In 1977, the yr of Elvis Presley’s dying, Dr. George Nichopoulos, his main doctor, prescribed the legendary artist hundreds of doses of assorted medicine. In Elvis, a brand new 2022 movie that theatrically follows Presley’s sophisticated rise to fame, “Dr. Nick,” as he was identified, seems a completely prepared participant in Presley’s spiraling bodily situation.
Within the film, Dr. Nick (Tony Nixon) is proven to be glad to assist in any approach attainable, whilst his affected person’s evident struggles with dependancy develop worse via the Seventies. At one level, Presley (Austin Butler), fed up with all of it, fires his manipulative supervisor, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), who reminds him that he nonetheless owes him thousands and thousands of {dollars}, primarily trapping Presley within the association. His subsequent telephone name is to Dr. Nick, seeking to numb the ache. Presley’s premature dying on the age of 42 is depicted subsequent.
However to deem the actual life Nichopoulos, who died in 2016, nothing however a “Dr. Feelgood,” is not precisely correct. The true life relationship he had with Presley was extra nuanced than that.
Born in 1927, Nichopoulos, who grew up in Anniston, Ala., enlisted within the Military instantly after highschool and served in Germany within the Military Medical Corps. He obtained his bachelor’s from the College of the South in 1951, and, eight years later, his M.D. on the Vanderbilt College College of Drugs. In 1967, Nichopoulos was working with a number of different medical doctors at a bunch follow in Memphis when he was first known as upon by Presley to deal with saddle sores (the results of an excessive amount of horseback driving).
Nichopoulos handled Presley a handful of occasions over the subsequent few years, nevertheless it wasn’t till 1970 that he was provided the place of Presley’s full-time physician and have become a near-constant determine in Presley’s life. “At occasions I used to be his father, his greatest pal, his physician,” Nichopoulos stated to The Each day Beast in 2009. “No matter position I wanted to play on the time, I did.”
This did, in reality, imply prescribing massive portions of medicines starting from sleeping drugs to painkillers and so much in between. Nichopoulos was additionally tasked with prescribing drugs for numerous members of Presley’s entourage and band, which meant, in fact, that drugs had been being distributed in additional instructions than simply Presley’s. This throughout an period wherein the deeper risks of opioid medicine was not almost as broadly acknowledged as it’s right now.
But, Nichopoulos might hardly be thought of the only real explanation for Presley’s demise. Even when the physician resisted Presley’s calls for, the singer would typically search out one other supply to acquire the medicine. Dependancy took a grueling toll on Presley as it will have anybody else, blinding him to the realities of what was occurring to himself bodily and emotionally.
“It is exhausting to persuade any person what’s proper and mistaken or what they should do,” Nichopoulos stated to The Guardian in 2002. “It is exhausting if you’ve acquired any person that thinks they’ve all of the solutions and it doesn’t matter what you throw at ’em, they have solutions for you.”
On Aug. 16, 1977, the poisonous story got here to one thing of an finish when Presley was discovered lifeless at his Graceland residence. A toxicology report revealed a myriad of doubtless deadly substances within the singer’s system, however given the unsure circumstances of Presley’s dying, Nichopoulos was not charged with any wrongdoing. Medical doctors on the time deemed the reason for his dying to be pure, a coronary heart assault seemingly introduced on by the copious quantity of medicine.
Three years later, although, Nichopoulos was indicted on 14 counts of overprescribing stimulants, depressants and painkillers for not solely Presley, but in addition the singer Jerry Lee Lewis and 12 different sufferers. Nichopoulos was accused of “unlawfully, willfully and feloniously” prescribing the drugs within the interval main as much as Presley’s dying, although Nichopoulos would later say in a 1981 interview with American Medical Information that he had solely been chargeable for prescribing two of the medicine present in Presley’s system. (Shockingly, it was found that between 1975 and 1977, he had prescribed 19,000 doses of medicine, 10,000 of which had been in 1977 alone.) Nichopoulos was finally acquitted, however that very same yr, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners discovered him responsible of overprescribing and suspended his medical license for 3 months. The board completely revoked his license 15 years later, citing his years-long follow of overprescribing. Nichopoulos appealed the ruling a number of occasions, even admitting that he had overprescribed prior to now. “I cared an excessive amount of,” he stated earlier than one of many attraction boards.
“I do not remorse any of the drugs I gave him. They had been requirements,” Nichopoulos stated to The Each day Beast. (In his 2010 memoir, he famous that he even gave placebos to Presley in an effort to curb his drug behavior.) “Later, everybody attacked me, saying all I used to be involved in was creating wealth from Elvis. That’s simply not true. I by no means charged him for a home name, and I’d make these 4 or 5 occasions per week to Graceland.”
When his medical profession successfully led to 1995, Nichopoulos took on numerous jobs. For a time, he discovered work within the incapacity claims division at a FedEx workplace and in addition, for a brief interval, served as Lewis’ highway supervisor.
Nichopoulos’ historical past was typically questioned and generally mocked. A memorable character on The Simpsons first appeared in season two of the present in 1991, wherein a quack physician excessively treats Bart’s minor accidents after a automotive accident and at one level finally ends up earlier than a malpractice committee. Some followers drew a parallel to Nichopoulos, and understandably so. The character’s identify within the present? “Dr. Nick.”
By means of all of it, and up till his dying in 2016 at age 88, Nichopoulos maintained that he’d achieved the very best he might to deal with Presley’s illnesses and maintain him out of hurt’s approach. “Nobody understands that Elvis was so sophisticated,” he stated in 2009. “I labored so exhausting simply to maintain issues collectively after which they turned the tables on me after he died and determined I used to be accountable.”
