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| Elvis was far from how the world remebers him when he died aged just 42 |
As ELVIS PRESLEY battled obesity, prescription drug abuse, loneliness and the heartbreak of losing the love of his life Priscilla, his nurse Letetia Henley was there beside him holding his hand, attempting to raise his spirits, singing gospel songs with him and trying to stop him from killing himself.
"I saw the ups and downs," says the nurse, who the King of Rock 'n' Roll lovingly called Tish. "He was not only my patient but a good friend. In the end he was depressed, overweight and lethargic with a passion for pills. But his death came as a complete shock."
After nearly four decades Letetia, 73, has broken her silence to reveal the secrets of her life tending to the troubled superstar in her book Taking Care Of Elvis.
Before dying at the age of 42 at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1977, Elvis pined for his ex-wife Priscilla. "He was very miserable," says Letetia. "He was depressed about ageing and not having a woman he loved. He missed Priscilla. His friends kept pimping him with pretty 17 and 18-year-old girls but he had nothing in common with them.
"To the world he seemed to have it all but he had things missing in his life and that pained him."
Suffering high blood pressure, liver damage, glaucoma and an enlarged colon Presley died of a heart attack in his bathroom, his body pumped full of prescription pills, many administered by Letetia.
She lived in the grounds of Graceland, available to Elvis round-the-clock along with his live-in doctor George Nichopoulos, who claimed to have written prescriptions for 10,000 doses of uppers, downers and assorted narcotics in the last seven months of Presley's life.
To the world he seemed to have it all but he had things missing in his life and that pained him
Letetia struggled to monitor Elvis's passion for prescription drugs, which he acquired from numerous sources. "They came in from everywhere," says the nurse, who often accompanied Presley on tour to keep track of his addiction.
"Strangers gave him pills to get on his good side and Elvis hoarded them. His access to medications was overwhelming and I couldn't catch them all. There were no street drugs just prescription
drugs but it was a nightmare. It was sad."
Letetia may have supplied the last pills Elvis ingested claims Dr Nichopoulos, known as Dr Nick, who lost his medical licence in 1995 for over-prescribing medications. "He had trouble going to sleep," says Dr Nick, 87. "Elvis called my office eight o'clock in the morning and I wasn't there yet. But Tish was there and Elvis talked to her. She told her husband where there were sleeping pills."
Elvis sent his aunt over to Letetia's home on the Graceland estate to bring him the drugs.
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| His nurse had to go with him on tour to keep track of all his prescription drugs |
Letetia regrets not being there to save Elvis as he lay dying. "You always think there was something you could have done, that he might still be alive today," she says. "That haunts me."
She was at Dr Nick's clinic when her husband Tommy, who was Graceland's groundsman, phoned her: "Get home quick!"
Letetia arrived as the ambulance sped Presley to hospital in vain. "I was in total disbelief," she says.
"I never dreamed something like that would happen. I was worried because Lisa Marie was there. It was horrific."
Letetia had been asked to care for Presley full-time after he accidentally overdosed on prescription pills one night in 1973. She reluctantly moved into a three-bedroom trailer home on the Graceland estate with her husband and two young daughters.
"I told Elvis I wasn't going to be trailer trash for nobody," she says. "So he hired my husband Tommy to do security and take care of the grounds and keep his toys running. Elvis had his way of getting what he wanted.
"Elvis came in and out of our trailer like he was one of our kids. He was just part of the family and my daughters played with Lisa Marie."
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| When Elvis died depressed and pining for his ex-wife |
Letetia first met Elvis while working in Dr Nick's surgery in 1968 when Presley visited the clinic to tend his saddle sores after a day's horse-riding. "We treated him after hours," she recalls. "I was in the room assessing Elvis and he was sitting in the corner talking to me with his head down. I walked over, lifted his chin and said: 'Elvis, if you talk to me you look at me.'"
She thought she was in trouble when Dr Nick called her into his office, asking what she had said to the superstar. Elvis had liked her "country ways". Letetia became Presley's regular nurse and in 1973 moved in to Graceland where she lived until 1983, six years after Presley's death, caring for his father and grandmother.
"Elvis and I spent a lot of time together talking, walking the estate and in the meditation garden. We would sing gospel songs together. He was intelligent, witty, kind and caring. There was nothing romantic between us.
"I tried to monitor his medications and make him eat healthily but it was a lost cause. If I gave him yoghurt for breakfast he'd eat six."
Elvis's health issues worsened as he became depressed after divorcing Priscilla in 1973. "She was a very big piece of the putty that held Elvis together," says Letetia. "They stayed friendly after the divorce and when Elvis was having a bad day or was down all he had to do was talk to Priscilla and his spirits were lifted and he became a different person."
Single again, Presley bedded a string of women but he lamented that none matched up to Priscilla, says Letetia. She once found him sprawled across his bed crying. "Why can't I find a woman to
spend time with me and make me happy?" he moaned.
Elvis had equally bad luck with his pet dogs. Getlow growled at him all the time and once bit his hand and another named Peanuts urinated on his leg. He gave away a flatulent pomeranian because "their personalities didn't mesh".
Presley famously lavished gifts on employees and Letetia was no exception. She refused his offer of a Cadillac as "excessive" but accepted a Pontiac along with a mink coat, jewellery and clothing. "Elvis was extremely generous and loved to make people happy," she says.
Letetia treasured a book about spirituality he gave her: The Impersonal Life, inscribed in blue ink: "To Tish, with sincere thanks for your friendship, Love E.P." But loyalty has its limits and in January this year she sold the book at auction for £2,000. Now her memoir tells all.
Were he alive today Elvis Presley might be All Shook Up.
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