Hype Over ‘Cover-Up’ Is Fit for The King

Elvis Presley fans will be happy to hear that The King is not bald, has slimmed down to about 200 pounds and looks quite good, considering he is generally believed to be dead. Occasionally, he takes in a movie or a football game, and he says he’s writing music.

This is what certain people who have seen him since his death have told author Gail Brewer-Giorgio, but she added during a press conference at the American Booksellers Assn. trade show Sunday in Anaheim that she does not vouch for the witnesses’ reports. “What can I say? I report what they’ve seen. I’m not with them, and I don’t know these people.”

Nonetheless, you soon can read all about it in Brewer-Giorgio’s book “Is Elvis Dead?” which her publisher, Tudor Publishing of New York and Los Angeles, is straining to have on the bookstore shelves by the end of June.

‘Modern-Day Watergate’

True, Elvis is listed in “Who Was Who.” True, a death certificate exists attesting to his death on Aug. 16, 1977. That doesn’t bother Brewer-Giorgio. “I’m not trying to state Elvis is alive,” she said. She only wants to point out the bits and pieces that, taken together, make the Elvis cover-up “a modern-day Watergate.”

There are strange inconsistencies, she said. Elvis’ tombstone incorrectly lists his middle name as Aaron, not Aron. Why would his family deliberately misspell his name? Why wasn’t he buried beside his mother as he had requested? Why was the body listed as weighing 170 pounds when Elvis weighed closer to 250? And, Brewer-Giorgio added, “no life insurance has been collected--think about that.”

Then last year a woman gave Brewer-Giorgio a tape-recording of one side of a telephone conversation, which a voice identification expert confirmed was Elvis speaking. References in the 30-minute tape make it plain that Elvis was speaking after the year of his supposed death, Brewer-Giorgio said.

(Tudor Publishing announced that a copy of the “astounding” tape will be included with each and every book.)

And then there’s the photograph that a tourist from Chicago snapped at Elvis’ mansion four months after Elvis’ supposed death. The photo, when enlarged, shows a man sitting behind a door in the swimming pool house. “It certainly looks like Elvis Presley, and it is his house,” Brewer-Giorgio said.

And finally there was the time Brewer-Giorgio was on a talk show in Detroit and four members of the show’s staff interrupted to report that Elvis had just called the station. “They were so convinced. Now, we’re talking about an ABC affiliate,” Brewer-Giorgio said . (Elvis told them he would reveal himself at the proper time.)

Check Copyrights

Reacting to questions, she suggested that copyrights of Elvis’ songs could be checked to see whether any were written after the year of his death. “If they weren’t written before 1977, that would be a good clue,” she said.

Just a few weeks before his supposed death, Elvis told his record producer, “ ‘You know, I’m sick and tired of being Elvis Presley,’ ” Brewer-Giorgio said. This suggests that Elvis faked his own death for some simple peace and quite, which happens to be the premise of Brewer-Giorgio’s 1981 novel “Orion,” which will be re-released later this year, also by Tudor.

So is The King alive or not?

“Well, I don’t want to state that . . . but I certainly think there is enough evidence here to raise the questions we’re asking,” Brewer-Giorgio said. There are so many inconsistencies, “you wouldn’t believe it. Read the book.”