Thomas Andrew Parker (born Andreas Cornelis [Dries] van Kuijk; June 26, 1909 – January 21, 1997), commonly known as Colonel Parker, was a Dutch-born musical entrepreneur, best known for being Elvis Presley's manager.
Biography[]
Originally from the Netherlands, van Kuijk illegally immigrated to the United States as a young man and changed his name to Tom Parker. Spending time in the US military, he was later discharged as being mentally unfit for service. Parker would later claim he feigned mental illness because he didn't want to be in the army anymore.
Finding work in a carnival Parker eventually became a promoter who would specialize in what he called "snow jobs", the ability to separate people from their money and leave them smiling. By the 1950s Parker was managing the career of country singer Hank Snow when he became aware of a young man named Elvis Presley whose music was proving to be very popular with younger people. Parker was able to convince the young man to work with him. As Elvis's career took off, Hank Snow fired Parker as his agent because Snow didn't want to be associated with Elvis. Parker presented Elvis and his parents with a contract designating Parker as Elvis's manager. Even though the parents were dubious about Parker, they signed the contract along with their son.
Over the years Parker asserted more and more control over every aspect of Elvis's career, taking away much of the joy that Elvis had gained from performing. One of the things Parker did was to promote a "New Elvis" who would perform in what Parker considered a more family-friendly manner. When Elvis defied Parker and performed the way he wanted, the reaction of fans and police at the event sparked a riot. Racist southern politicians such as Senator Jim Eastland wanted to have Elvis jailed for "corrupting" youth. In order to prevent this Parker arranged to have Elvis drafted into the US military. Unable to bear the separation from her son, Elvis's mother drank herself to death, which devastated the young Elvis.
After his military service, Parker then had Elvis star in a number of films, which met with mixed success. By the late 60s, Elvis was disillusioned with being an actor and sought to get back to performing. Parker arranged for Elvis to appear on television in what was supposed to be a Christmas special, but was infuriated when Elvis didn't dress in a Christmas sweater and didn't sing any Christmas songs. Angered to the point that he threatened to resign he was mollified when the television special turned out to be a rating hit.
In the early 1970s, Parker had run up huge debts gambling in Las Vegas casinos. As a way of getting out of those debts, Parker committed Elvis to appear live on stage at what was then called the International Hotel. Parker by then was taking 50% of Elvis's earnings which he largely gambled away. By then Priscilla was concerned that Parker was working Elvis way too hard and it was damaging his health and Elvis's relationship with his family and convinced Elvis to fire Parker. While Priscilla wanted Elvis to do it over the phone, Elvis insisted on firing him in person, feeling he owed it to the man. Elvis found Parker in a Las Vegas hospital. Instead of firing Parker, Elvis instead let Parker talk him into doing shows at the International Hotel, impressed by the facilities and the money he would make.
As the years went by, Elvis became increasingly angered over how Parker was basically keeping him prisoner at the International and stimming his career. This caused his family to leave him over his overdose of drugs. At one point Elvis was completely enraged to find out Parker lied to him and attempted to fire Parker at one of his Las Vegas shows, angrily exposing his actions and lies to everyone in public. Parker retaliated by sending a bill for all the "services" performed on Elvis's behalf over the years and threatening to sue Elvis to the point where Elvis didn’t care how much he owes him and threatens him back to the fact that he used him over the years but would be destitute and no longer able to provide for his family. The extortion worked as Elvis agreed to keep Parker on as his manager.
In the late 1970s Elvis was suffering from a number of health issues, and his physician Dr. Nick had turned Elvis into a walking medicine cabinet. When Elvis collapsed right before a show, Parker had Dr. Nick shoot Elvis up with drugs to get him back up and standing again. By 1977 Elvis was in very poor health due to the heavy touring schedule and heavy drug use. Prior to flying back home, Elvis's ex-wife Priscilla tried to get Elvis to agree to take a year off and go to a facility in San Diego. Elvis agreed to do that but then unexpectedly died a short time later.
After Elvis died, a number of lawsuits were brought against Parker by Presley's estate. These lawsuits helped prove how much Parker had been abusing Elvis financially over the years for his own personal gain. Parker lost everything to his selfishness and would spend the rest of his life defending his work with Elvis while continuing to gamble away his money at Las Vegas casinos. One day in 1997, Parker collapsed at home and was rushed to the hospital. Afterward, Parker looks out the window at his casino before he died remembering his long career with Elvis.
Trivia[]
Gallery[]
 |
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia page Colonel Tom Parker. The revision history lists the authors. The text on Warner Bros. Entertainment Wiki and Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC BY-SA). |
v - e - d  | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|