IVANPAH, Calif. (AP) – Al Dvorin, the concert announcer who made famous the phrase “Elvis has left the building,” was killed in an auto accident. He was 81.
Dvorin was thrown from the car he was riding in Sunday after it swerved off a desert road near Ivanpah, the California Highway Patrol said.
The night before, Dvorin performed his signature closing line at Trump 29 Casino in Coachella, with “American Trilogy,” a concert by Elvis impersonator Paul Casey that included conversations with Dvorin and other Presley friends.
A former bandleader and talent agent in Chicago, Dvorin was with the King from his early days as a performer and was on his last tour in 1977, the year Presley died.
I’ll spare the obvious “Al has left the…” headline here. What I find interesting is that this is the only time I’ve ever seen Ivanpah namechecked in a news story. The “town” is basically just an intersection with some cows and joshua trees with little else around. I used to camp out that way quite a bit.