Elvis: The Final Hours

10pm, 15th August 1977: - It is a hot, sultry night in Memphis, Tennessee. Despite the late, airless hour, fans are still outside the gate - but this is normal for Graceland, a house under perpetual siege. Without knowing it, they are waiting for what will become the last public sighting of Elvis.

They know that in the upside-down world that is Elvis' Graceland, his day is just beginning. 'If he wanted to see a movie, if he wanted to ride his motorbike, it had to be at three in the morning,' says fire captain Gay Dearden, who was in charge of both ambulances and fire engines on this fateful day. "We got called to take him down to the hospital all the time, seven or eight times in the last few months. It got to be routine." But this time, nothing would be routine.

Tonight, Graceland is not a happy place and tension hangs in the air. Lisa Marie, Elvis' daughter by Priscilla, is here; but Priscilla and Elvis have been separated since 1972. Nine years old, Lisa Marie has been paying her longest visit so far to her daddy, and this is her last full day. She was supposed top have flown back to Priscilla in Los Angeles this evening, but ever one to postpone the unpleasant, Elvis has let booking the plane ticket slide.

There are other problems, Elvis is preparing to go on tour and is on a crash diet. Hunger leaves him exhausted, but Elvis cannot stop the tours: they are the only things that give meaning to his life. And Elvis cannot afford to stop performing.

"When he died he only had $1.5 million left in the bank, which for him was nothing," says Gay. "I remember one time he bought the county sheriff a new car, and when he saw a black lady staring in the showroom window, he bought her one too. It was like he was trying to buy friends, even though he didn't need to."

That summer, Elvis realised just how big a financial ride his manager Colonel Tom Parker had taken him for, and he was considering breaking away from the man who had both made him rich, and wasted Elvis' talent.

And finally: women. His latest girlfriend is Ginger Alden, who has been with him nine months now. But after six weeks at Graceland, Ginger wants time by herself. Elvis talks of "bringing someone else in" - even though Ginger is later to claim that they were engaged.

The fans know nothing of any of this. So the scene is set for Elvis' last hours.

Midnight: - Elvis returns from a trip to the dentist. He had been complaining of toothache and typically, had thought nothing of driving himself to the surgery at the ungodly hour. Now, as his '73 Stutz Blackhawk approaches Graceland, the fans rush forward. One holds up a camera; a flashbulb goes off. He has shot, through the car window, the last-ever photograph of Elvis alive.

12.30am, 16th August: - Elvis goes up the mirrored staircase to his bedroom and calls to Lawrence Geller, his hairdresser and guru. Lawrence gives Elvis three books to read, on "spiritual" matters, for which read the quasi-religious, or the quasi-occult. "Lawrence, don't forget, angels fly because they take themselves lightly." These are Elvis' last words to him.

All around Elvis are his Graceland mafia, his gang, his hangers-on - cousins, friends, close and distant family; these are the men who protect Elvis and keep him isolated from the world. "I remember he threw a party when he got a new pool," says Gay "There were hundreds of people there to see him, and we were all waiting for a glimpse, but he didn't even look out the window." On his last day alive, Elvis is lonelier than ever.

2.30am: - In the middle of the night, the toothache returns. Whatever pills he had been given by his dentist are not working Elvis phones his personal doctor, Dr. George Nichopoulos, "Dr. Nick", for a prescription. He asks for Dilaudid a drug so strong it's usually kept for cancer patients, but Elvis has been using it for its kick for years. Dr. Nick had left over pills earlier. In 1995, he will be stripped of his medical license for supplying drugs without good reason to showbiz stars.

3.00am: - Elvis phones down to the kitchen for supper. Because of the diet, it is half his usual portion - four scoops of ice cream instead of eight, and seven chocolate-chip cookies instead of dozens. Then he goes downstairs and starts a game of racquetball with his cousin Billy Smith.

Ginger Alden and Billy's wife, Jo, watch the two men playing. Or rather, not playing. Vastly overweight and loaded with drugs, Elvis does little more than swipe at the ball. The autopsy will record his final weight as nearly 18 stone, and it is said they shaved 100lb off his real weight for decency's sake, putting the actual total at 25 stone.

7.00am: - Elvis finally goes upstairs to shower. As Billy Smith blow-dries his hair, they discuss things. Elvis is depressed about the forthcoming tell-all book by the two former employees. "Elvis What Happened?" will detail the drugs, the binges, and the paranoia's of the real life that Elvis leads. Will the fans confront him with it, onstage, on this tour?

Now, while the rest of the world is waking, it is the end of Elvis' day. Ginger is ready to fall asleep. Elvis however, isn't. He has always found sleep hard. Cocktails of pills help. He call downstairs for some more.

8.00am: - With Ginger asleep, Elvis is talking on the phone to Dr Nick's nurse, asking for still more pills, even though he has taken sedatives already. And he hasn't told them about the 50 codeine tablets he got from the dentist; nor - though it is impossible they do not know - about the stashes of syringes and morphine in the bathroom. Six people are meant to rotate being in the room next to Elvis, so they can help him if needed. Rick Stanley was supposed to be doing it that day, but when Elvis wants the pills, they can't rouse Rick. So it is Elvis' aunt, Delta Biggs, who brings him the pills.

9.00am: - Still he cannot sleep. He kisses Ginger; she wakes enough to hear him say he is going into the bathroom to read.

That bathroom is designed for an insomniac. There is black leather lounging chair, and a bookshelf, as well as the usual cupboards for medicines. Which pills he took and when, we do not know. Over the next few hours, Rick Stanley, out of action, never checks on Elvis. Upstairs something is happening. The details will never quite become clear.

2.00pm: - Ginger wakes up. Elvis is not beside her. She makes some phone calls, then walks the to bathroom "Elvis? Elvis?" There is no answer. She peers through the crack of the bathroom door, and then opens it. Elvis is lying face down. He is wearing his gold pyjamas; the trousers are around his ankles. His tongue is protruding, and swollen; he has bitten it; there is blood. His skin has turned blue. His hands are clenched into fist. The book he has dropped is not far away. It is called "The Scientific Search For The Face Of Jesus". Ginger says later he has fallen out of his lounge chair; in fact, he has fallen off the lavatory.

It was a solitary death in a crowded house, but now people are all around him. Joe Esposito, his road manager, tries to revive him, his father, Vernon is weeping. They know in their hearts already that he is dead. But the desperate pretence goes on.

2.33pm: - Someone calls an ambulance. A Memphis Fire Department ambulance from Gay's Engine House 29 responds to the call. Emergency medic Ulysses Jones is on board. In the bathroom he asks what happened. "He has O.D.'d - overdosed - says aide David Stanley. But another Elvis Man puts reputation before any useful attempt at saving Elvis' life. "Naw, it wasn't that at all. He swallowed something. He can't breathe." So a tube is put into his throat, a rubber bulb pumps air down it. Pointlessly; the body is stiff, clearly dead.

The ambulance should take him to the morgue. But Dr. Nick arrives, directs it to the hospital instead. It is a smart move. If Elvis had been pronounced dead at Graceland, the bathroom would have been officially the place of death, and subject to strict investigation. This way, there is time to clear up.

David Stanley deals with the debris of pills lying around the bathroom. "I began to pick them up and put them in my pocket," he says. Wrappers from 33 pills and nine injections, by his calculations.

At the hospital, fireman Gay is on duty. "We all stopped and took off our helmets as they walked him by. It was a tragedy to see him in such a state." In City Hall, fire chief Robert Walker in the mayor's office takes the call, covers the receiver, and breaks the news to the mayor. "I'm afraid Elvis didn't make it this time."

3.30pm: - Cause of death is given as coronary arrhythmia. Elvis was 42. Much later, an autopsy list the drugs found in Elvis' body. They include butabarbital, Codeine, morphine, pentobarbital, Placidyl, Quaalude, valium and Valmid.

Back at Graceland, all the familiar faces are too busy with their own shock to be comforting Elvis' only child. Alone, Lisa Marie seeks comfort on the phone. She telephones one of her father's past girlfriends, Linda Thompson, who has been kind to her.

"My Daddy is dead," she cries down the phone, "and nobody knows."