History UsefulNotes / ColonelTomParker

!! The Boy From Breda

Parker spent his final years in Las Vegas, ravaged by heart disease, diabetes, gout and strokes (as it turned out, much of this was hereditary, with his van Kuijk siblings in Holland suffering the same ailments). Still, by that point he'd achieved living legend status, albeit because of his Elvis ties. He died on January 21, 1997 at age 87, following a fall caused by a massive stroke. He left behind a complicated legacy, with many of his associates recalling him fondly as a person, even if they didn't care for him as a businessman[[labelnote:*]]Priscilla declared at Parker's funeral that her husband would not have become an icon without Parker's help, then cracked a joke about having to pay a toll to leave the funeral, since she didn't see a ticket booth at the building's entrance[[/labelnote]].

Parker spent his final years in Las Vegas, ravaged by heart disease, diabetes, gout and strokes (as it turned out, much of this was hereditary, with his van Kuijk siblings in Holland suffering the same ailments). Still, by that point he'd achieved living legend status, albeit because of his Elvis ties. He died on January 21, 1997 at age 87, following a fall caused by a massive stroke. He left behind a complicated legacy, with many of his associates recalling him fondly as a person, even if they didn't care for him as a businessman.

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': A 1989 sketch featured clips from ''Waikiki Hockey'', allegedly an Elvis-like movie that guest host UsefulNotes/WayneGretzky starred in, which is credited as "A Colonel Tom Parker Production".

By 1940, Parker decided to go back to Tampa and get the first real steady job of his life, as a field agent for the local chapter of the Humane Society. While he enjoyed rescuing animals, the important part of the job for him was to organize various benefit shows for the group. It was in this capacity that Parker began to make connections with the CountryMusic community in Nashville. At some point in TheForties, Parker decided to become a full-time showbiz manager. On the advice of other music pros, he signed up-and-coming country singer Eddy Arnold in 1945. At the same time, Parker began to perfect his own image as a pudgy, bombastic, flamboyantly-dressed scheming classic Southern huckster, whose RefugeInAudacity tactics earned him respect on a MagnificentBastard level. He'd even given himself a title, the Gov, but by the latter part of TheForties managed to finagle an even more impressive moniker from a real governor, when Gov. Jimmie Davis granted him the honorary title of Colonel in the Louisiana State Guard. Given his love of practical jokes and putting things over on unsuspecting people, Parker must have secretly relished the irony of a former Army deserter who could now call himself a colonel.[[note]]Some reports say Davis gave Parker the title as a reward for helping his campaign, but ''The Colonel'' author Alanna Nash suggests that he just randomly pestered Davis about it until Davis finally gave up and gave it to him.[[/note]]

At this point, the young man forged a new identity. He was no longer the Dutchman Andre van Kuijk, but instead Thomas Andrew Parker, an orphan from Huntington, West Virginia.[[note]]Not only was his adopted middle name Andrew a variation on his birth name Andreas, he also filled out a Social Security application which listed his fictitious American mother's maiden name as Mary Ponsy, obviously riffing on his real mother's maiden name Maria Ponsie.[[/note]] While the choice of West Virginia as his putative home state may have been for convenience (Huntington was apparently one of his first American stops in 1929), it was a genius stroke, since it's a state that doesn't really have much of a solid cultural identity. Any oddities in his speech or mannerisms could be explained as West Virginia peculiarities, and most people wouldn't know enough about West Virginia to question it (contrary to the thick accent Creator/TomHanks used in ''Film/Elvis2022'', Parker had a fairly Americanized accent in his later years, with a few little quirks like pronouncing "just" as "yust").

Under the Colonel's tutelage, Arnold became one of the genre's first superstars, but after a while tension grew between the two, over financial issues and artistic questions, and Arnold relieved Parker of his managerial duties in 1953 (he still retained his services for concert bookings, and the two remained on good personal terms for the rest of their lives). While Arnold certainly didn't suffer in the aftermath (if anything, he became more popular), in many ways Parker came out on the better end of the deal. Parker's managment strategy for Arnold sounds very familiar: saturation marketing, a heavy emphasis on merchandising, savvy use of the emerging medium of television (Arnold hosted a network variety show in the early 50s), a sweetheart deal with the Hill & Range music publishing company, and even movies (Parker arranged two NonActorVehicle films for Arnold--''Feelin' Rhythm'' in 1949 and ''Hoedown'' in 1950); Parker had a solid template he'd perfected with Arnold, he just needed another client who could push things to the stratosphere. In the meantime, he foundered a bit after losing Arnold, eventually getting into a partnership with country star Hank Snow, who wanted to branch out into the business side of things, and even briefly trying his hand at ProfessionalWrestling management (which he certainly had the personality for).

From there, he drifted down to Tampa, Florida, where many carnivals, circuses and traveling shows had their winter headquarters. He spent the next few years working for carnivals doing everything from tending animals to managing penny arcades and even doing publicity. Parker's carnival work shaped his whole philosophy of life: a love of hype and spectacle, working every possible angle to lure in an audience, and a focus on money above all else, even if he had to resort to questionable means to get it. One of his favorite little schemes was to charge people admission to a show, then charge them again to ''exit'' the show. One measure of how much he loved carnival life, even its darker sides, is that his favorite movie by far, which [[SawStarWarsTwentySevenTimes he saw dozens of times]], was the classic carnival-set FilmNoir ''Film/NightmareAlley''.

It sounds like the plot of some sweeping {{Picaresque}} novel, but it's the very real story of Music/ElvisPresley's manager, a story that requires a major bit of untangling to fully understand.

It sounds like the plot of some sweeping {{Picaresque}} novel, but it's the very real story of Music/ElvisPresley's manager.

At this point, the young man forged a new identity. He was no longer the Dutchman Andre van Kuijk, but instead Thomas Andrew Parker, an orphan from Huntington, West Virginia.[[note]]Not only was his adopted middle name Andrew a variation on his birth name Andreas, he also filled out a Social Security application which listed his fictitious American mother's maiden name as Mary Ponsy, obviously riffing on his real mother's maiden name Maria Ponsie.[[/note]] While the choice of West Virginia as his putative home state may have been for convenience (Huntington was apaprently one of his first American stops in 1929), it was a genius stroke, since it's a state that doesn't really have much of a solid cultural identity. Any oddities in his speech or mannerisms could be explained as West Virginia peculiarities, and most people wouldn't know enough about West Virginia to question it (contrary to the thick accent Creator/TomHanks used in ''Film/Elvis2022'', Parker had a fairly Americanized accent in his later years, with a few little quirks like pronouncing "just" as "yust").

Whatever happened in 1929, by the end of The Fifties, Parker had Elvis' career carefully managed down to the smallest points. An underappreciated turn of events was the death of Gladys in 1958. She could no longer provide any resistance to Parker, and he knew the ineffectual, like-minded Vernon would rubberstamp any plans he came up with. Parker successfully steered Presley's Army stint, and subsequent focus on movies and a more broadly appealing, if less-distinctive, pop direction in his music.[[note]]One of the few direct contributions the Colonel made to Elvis' music career was suggesting that he record a version of the 1927 hit "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", which was one of Marie's favorite songs.[[/note]] He locked Elvis into a longterm movie deal, and when they started becoming less profitable, he just shifted the strategy to working on volume, releasing lower-budgeted movies on a fairly quick turnaround schedule (roughly a new movie every four months by the middle of TheSixties), with no concern for quality. As a result, Elvis started slipping into irrelevance.

[[caption-width-right:350:The Colonel and Elvis pose with [[BriefcaseFullOfMoney Briefcases (probably) Full of Money]].]]

[[caption-width-right:350:The Colonel and Elvis, each holding a BriefcaseFullOfMoney (probably).]]

But wait: even if he was an undocumented immigrant, Parker had served in the Army and was married (if not formally) to an American citizen. And he had powerful friends in government, including then-Senator UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson. He easily could've gained American citizenship if he'd wanted to. One of the few logical reasons he might pass up the opportunity would be if he'd committed some crime before he left Holland and was afraid of extradition.

The 1972-75 period saw some great triumphs, like the sold out Madison Square Garden shows and the ''Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite'' TV special, but this was also the period where Parker made his most questionable business decisions. One was increasing his share to ''50%'' of the Elvis profits. Parker would claim that this was really him and Elvis agreeing to a "business partnership", but most everyone shook their heads when news of this came to light. Another was his 1973 deal to sell all of the Elvis back catalog to RCA for $5 million dollars. Not only was this a ridiculously paltry sum, maybe ten times less than the catalog's actual value ($5 million is equivalent to $35 million in today's money), but now RCA had basically no incentive to care about the latest Elvis recordings, when they could endlessly repackage his classic material and rack up huge profit margins. Then he famously played hardball with Creator/BarbraStreisand over casting Elvis as the male lead in ''Film/AStarIsBorn1976'', leading to the withdrawal of an offer to play a role that could've relauched his film career. Naturally, Parker had excuses for all of these, namely that he was looking out for Elvis and his troubles, and perhaps was also keeping in mind his own history of heart attacks. But still, Elvis, whose personal relationship with Parker was strained (on tours Parker would stay in different hotels from Elvis and would often leave for the next city before the show even started), finally had enough, and with the backing of Vernon, told Parker he was going to fire him in 1974. Parker retaliated by asking Elvis for a $2 million buyout payment. Elvis couldn't afford it, so nothing changed.

It sounds like the plot of some sweeping {{Picaresque}} novel, but it's the very real story of the man who managed Music/ElvisPresley.

The future Colonel Tom Parker was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the city of Breda in the southern part of UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands on June 26, 1909. He was the seventh of eleven children of Adam van Kuijk (a stern, staunchly Catholic former military man and employee of a delivery firm) and his wife Maria Ponsie van Kuijk (a lively woman from a family of ''parlevinkers'', itinerant peddlers who operated out of boats on the country's network of rivers and canals). Dries, as he was nicknamed by the family, was an independent, mischievous young boy, who often clashed with the disciplinarian ways of his father. The van Kuijks were poor, and Dries, who had a knack for getting in trouble as a student, started working at age 11 after being expelled from school for making fun of a teacher's large nose. While he worked a variety of odd jobs, Dries was most captivated by his stints helping out with the ''kermis'', the annual carnival-like festivals that are a storied part of Dutch culture.

But with Elvis gone, there was renewed scrutiny on Parker, and his DarkAndTroubledPast was about to catch up with him. Stories of his Dutch background had long circulated in The Netherlands, but were often dismissed as mere rumor or fantasy. But acting on an anonymous tip in 1977, Dutch journalist Dirk Vellenga uncovered all the details. His research led to the first public unveiling of the story, in Albert Goldman's controversial 1981 biography ''Elvis''. While this may have temporarily humbled Parker, he found a way to use it to his advantage. Facing legal pressure from both the Elvis estate (acting on behalf of his daughter Lisa Marie) and RCA, Parker claimed that he couldn't be sued because he was [[TheStateless stateless]]. He never sought US citizenship, but by serving in the US Army, he'd forfeited his Dutch citizenship. Shortly after that, he settled his legal fights out of court. But was that the truth? One Elvis expert [[https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/a-new-light-on-colonel-tom-parker.shtml has contacted the Dutch government]], who said that he always remained on file as a Dutch citizen, since they never received formal word of his military service.

Parker spent his final years in Las Vegas, ravaged by heart disease, diabetes, gout and strokes (as it turned out, much of this was hereditary, with his van Kuijk siblings in Holland suffering the same ailments). He died on January 21, 1997 at age 87, following a fall caused by a massive stroke. He left behind a complicated legacy, with many of his associates recalling him fondly as a person, even if they didn't care for him as a businessman.

The man who would become Colonel Tom Parker was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the city of Breda in the southern part of UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands on June 26, 1909. He was the seventh of eleven children of Adam van Kuijk (a stern, staunchly Catholic former military man and employee of a delivery firm) and his wife Maria Ponsie van Kuijk (a lively woman from a family of ''parlevinkers'', itinerant peddlers who operated out of boats on the country's network of rivers and canals). Dries, as he was nicknamed by the family, was an independent, mischievous young boy, who often clashed with the disciplinarian ways of his father. The van Kuijks were poor, and Dries, who had a knack for getting in trouble as a student, started working at age 11 after being expelled from school for making fun of a teacher's large nose. While he worked a variety of odd jobs, Dries was most captivated by his stints helping out with the ''kermis'', the annual carnival-like festivals that are a storied part of Dutch culture.

[[caption-width-right:350:The Colonel and Elvis, each holding what might as well be a BriefcaseFullOfMoney.]]

To be fair, there's no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the Breda police never named him as either a suspect or person of interest, but as Parker's Dutch origins came to light following Elvis' death, some people started putting two and two together. Parker as a fugitive certainly makes for a good explanation for his illogical actions, including his estrangement from his Dutch family. They only learned of his whereabouts when his sister saw him standing next to Elvis in a magazine photo. The son of his brother Ad van Kuijk (also named Ad) sent Parker a letter asking if he was his uncle. Parker sent an odd letter in return, addressed to "Master Ad van Kuyk"[''sic''] (misspelling his own birth surname speaks volumes about Parker's alienation from his past), initially starting out in third-person, as though it was written by a secretary, then suddenly lapsing into first-person, including this cryptic statement: "Mistakes some-one [''sic''] may have made without meaning to do so." ''Whoever'' killed Anna van den Enden took that secret to the grave, but it's worth mentioning that under Dutch law, the statute of limitations for crime suspects to be validly arrested is 30 years. Whoever killed her was a free man after May of 1959. And Parker doesn't seem like someone who would've been aware of the ins-and-outs of Dutch criminal law. Parker only divulged the truth about his background to a few select people in his life, and Elvis doesn't seem to have been one of them.

To be fair, there's no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the Breda police never named him as either a suspect or person of interest, but as Parker's Dutch origins came to light following Elvis' death, some people started putting two and two together. Parker as a fugitive certainly makes for a good explanation for his illogical actions, including his estrangement from his Dutch family. They only learned of his whereabouts when his sister saw him standing next to Elvis in a magazine photo. The son of his brother Ad van Kuijk (also named Ad) sent Parker a letter asking if he was his uncle. Parker sent an odd letter in return, addressed to "Master Ad van Kuyk"[''sic''] (misspelling his own birth surname speaks volumes about Parker's alienation from his past), initially starting out in third-person, as though it was written by a secretary, then suddenly lapsing into first-person, including this cryptic statement: "Mistakes some-one [''sic''] may have made without meaning to do so." ''Whoever'' killed Anna van den Enden took that secret to the grave, but it's worth mentioning that under Dutch law, the statute of limitations for crime suspects to be validly arrested is 30 years. Whoever killed her was a free man after May of 1959. And Parker doesn't seem like someone who would've been aware of the ins-and-outs of Dutch criminal law.

Whatever happened back then, by the end of The Fifties, Parker had Elvis' career carefully managed down to the smallest points. An underappreciated turn of events was the death of Gladys in 1958. She could no longer provide any resistance to Parker, and he knew the ineffectual, like-minded Vernon would rubberstamp any plans he came up with. Parker successfully steered Presley's Army stint, and subsequent focus on movies and a more broadly appealing, if less-distinctive, pop direction in his music.[[note]]One of the few direct contributions the Colonel made to Elvis' music career was suggesting that he record a version of the 1927 hit "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", which was one of Marie's favorite songs.[[/note]] He locked Elvis into a longterm movie deal, and when they started becoming less profitable, he just shifted the strategy to working on volume, releasing lower-budgeted movies on a fairly quick turnaround schedule (roughly a new movie every four months by the middle of TheSixties), with no concern for quality. As a result, Elvis started slipping into irrelevance.

But with Elvis gone, there was renewed scrutiny on Parker, and his DarkAndTroubledPast was about to catch up with him. Stories of his Dutch background had long ciruclated in The Netherlands, but were often dismissed as mere rumor or fantasy. But acting on an anonymous tip in 1977, Dutch journalist Dirk Vellenga uncovered all the details. His research led to the first public unveiling of the story, in Albert Goldman's controversial 1981 biography ''Elvis''. While this may have temporarily humbled Parker, he found a way to use it to his advantage. Facing legal pressure from both the Elvis estate (acting on behalf of his daughter Lisa Marie) and RCA, Parker claimed that he couldn't be sued because he was [[TheStateless stateless]]. He never sought US citizenship, but by serving in the US Army, he'd forfeited his Dutch citizenship. Shortly after that, he settled his legal fights out of court. But was that the truth? One Elvis expert [[https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/a-new-light-on-colonel-tom-parker.shtml has contacted the Dutch government]], who said that he always remained on file as a Dutch citizen, since they never received formal word of his military service.

An immigrant with a DarkAndTroubledPast flees his home and his family and arrives in America to start anew. Inventing a new identity, he scrapes by via military service and various odd jobs and con schemes, before finding his niche as a music promoter. Then he hits the jackpot when he becomes the manager of the most popular singer in the country, but is still fearful of having his true identity exposed.

Whatever happened back then, by the end of The Fifties, Parker had Elvis' career carefully managed down to the smallest points. An underappreciated turn of events was the death of Gladys in 1958. She could no longer provide any resistance to Parker, and he knew the ineffectual, like-minded Vernon would rubberstamp any plans he came up with. Parker successfully steered Presley's Army stint, and subsequent focus on movies and a more broadly appealing, if less-distinctive, pop direction in his music. He locked Elvis into a longterm movie deal, and when they started becoming less profitable, he just shifted the strategy to working on volume, releasing lower-budgeted movies on a fairly quick turnaround schedule (roughly a new movie every four months by the middle of TheSixties), with no concern for quality. As a result, Elvis started slipping into irrelevance.