"Saturday Night Live" alum Bill Murray explained his attendance at Elvis Presley's funeral proceedings in a "Today" interview with Savannah Guthrie in 2018. The "Ghostbusters" actor said that after he heard the news of Presley's death, he felt compelled to attend the funeral, so he put himself on a standby list for a plane ride to Memphis. Despite holding the 27th spot on the call list, he got a seat on the plane.
"I just went right to the house, and they had just ended visitation," Murray recounted. "I met a fella that I knew that was a photographer, and the next day, I ended up on the bus in front of the cortège. It was an amazing thing to see, extraordinary thing to see, hundreds of thousands of people standing in a really hot day and waiting underneath overpasses in the shade because it was so hot."
Murray's bus arrived at the cemetery early, passing crowds of people trying to enter Forrest Hill. The actor recalled running across the cemetery to see Presley's gravesite only to be met by a group of intimidating motorcycle cops. It wasn't until Murray noticed passersby pointing at the scene that he realized he had inadvertently run to the burial site of the singer's mother, Gladys.
