25 Years Later, Elvis Is Still Missed

This is the 25th anniversary of the day that shocked rock and roll fans around the world, to the point that some still can't accept it: the death of Elvis Presley, at his home in Memphis.

Thousands of storm-drenched fans cradled candles against the breeze, mouthed prayers and wiped away tears along with raindrops in a solemn procession early Friday past Elvis' grave at Graceland.

A crowd that organizers estimated at between 25,000 and 30,000 braved an hour-long thunderstorm as they waited outside the wrought iron, music-noted gates to Presley's famed Graceland mansion.

"If this was a test, we passed. ... We all love Elvis, rain or shine," organizer Todd Morgan told the excited crowd as the rain briefly let up and the gates were opened a few hours before midnight Thursday. Long after midnight, Elvis fans were filing in to pay their respects.

More people than ever before showed up to pay tribute to Presley, carrying flowers and stuffed teddy bears. Some sobbed as they remembered the "king of rock 'n' roll."

"My friend said Elvis wasn't going to let it rain. I guess he's crying for us," said Betty Skinner, who recalled fond memories of Elvis in concert. She said she was devastated when he died at age 42 of a drug-induced heart attack on the afternoon of Aug. 16, 1977.

"We've been fans since - well, since he sang his first song," Skinner's friend Janice Morgan said. "The charisma, the looks, the voice, we loved everything about him."

Each bearing a candle many struggled to keep lit in the drizzle, fans filed up the curved driveway and past Presley's inscribed bronze tablet alongside those of his parents and paternal grandmother.

Many heaped flowers and other mementos at the grave site in what is called "Meditation Garden" adjacent to Graceland's small swimming pool.

Some wept openly, others stopped to say a quiet prayer, blew kisses, or posed solemnly for a quick photograph.

"Long live Elvis, baby!" one shouted outside the gates.

"If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane... " read one of dozens of floral tributes displayed along the walkway leading to the grave site.

"Elvis, that's the way it is," read a note from the Chicago fan club, which created a collage of Elvis photos shaped into the "25" and fringed by blue-tinted carnations.

The person at the head of the line for the procession was Bill Rowe, a Dayton, Ohio, fan who secured his place by arriving 24 hours earlier -- just as he has done 13 times in the past 16 years.

"There's a little ticker in here that tells me to get to Graceland's gates," Rowe said, pointing to his chest.

The four-lane street in front of Presley's white-columned Graceland mansion was closed to traffic so the crowd could assemble after a week of dinners, dances, concerts and seminars attended by an estimated 75,000 people.

"It's almost too heartbreaking for me. I start crying as soon as I turn onto Elvis Presley Boulevard. The man meant everything to me," said Barbara Barges of Houston, who was making her third pilgrimage. "It kills me when I come here that he is not here."

Many in the crowd were a generation or two younger than the typical Elvis fan, most of whom were growing up when he catapulted to stardom in the mid-1950s.

Presley's posthumous multimillion-dollar empire received another boost in the past year with a popular European remix of his song "A Little Less Conversation" and his oft-played rendition of "America the Beautiful."

Elvis' passing is being remembered in many other parts of the country and the globe, including Israel, where a theory that Elvis was part Jewish has been getting some attention from fans.

Elvis' maternal great-great-grandmother, Nancy Tackett, was Jewish, according to one author. Tackett's daughter Martha Tackett was the mother of Doll Mansell, who in turn was the mother of Elvis' mother, Gladys Smith, according to a book, "Elvis and Gladys," by Elaine Dundy.

But regardless of whether that's true, Elvis fans know what building to gather in when they are in need of a Presley fix near Jerusalem: the Elvis Inn, a restaurant, gas station and shrine to all things Elvis, where many fans are marking the anniversary.

A 13-foot golden Elvis statue looms out front. Inside are souvenirs and a chaotic hodgepodge of more than a thousand photos of Elvis on the walls and ceiling. The restaurant, which opened two years before the king's 1977 death, is the creation of Elvis fanatic Uri Yoeli, an Israeli who flew home from a trip to London to be on hand for Friday's celebrations.

It's a tourist trap, to be sure, but one that takes its mission seriously, as do many of Elvis' fans and impersonators.

Yacov Tovi, a 51-year-old Israeli who has been performing as Elvis since he was 16, tells of singing for Israeli soldiers on duty in Beirut in the 1980s and hearing the sound of applause coming from behind a nearby earthen barrier. He called out to his fans and asked the commander to invite them over, thinking they were Israeli soldiers. The commander laughed instead, and told him those were enemy Syrian soldiers.

"Elvis is universal," says Tovi.