Heartbreak Hotel in an attempted robbery in El Paso, Texas. On August 25, 1955, the "El Paso Times" reported Krolik's death under the headline "Story Of Person Who Walked Lonely Street". Axton and Durden give different accounts of how the song was written. Durden's account is that he had already written the song and performed it with his band the Swing Billys before he presented it to Axton. Axton's account is that Durden had written only a few lines of the song and asked her to help him finish it. She says that the report of the suicide "stunned" her, and she
Heartbreak Hotel named the hotel after the song, located across the street from Presley's home, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. In the CBS miniseries "Elvis", a two-part, four hour television movie that explores Elvis Presley's life, a scene depicts Presley (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) wanting to record "Heartbreak Hotel" when he first arrives at RCA. The song is later used when he is performing at The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show, with Meyers lip-synching. In 2015, "Heartbreak Hotel" was named as The #2 Song of the Rock Era in the book "The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015". Radio humorist Stan