History:
While his native country was still torn apart by strife at the turn of the new decade, Elvis Presley himself seemed on top of the world. He had, after all, beaten back public indifference for a third and final time, regained his place in the pop charts, finally become a draw in Vegas, ditched those stupid movies, and married his dream girl (producing a baby girl for him to dote on in the bargain).But seen through the perfect hindsight of history, 1970 was also the year the King began his transformation into the "fat Elvis" of legend: he was still in fighting trim and not yet lost in a drug stupor, but all the earmarks of his crazy last days were popping up, one by one. This was the year he began touring stadiums, losing his hold on women, buying guns in a paranoid fever, spending money like a dying man, looking for approval from seemingly every branch of the government, and gathering his "Memphis Mafia" tighter around him.
It was, in short, another cocoon from which Elvis could once again live out his little-boy dreams, surrounded by people who could never say no, who found it increasingly difficult to like him even as they loved him. And yet this time it was all Elvis' doing. Having worked to achieve his dream of being the world's biggest entertainer, Presley seemed content with just that, letting his street cred, finances, and eventually, personal relationships deteriorate around him, authoring a decay which would, only seven years later, take his very life.
Next... Elvis 1970 timeline
