APPENDIX E CONFESSIONS OF KNOWING Barbara Eden said she had a cold and didn’t feel well when she performed her 1970’s nightclub act in Reno, Nevada.
The “show booker” took her to a “special doctor” under the condition she would only see this “special doctor” this one time. She agreed and the “special doctor” gave her some pills and a shot. The next morning she said her cold was completely gone. She took notice of the “special doctor’s” phone number on the off chance she may need them again. At that point, she remembered her promise to the booker that she would only use the “special doctor” one time. When she asked why he didn’t want her using the doctor again, the booker told her that Elvis had been there last month. How the people around him didn’t care about him as a person, they just wanted him to work and they didn’t care if he was ill. He continued by telling her that “Elvis’s butt looked like a pincushion. It had so many needle marks in it" (Eden, Jeannie Out Of The Bottle. Hardcover pp 85-86). David Stanley described something that happened after a show in Providence, Rhode Island. We will guess he’s talking about June 26, 1976, because a few pages prior he described how EWH was going to be written (pages 157 and 158 of Life With Elvis), and also at this point Linda Thompson is still around.
Elvis got tired, asked David to go get Dr. Nick. David said that at that point Elvis never went to bed without help from his doctor.
David and Linda walked to the coffee shop. Sat and talked for a while. When they got back Elvis was completely out of it and David claimed they were only gone for ten minutes. The timeline raises questions. David wrote that they walked to the coffee shop, sat down, and talked before returning. Even briefly ordering coffee and conversing would likely have taken longer than ten minutes.
APPENDIX E CONFESSIONS OF KNOWING David knew it took Quaaludes or Placidyls a little while to take effect, but when they got back Elvis was “totally unconscious.” David became upset, Linda started to cry saying, “‘See, David! It’s like this every night. I am so sick of this. What are they doing to my Elvis?” David confronted Dr. Nick by yelling about how he wasn’t going to let the doctor kill Elvis. Esposito intervened asking David doesn’t he think the doctor knows what he’s doing. David knew the others just didn’t see what was being done to Elvis (Stanley, Life With Elvis. Hardcover pp 161-163). David Stanley tried to talk to his step-father, Vernon Presley, about Elvis being slowly killed. Vernon believed Elvis needed them as well. , David said this was the attitude most people around Elvis had (Stanley, Life With Elvis. Hardcover p 163).
David flew to Las Vegas around three in the morning. The group also included Elvis, Billy Smith, “and one or two others” who he doesn’t name. They flew out on the Lisa Marie and all were feeling well having a good time and looking forward to the trip. Elvis was perfectly fine until they landed and a doctor boarded. Elvis asked the doctor if somebody was sick. The doctor gave Elvis something that put him out for three days. He didn’t wake up to eat, or to use the bathroom, or for any other reason. He was completely unconscious for three days. And nobody rushed him to the emergency room on this or any other occasion (Stanley, Life With Elvis. Hardcover pp 168-170).
Sonny West described the four men with rap sheets and mug shots who jumped up on the stage during Elvis’s Las Vegas performance. Elvis got upset over the incident, so they sedated him. Didn’t say what Elvis was sedated within the same evening. Elvis was drugged again. This time Linda Thompson called Dr. Ghanem to drug Elvis. Red watched Dr. Ghanem give Presley a sedative to calm him down and watched Elvis slip away into sleep (West, Elvis: Still Taking Care Of Business. Hardcover p 286. Dunleavy, Elvis: What Happened? Mass-market paperback pp 6-7). APPENDIX E CONFESSIONS OF KNOWING Geller described an unconscious Elvis. His head being dunked in a bucket of ice water. Tom Parker barged in the room and when he came out he said, “The only thing that’s important is that he’s on that stage tonight. Nothing else matters!” Then Parker left. Then all a sudden Elvis was fully revived and came out questioning why Geller let Parker in the room (Geller, If I Can Dream. Hardcover pp 271-272. Mass-market paperback pp 282-283). APPENDIX E Jeannie Out of the Bottle: A Memoir by Barbara Eden CONFESSIONS OF KNOWING BOOKS Life With Elvis by David Stanley Elvis: Still Taking Care Of Business by Sonny West If I Can Dream by Larry Geller