How did Elvis Presley die? A look back at the King's 1977 death

Medical authorities in Memphis attributed the death of Elvis Presley to cardiac arrest, but the singer’s drug habit is now generally accepted as a prime cause of that heart trouble.

Presley was pronounced dead at Baptist Hospital on Union Avenue at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 16, 1977. He had been transported to the hospital by Fire Department ambulance after he was found on the floor of his upstairs bathroom at Graceland. He was 42.

(Incidentally, the hospital was the same one in which Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, Lisa Marie was born, on Feb. 1, 1968. After being vacant for five years, the seven-story building was demolished on Nov. 6, 2005.)

Elvis reportedly had been in good spirits on the morning of Aug. 16. He had been scheduled to fly that night to Portland, Maine, to continue his 1977 concert tour.

Dr. Jerry Francisco, the Shelby County Medical Examiner, conducted an autopsy with a team of six pathologists after Elvis was pronounced dead. That same day, Aug. 16, Francisco said Elvis’ death was due to cardiac arrest. (The family had a history of heart trouble: Gladys Presley, Elvis’ mother, had died of a heart attack on Aug. 14, 1958, at 46.)

According to The Commercial Appeal, Francisco reported that Presley suffered from “mild hypertension” and “coronary disease that had gone undetected,” and he “died in a matter of four short minutes of coronary arrhythmia, an irregular beating of the heart.”

The newspaper reported that Francisco concluded that “there was no evidence of any drug use contributing to his death.”

Nevertheless, investigations by print and electronic media journalists into Presley’s death began almost immediately. Some news reports attributed Elvis’ cardiac arrest to “polypharmacy” (the simultaneous use of multiple drugs), which adversely affected what medical personnel variously referred to as Presley’s “enlarged” heart, his “clogged” arteries and his “hypertensive heart disease.”

The Commercial Appeal reported that lab reports indicated that 14 drugs were found in Presley’s blood at the time of his death, including “near toxic levels” of codeine, morphine, Placidyl and other prescription drugs. The “overdose of depressants” likely caused him to pass out in a slumped “fetal” position, and “he died when the drugs, in combination with pressure from his body weight, brought his respiration to a halt,” according to the evening newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar.

Presley’s drug habit is now generally accepted as a cause of death. The Encyclopedia Britannica states, simply: “Elvis Presley died of a heart attack in 1977 brought on largely by drug abuse.” The Wikipedia synopsis of the singer’s biography provides this summary: “Years of substance abuse and unhealthy eating severely compromised his health.”

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