Cook for Elvis Presley dies

The King may still be alive in the minds of many, but his cook has passed away.

MEMPHIS (AP) — W. Pauline Nicholson, Elvis Presley's cook, who prepared the King's favorite peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches, died July 7 of cancer. She was 76. In addition to cooking, Nicholson also worked as his housekeeper and sometimes looked after a young Lisa Marie Presley.

She continued cooking for the Presley family after Elvis died, including last Christmas, when Lisa Marie and her mother, Priscilla, came to Memphis and requested Nicholson cook for them.

Nicholson was featured in the movie This is Elvis, and loved to talk about her time with the King of Rock and Roll, whom she called Mr. P.

Nicholson was introduced to Elvis in the mid-1960s by a neighbor, Cleo Smith, who knew she was a good cook, said her son, Ossie Nicholson Jr.

Elvis would sometimes talk with Nicholson in the kitchen at Graceland and when he learned in 1974 her husband, Ossie Sr., was laid off, he hired him as a guard.

Via USA Today