August 1977 was weird. People were mourning a legend, sure, but they were also clutching a mass-market paperback with a bright red cover that looked more like a tabloid than a biography. It was called Elvis: What Happened? and if you were a fan back then, you probably hated it. Or you read it in secret.
The timing was almost supernatural. The book hit the shelves just two weeks before Elvis Presley was found on his bathroom floor at Graceland. For years, the world saw the jumpsuits, the capes, and the "Taking Care of Business" lightning bolts. This book? It showed the needles, the guns, and the deep, dark paranoia.
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The Three Men Who Broke the Code
The authors weren't some random journalists digging through trash. They were the Memphis Mafia. Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler had been the King's shadows for decades. Red had known Elvis since high school. He’d protected him from mobs, traveled the world with him, and basically lived his life in the slipstream of the most famous man on earth.
Then, in July 1976, it all ended. Vernon Presley, Elvis's father, fired them. The official reason was "cost-cutting." You can imagine how that went over. These guys had spent twenty years taking bullets (sometimes literally) for Elvis, and suddenly they were out on the street with no severance and a lot of secrets.
They teamed up with a gritty Australian journalist named Steve Dunleavy. Honestly, Dunleavy was the perfect choice for something this sensational. He knew how to make a story bleed. The result was a 332-page explosion that detailed things the public wasn't ready to hear in 1977.
What Was Actually in Elvis What Happened?
If you pick up a copy today—and they still float around eBay and used bookstores—it reads like a fever dream. The book didn't just hint at drug use; it laid out the exact pills. We’re talking massive quantities of Percodan, Dilaudid, and Quaaludes.
There's a story in there about Elvis taking a group of friends to a mortuary at 3:00 AM just to look at corpses and talk about the embalming process. It describes him shooting television sets when he didn't like what was on (Robert Goulet was a frequent target). It painted a picture of a man who was bored, isolated, and spiraling.
Some of the most jarring parts involved his temper.
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- He once reportedly hurled a heavy pool cue at someone.
- He was obsessed with his ex-wife Priscilla’s new boyfriend, even allegedly talking about hiring a hitman.
- He would go on massive "drug binges" that lasted days, surrounded by enablers who were too scared or too high to stop him.
The bodyguards claimed they wrote the book as an "intervention." They said they wanted to shock him into reality before he killed himself. Whether you believe that or think they just wanted a payday after being fired, the "intervention" failed. By the time the book was being discussed on talk shows, Elvis was gone.
The Backlash and the Redemption
Fans were absolutely livid. When Dunleavy appeared on Good Morning America right after Elvis died, he was treated like a villain. People accused the bodyguards of "sour grapes." They called it a pack of lies designed to smear a dead man who couldn't defend himself.
But then the toxicology reports started leaking.
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Suddenly, the stories in Elvis: What Happened? didn't seem so crazy. When the medical examiner found ten different drugs in Elvis's system, the book gained instant, grim credibility. It wasn't just a tabloid rag anymore; it was a roadmap to his downfall.
Red West later admitted he "hated the damn book" in some ways. He regretted the tone, which was definitely pushed by Dunleavy to be as sensational as possible. But he never took back the facts. He loved Elvis, but he couldn't handle watching him die in slow motion anymore.
Why It Matters Now
You can't understand the "Last Train to Memphis" era without this book. It broke the seal on celebrity privacy. Before this, stars had "arrangements" with the press to keep their dirty laundry hidden. Elvis: What Happened? proved that even the King wasn't safe from his own inner circle.
If you're looking for the polished, "Elvis Enterprise" version of history, stay away from this one. But if you want to know why the 1970s version of the King looked so tired and acted so strange, this is the primary source. It's ugly, it’s raw, and it’s deeply sad.
What To Do If You Want To Read It
If you’re curious about the contents, don't just take the internet's word for it. Here is how to actually find the real story:
- Check Used Bookstores: The original Ballantine paperbacks are everywhere. Look for the red cover with the gold lettering.
- Read the Counter-Perspectives: After reading this, check out Jerry Schilling’s Me and a Guy Named Elvis. It offers a much more balanced, though still honest, look at the same time period.
- Watch the Interviews: You can find old footage of Dave Hebler and the West brothers on YouTube. Hearing them speak gives you a much better sense of whether they were acting out of spite or genuine concern.
- Contextualize the "Hitman" Story: Modern biographers have looked into the claims of Elvis wanting to "take out" Mike Stone (Priscilla's boyfriend). Most agree he was venting in a drug-induced haze, not actually planning a crime, which is a nuance the book leaves out.
The book remains a permanent scar on the Elvis legacy, but it's one that helped the world see the human being behind the icon. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, and Elvis: What Happened? is about as un-pretty as it gets.