George C. Nichopoulos, 88, Elvis's last doctor . Mark
Humphrey/Associated Press Dr. Nichopoulos, seen in 1998, appealed the
permanent suspension of his medical license in 1995. Officials said he
overprescribed to several patients for years. Dr. George C.
Nichopoulos, who was Elvis Presley's personal physician in the decade
before his death in 1977 and who lost his medical license for
overprescribing addictive drugs for years to numerous patients, died
Wednesday in Memphis. He was 88. Dr. Nichopoulos was the doctor on call
at a medical center in Memphis in 1967 when he was summoned to treat
Presley at his home, Graceland. The singer was at the time suffering
from saddle sores caused by too much horseback riding. Doctor and
patient struck up a rapport, and for the next few years, whenever
Presley flew in from Hollywood, Dr. Nichopoulos treated him for a
variety of complaints, most related to insomnia and rheumatic pain.
After Presley returned to Memphis permanently in 1970, Dr. Nichopoulos
became his primary physician and something more. "I was one of his
closest friends," he told investigative reporter Gerald Posner for a
2009 article in The Daily Beast. "At times I was his father, his best
friend, his doctor. Whatever role I needed to play at the time, I did.
Presley was found slumped over in a bathroom in Graceland, dead, on
Aug. 16, 1977. He was 42. The county medical examiner found the cause
to be coronary arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, resulting from
hypertensive heart disease related to high blood pressure, but a
toxicology report fueled speculation that drug use had played a role.
It showed "significant" levels of codeine, the sedative Ethinamate,
quaaludes, and an undetermined barbiturate. Lesser amounts of morphine,
Demerol, Placidyl, Valium, and Chlorpheniramine, an antihistamine, were
also found. In a 1981 interview with American Medical News, Dr.
Nichopoulos said he had prescribed only two of the drugs in the report.
In 1980, Dr. Nichopoulos was indicted on 14 counts of overprescribing
stimulants, depressants, and painkillers for Presley, the singer Jerry
Lee Lewis, and several other patients. Two counts dealing with Presley
accused Dr. Nichopoulos of "unlawfully, willfully and feloniously"
prescribing, in the months leading to Presley's death, a cornucopia of
narcotics, painkillers, depressants, and appetite suppressants. Dr.
Nichopoulos was acquitted of all charges, but in 1995 the Tennessee
Board of Medical Examiners permanently suspended his medical license,
stating that he had been overprescribing to numerous patients for
years. In one of several appeals to the board, Dr. Nichopoulos admitted
overprescribing - in 1977 alone he wrote prescriptions for more than
10,000 doses of opiates, amphetamines, barbiturates, tranquilizers,
hormones, and laxatives for Presley - but denied being a "Dr. Feelgood"
feeding his patient's addictions. "I cared too much," he told the
board. In his memoir, "The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to
Elvis and Me," written with Rose Clayton Phillips and published in
2010, Dr. Nichopoulos explained that the medications were intended for
Presley's entourage, band, and production crew, whom he treated on the
road. He maintained that he had tried, in vain, to cure Presley of his
addictions, often administering placebos. "Elvis was a firm believer
there was a medicine for everything," he told American Medical News.
"You know how some people will sneeze and think they need a pill, or
get a muscle cramp and want relief, or go to the dentist and need a
painkiller? Others aren't bothered. Elvis was convinced he needed
drugs. In 1980, before the indictment, the state board of medical
examiners, while clearing him of charges of unethical conduct, barred
him from practicing medicine for three months and put him on probation
for three years, a prelude to the permanent suspension of his license
15 years later. "They just never stopped going after me," Dr.
Nichopoulos told The Daily Beast. "They always wanted a scapegoat for
Elvis' death.
