As the ambulance crested a low hill and swooped down the broad six-lane boulevard toward Graceland, the gates swung open and the crowd milling around the entrance parted. Making a wide sweeping turn to the left, the vehicle bounced heavily across the sidewalk and hurtled through the entranceway, striking one of the swinging metal gates a clanging blow. One of the several musical notes welded to the gate fell off. Crosby accelerated up the curving drive toward the mansion. He braked hard in front of the two-story, white-columned portico. Climbing down from the ambulance, Crosby and Jones were met by one of Elvis’s bodyguards.

“He’s upstairs,” the man exclaimed, “and I think it’s an OD.”

Grabbing their equipment, the two medics rushed into the house and up the stairs. They pushed through Elvis’s bedroom, noticing the deep-pile red rug and the huge unmade bed facing three television consoles, one for each of the three major networks. Passing through a wide doorway, they entered Elvis’s enormous bathroom, what had been two rooms combined into a sitting room, dressing room, and bathroom. Ulysses Jones told a reporter later that day that he saw “as many as a dozen people huddled over the body of a man clothed in pajamas—a yellow top and blue bottoms.”

At first sight Jones didn’t recognize Elvis. The man was stretched out on his back on the thick red rug with his pajama top open and his bottoms pulled down below his knees. Rolls of fat girded his belly. He was very dark, almost black. Jones thought that he might have been a black man. “From his shoulders up, his skin was dark blue,” he told a reporter for the Memphis Press-Scimitar. “Around his neck, which seemed fat and bloated, was a very large gold medallion. His sideburns were gray.” A young man was pressing Elvis’s chest rhythmically, while a middle-aged woman gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Jones knelt quickly to search for any sign of life in the prostrate form. He felt no pulse, and he saw no flicker of response when he flashed a penlight into his eyes. “Elvis was cold,” he said, “unusually cold.”

In the fall of 1981 the state tried Dr. Nichopoulos in criminal court for overprescribing drugs to Elvis and a number of other patients. Dr. Nick testified that if he had not given Elvis a large proportion of the drugs he demanded, other doctors would have. By supplying Elvis, he had at least some control over his patient’s intake. His defense was weakened substantially by evidence that he had prescribed an excessive amount of drugs to at least ten other patients, including rock star Jerry Lee Lewis and his own teenage daughter, Chrissy.

On the other hand, it was clearly established that Elvis could, would, and did get any drug he wanted from show business doctors in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. One of his suppliers was a Las Vegas physician called “Flash” by Elvis’s staff, since he would appear on a moment’s notice, syringe in hand, ready to inject Elvis with whatever drug he wanted. The guys said that “Flash liked to attend Elvis’s parties to mix with the overflow of attractive young women present and perhaps find a companion for the evening.” At home in Memphis, Elvis would get packages containing drugs mailed from the West. Sometimes he sent his private plane, the four-engine Lisa Marie, to Las Vegas or Los Angeles to secure drugs from doctors in those cities and ferry them back to Memphis. Sometimes he flew out himself.

Dr. Nick, like Elvis’s other physicians, had been seduced by the frothy glitter of show business, and with his tanned and striking appearance he fit right in. His style diverged from the practice of medicine that was increasingly a matter of business and less a matter of personal service. He was born and reared in Anniston, Alabama, where his father was a highly respected restaurant owner and businessman. George Nichopoulos, however, had not at first been a high achiever. He had not progressed smoothly through college and medical school. He had first entered the University of Alabama on a football scholarship, but dropped out before the school year ended, and he served in the army for two years. He was a student at Birmingham Southern University for a year and then moved on to the University of the South at Sewanee, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1951. He worked in a research lab at Vanderbilt University before his admission to the medical school in 1952. He failed biochemistry and physiology, was put on probation, and tried to make up for his failures during summer school, but failed again. In the fall, he was not readmitted. He moved to Memphis and for three years worked in the University of Tennessee’s medical school. In 1956, he was readmitted to Vanderbilt Medical School, graduating in 1959. After finishing his training, in 1962 he entered practice in Memphis with several doctors who called themselves the Medical Group.

Other doctors looked askance at George Nichopoulos’s personal and sartorial style. Too much informality, they thought. He allowed his patients, friends, and acquaintances to call him “Dr. Nick.” He seemed unduly proud of the stylishly arranged thatch of white hair that crowned his head, and he was not averse to revealing his chest hair. He often wore his shirts open at the throat, showing off a very large, tasteless gold medallion suspended by a necklace and resting against his bare chest. The medallion was a special gift from Elvis Presley and marked him as a member of the star’s inner circle, some of whom were macho young men who proudly called themselves “the Memphis Mafia.” Dr. Nick usually sported a highly visible array of expensive rings, bracelets, and wristwatches, some of which were gifts from Elvis. Without his white smock and dangling stethoscope, one would have difficulty recognizing him as a doctor, even in a medical office or hospital. How could he command sufficient authority among his patients? his medical colleagues wondered. How could he justify his fees?

Dr. Nichopoulos was making his rounds at Doctors Hospital far out on the east side of Memphis when the call came that Elvis was in trouble. Dropping everything, he rushed to Graceland in the green Mercedes-Benz Elvis had given him. He was taken by surprise by the call. He had done everything he could think of to preserve Elvis’s life in the face of his drug addiction, and he thought he was succeeding. He was looking forward to flying off in the Lisa Marie with Elvis to Portland, Maine, for a ten-day tour. For years the doctor had often toured with Elvis, carrying all the necessary drugs with him. Elvis would sometimes introduce him to his adoring audiences, publicly expressing his fond appreciation for his physician as thousands of people looked on and Dr. Nichopoulos stood in the spotlight graciously accepting their applause. Now and again, when Elvis was mad at Dr. Nick, he would punish him by not letting him come along on a tour.

The day before Elvis died, Dr. Nick had loaded up his bag at the Prescription House, a pharmacy just across the street from his office. Later, investigators found that for this ten-day trip, Dr. Nick had picked up 682 pills and tablets, including Dilaudids, Percodans, Amytals, Quaaludes, Dexadrines, and Bephetamines, along with 20 cc’s of liquid Dilaudid.

Elvis paid the doctor $800 a day for his services on tours, which lasted from about ten to twenty days. He also paid the doctors with whom Nichopoulos practiced $1,000 a day to cover for him while he was gone. Between 1970 and 1977, Elvis paid Dr. Nick more than $76,000 for his services on the road and $147,000 to the medical group.

The material benefits that Dr. Nichopoulos enjoyed from his association with Elvis did not stop at gifts and fees. In 1975 he had persuaded Elvis to loan him $200,000 to build a house in a newly developing and affluent neighborhood well east of town. With a tennis court, a swimming pool, and an enclosed racquetball court, the banks found the home too costly even for its well-to-do neighborhood and refused to lend Dr. Nick the money he needed. Elvis did so, and before he passed away $55,000 more. They did draw up a paper shortly before Elvis’s death that would pool the loans and obligate Nichopoulos to repay the amount over a period of twenty-five years at 7 percent interest, but Elvis never got around to signing the document.

Only days after the funeral, Vernon summoned Nichopoulos to Graceland and with insulting haste compelled him to sign a document in which he mortgaged his home to Elvis’s estate for the total amount he owed. He also increased the interest rate to 8 percent and warned Nichopoulos that if he was late on even one month’s payment, foreclosure would summarily follow. Vernon had never trusted Dr. Nick. Court records indicate that as of June 27, 1979, Nichopoulos had not missed a single payment and still owed the estate $245,807.33.