Presley - except more

Columnist Bob Greene remembers the hoo-hah that took place in the days after that other king's death and sees some parallels to what's happening today. From the NYT oped page:

Perhaps elaborate marketing plans were already being formulated, even before Presley was buried; perhaps that was what opening Graceland to the public that August day was all about. Col. Tom Parker, Presley's longtime manager, famously said to some business associates, in the hours after his client died: "This changes nothing." As cynical as the words may have sounded at the time, they were prescient. Presley, in death, became an enormous earner, a new kind of profit center. Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson's father, within three days of his son's death told an interviewer: "Right now, he's bigger than ever." Some lessons stick.

It should be pointed out Presley's father, Vernon, made the decision to have his son lay in repose in the foyer of Graceland - and then have the place was opened up so that the world could get a look at his dead son.