recording studio. The time is four thirty p.m. Despite mild December weather, the singer is greeted outside the Dakota’s Seventy-Second Street entrance by a fan wearing a long green overcoat, a scarf, gloves, and a fur hat. This is Mark David Chapman. He has traveled to New York from Fort Worth, Texas, with the intention to shoot John Lennon dead.

The portly Chapman hands Lennon a copy of the Double Fantasy album cover to sign. Lennon autographs the cover and hands it back, not knowing that Chapman nurses a silent hatred for him. The assassin believes Lennon is a phony for spouting leftist sayings while living a millionaire’s lifestyle. He is also offended by Lennon’s atheistic stance, particularly his famous 1966 quote We’re more popular than Jesus now.

Chapman is standing right next to Lennon and could shoot him at any time. But the entrance to the Dakota is a popular place for fans to gather, owing to the many celebrities who live inside the building. Rather than pull the pistol from his pocket immediately, and risk someone interfering with his murderous plans, Mark David Chapman prefers to wait. He accepts the autographed album from Lennon with a big smile and then watches as the singer and Yoko Ono step into a limousine and are driven away.

It is six hours later when the couple returns.

Chapman is there, a loaded revolver still concealed in his pocket.

Normally, John Lennon’s limousine would drive through the gate and into the inner courtyard, but this evening, another vehicle is parked in front of the entrance. So Lennon and Ono’s driver lets them out at the curb on Seventy-Second Street. A small crowd of fans is gathered at the Dakota’s entrance.

Lennon carries a cassette player as he exits the car. Yoko Ono walks a few steps ahead of him, passing through the main arch of the building and into the courtyard.

Mr. Lennon, Chapman says as the singer passes by.

Lennon stops. Chapman pulls his pistol, places two hands on the grip, drops into a combat shooting stance, and fires. The first two bullets strike Lennon in the back, spinning him around and destroying the major arteries and blood vessels surrounding his heart. The second two shots hit Lennon in the shoulder. A fifth bullet misses.

I’m shot, Lennon cries as he struggles to climb the six steps to the Dakota security office.

Yoko Ono wheels around at the sound of the gunshots, but she is powerless to help as events quickly unfold. Dakota doorman José Perdomo and concierge Jay Hastings bend to help Lennon as he collapses facedown inside the security office. Hastings quickly attempts to fashion a tourniquet from his uniform jacket, but upon pushing back Lennon’s blood-soaked shirt and seeing the extent of his injuries, he places the coat over Lennon’s torso to keep him warm.

New York City police officers Steven Spiro and Peter Cullen are two blocks away in a cruiser, on Amsterdam, when they hear the gunshots. They arrive at the scene within two minutes, calling for an ambulance before gruffly forcing Chapman to the ground to be handcuffed. Spread-eagle on the pavement, Chapman cries out, complaining that he is being hurt.

As John Lennon continues to lose blood, a second team of police officers arrives. Acting quickly, Officers Herb Frauenberger and Tony Palma lift Lennon into the backseat of a squad car driven by Officer Jim Moran, who peels out for nearby Roosevelt Hospital, siren blaring.

Are you John Lennon? the policemen ask.

The rock star tries to speak but loses consciousness instead.

By eleven p.m., John Lennon is wheeled into the emergency room. He has lost 80 percent of his blood. Physicians attempting to transfuse new plasma into his heart are stunned to see the blood simply flow back out of his shredded vessels. The hollow-point bullets did their job.

At 11:07 p.m., Dr. Stephan Lynn, Roosevelt’s emergency room director, informs Yoko Ono that her husband is dead.

It can’t be true, she wails, collapsing in shock and grief. Worldwide mourning begins almost immediately.

PROLOGUE III

JUNE 3, 2016

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

9:10 P.M.

The Greatest is no more.

Boxer Muhammad Ali is seventy-four years old. Over the course of his legendary career, it is estimated that the heavyweight champ absorbed almost two hundred thousand blows to the head and torso. He has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but in the words of his wife, Lonnie, it is a little cold that has sent him to HonorHealth Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center, where he was admitted one week ago. Ali’s serious condition was quickly ascertained, and because his body lacked the resources to fight the infection, he was moved to intensive care and quickly placed on a ventilator.

But now Muhammad Ali’s pulse slows to nothing. A Muslim prayer leader known as an imam sings words of praise into the boxer’s right ear. And even though Lonnie Ali, the boxer’s fourth wife, and his nine children are all gathered, the voice of Zaid Shakir will be the last one Ali will ever hear. The boxer has been a Muslim for more than fifty years. In 1964, after three years as a practicing Muslim, he formally joined the Nation of Islam, and in 1967 he left behind his given name of Cassius Clay.

A doctor presses a stethoscope to Muhammad Ali’s chest and then declares the time of death.

Ali’s body is taken to the Bunker Hill Funeral Home for embalming. Normally, in the Muslim faith, the deceased is buried within twenty-four hours of death and the body lowered into the ground rather than placed in a coffin. But owing to Ali’s global celebrity, and the need for the sort of public closure a large funeral provides, several years prior to his death he forged a spiritual solution. His corpse would be embalmed, but only with a solution containing no alcohol or formaldehyde. Undertaker Jeff Gardner, a Catholic from Ali’s hometown of Louisville, was hired eight years ago to perform this task. Ever since the Ali family requested his services, Gardner has worn a pager to alert him of the boxer’s demise. When news of Ali’s hospitalization came, the undertaker immediately boarded a private jet and flew to Phoenix.

Gardner is met at Bunker Hill by Ahmad Ewais, who has been hired to cleanse Ali’s body after the embalming. Lighting a stick of incense, Ewais uses soap and water to wash the champ. Ali’s body is covered by a towel from his neck to his knees. Then Ewais cleans the entire body a second time, using ground lotus leaves. On the third and final washing, Ewais uses camphor and perfume before covering the corpse in three sheets of linen. When he is done, only Ali’s face can be seen.

The boxer is then lifted into a travel casket, placed in a white hearse, and driven to the airport, where the private jet awaits.

Muhammad Ali is going home to Louisville one last time. His burial will take place one week after his death. The memorial service will be held in the city’s convention center. Tickets for the service will be gone within minutes.

The cause of death is officially septic shock, with some believing Ali’s Parkinson’s was a contributing factor. But as with Elvis Presley and John Lennon, the downfall of this legend was brought on by other human beings.

A poor boy from Tupelo, Mississippi. A poor boy from Liverpool, England. A poor boy from Louisville, Kentucky.

Ironically, these three legends had much in common despite living vastly different lives.

All three men achieved vast wealth and fame. All possessed talent and charisma. All surrendered their autonomy to others.

And that capitulation sealed their destinies.

PART I

The King

CHAPTER ONE

JULY 22, 1963

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

1 P.M.

Elvis Presley is Lucky.

The King, playing the role of race driver Lucky Jackson in the film Viva Las Vegas, strolls the deck around the Flamingo Hotel’s expansive swimming pool. He walks alone, strumming a guitar while singing a love song. Movie extras lounge in the sunshine, pretending to read a book or sip a drink. Elvis keeps singing as he arrives at the door marked Women’s Changing Room, knowing that the woman with whom he is infatuated can hear him on the other side.²

Elvis is twenty-eight, six feet tall, his hair dyed jet black. Inside the changing room, twenty-two-year-old Ann-Margret, a Swedishborn actress, changes into a swimsuit. Ann-Margret, playing the character Rusty Martin, is a vibrant on-screen presence. As Elvis sings, she slips into a pair of stiletto high heels that match her yellow one-piece and then emerges onto the pool deck.

There, the two stand eye-to-eye as they begin to sing a duet.

Once the music started, neither of us could stand still, Ann-Margret will write in her autobiography. Music ignited a fiery pent-up passion inside Elvis and inside me. It was an odd, embarrassing, funny, inspiring, and wonderful sensation. We looked at each other move and saw virtual mirror images. When Elvis thrust his pelvis, mine slammed forward too. When his shoulder dropped, I was down there with him. When he whirled, I was already on my heel.

The song, The Lady Loves, is not the rock ’n’ roll that made Presley famous but a charming pop tune soon to be forgotten in movie history, overshadowed by the eponymous Viva Las Vegas theme song. But the chemistry between Presley, strumming his guitar while wearing a gray sharkskin suit, and Ann-Margret, in her form-fitting bathing suit, is scorching.

It is one week since filming began on location here in Las Vegas. The Flamingo’s guests were informed in advance that the pool would be closed this afternoon and tomorrow. Many now watch from the hotel lobby as this highly choreographed scene is repeated over and over. As the couple slowly climbs the pink stairwell leading to the top of the diving board, cries of Cut! come from director George Sidney. The cameras must be repositioned. It is taxing work under the desert sun, with the few palm trees landscaping the pool providing little shade to bring down the 106-degree temperature. But neither Elvis Presley nor Ann-Margret shows any sign of exhaustion. Elvis’s makeup and black pompadour are touched up after each scene, and his suit coat shows no signs of perspiration.

In fact, the true heat comes from the actors themselves. The on-screen chemistry is no accident, for their off-screen romance is incendiary. Ann-Margret is not married; nor is Elvis. But it is known around the world that the King has a longtime girlfriend in young Priscilla Beaulieu, who just turned eighteen two months ago.

So the affair is kept secret. Barely.

Three years earlier, on March 1, 1960, Sgt. Elvis Presley returned to the limelight. The location is Friedberg, West Germany. The time is 9:17 a.m. The twenty-five-year-old singer wears an olive-drab army uniform as he steps into the enlisted men’s club at Ray Barracks. The three chevrons of his rank are stitched onto his sleeves. His tie is neatly cinched. More than one hundred reporters and photographers fill the canteen, jostling to get close to the entertainer for questions before he finishes his military service and returns to the United States. More journalists are present today than were for President Dwight Eisenhower’s press conferences during his recent visit to West Germany.

Elvis Presley’s body has grown muscular in the army. He has learned karate as part of his training and has also developed a fondness for the amphetamines soldiers take to stay awake while on night maneuvers. Elvis sees nothing wrong with the drugs, though they sometimes make him jittery. He believes the pep pills elevate his mental faculties and keep him trim, even as he pursues a diet heavy in white bread and potatoes fried in bacon fat. To ensure a steady supply of pills for himself and his friends, Elvis has bribed an army pharmacist. One fellow soldier, Rex Mansfield, will later say that the drugs were so available in the army that it took him five years to kick his own habit.

But there is no evidence of narcotics right now. A toothy smile creases Presley’s face as he prepares to take questions. It has been four years since the blues-rock single Heartbreak Hotel turned the former Mississippi truck driver into an international star. That hit was followed by Hound Dog, which eventually sold ten million copies globally, guaranteeing first-name status for Elvis.

On this day, Sergeant Presley strides through the crowd with poise and command, instantly owning the room.