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The Cover of ‘The Colonel and the King,’ the History of Elvis Presley and Manager Tom Parker, Says It All… Or Does It?
The cover of 'The Colonel and the King,' Peter Guralnick's history of Elvis Presley and manipulative manager Colonel Tom Parker, seems to say it all...
It’s fair to say that the curiosity of more than a few people was piqued by Tom Hanks’ portrayal of Elvis Presley’s career-long manager, Colonel Tom Parker, in the Austin Butler-starring biopic “Elvis.” He’s become the archetype for the svengali music manager, although he was neither a colonel nor named Parker but was actually a Dutch immigrant named Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, a shrewd businessman who learned his craft by spending years traveling with circuses. Within days of first hearing in early 1955 that an unknown teenager had drawn an audience of 800 people to a Texas schoolhouse, Parker had tracked down Presley and was already hyping his career, sending telegrams and letters to promoters and booking agents: “We have a new boy that is absolutely going to be one of the biggest things in the business in a very short time. Much has been said in the decades since Presley’s death about how Parker, without whom the singer’s career would have been infinitely different, ultimately cast a negative influence, convincing him to cash in on his fame (which the Colonel earned half) with a series of dreadful movies and uninspired recordings, allegedly plying him with drugs and other tactics to maintain control.
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