Ellis was born in Louisville, Kentucky to a Christian family. He and wife Mary had six children (two sons and four daughters).
Ellis died from problems caused by dementia on May 6, 2014 at a hospital in Louisville, aged 74.[1] He had lived with chronic traumatic encephalopathy for decades before he died. He had such a severe case of it that he had still thought his wife, who died in 2006, was still alive.[2]
