Elvis Presley’s notorious swivel hips, curled lip, frenetic energy, and lacquered pompadour haircut blazed a glittering path like a blazing comet across television sets in front of the mesmerized eyes of his young followers.
Elvis, sometimes known as “the King” of rock and roll, was an American icon that was as well-known as Coca-Cola.
Colonel Tom Parker, a cunning, obnoxious, and unpleasant businessman who controlled Presley’s career from his formative years as an acne-prone youngster to his passing as a corpulent 42-year-old man who spun out on drugs in 1977, is a less well-known figure who planned Elvis’ career.
According to author Maureen Dowd, Colonel Parker and Elvis Presley’s connection is “without a doubt the most fascinating Svengali-star relationship in entertainment history.”
Parker skillfully puppeteered Presley’s private life, his enlistment in the Army, his Hollywood career, and his comeback in Las Vegas to establish a career that lasted far beyond his days as a teenage phenomenon.
Even after Elvis passed away, Parker carried on as usual, claiming that “Elvis didn’t die,” only “the body did.”
Parker received a generous 50% cut of all profits for his services, which was unusual given that the industry norm at the time was 10%. Despite the fact that they were close for many years, he is a contentious character in the Presley saga.
The “colonel,” who got his start as a traveling carnival barker, frequently referred to Presley as “my attraction.” Like PT Barnum, he recognized that a curiosity’s promotion was just as crucial as the curiosity itself.
Parker was a native of Holland, but he pretended to be a good ol’ lad from West Virginia while speaking with a silky molasses Southern drawl.
The snake-oil salesman was much more than a leech, and this was only realized decades after Presley’s passing.
What precisely was he concealing about his past? And was he an escaped murderer?
Some people appear to believe this, including his biographer Alanna Nash, who writes in her book, “The Extraordinary Story Of Colonel Tom Parker And Elvis Presley,” that Parker’s ancestry can be traced back to his early years in the Netherlands, when he was known as Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk.
No character in all of entertainment is more divisive, colorful, or larger than life than Tom Parker, argues Nash, whether viewed as a meretricious and diabolical confidence man, or as a brilliant marketer and strategist, as astonishing as the star he managed.
A new Baz Luhrmann film starring Tom Hanks as the intriguing carny-turned-manager and Austin Butler as the titular singer dramatizes the life story of Elvis’ enigmatic manager.
“See, Elvis was Pablo Picasso.” Hanks told the New York Times that the artist was “one-of-a-kind and only came along once in a lifetime.” The colonel was aware of that.
Without Elvis, Colonel Tom Parker would not have existed, and without Elvis, Colonel Tom Parker would not have been Colonel Tom Parker.
Colonel Thomas Andrew Parker was his own wonderful fabrication, like all great American legends. Parker, a businessman with a harsh voice and sharp clothes, was meticulous in hiding information about his personal life.
Before establishing his footing as a music promoter in the early 1950s and subsequently ascending to fantastic success on the back of his titanic client, Elvis Presley, he had traveled with carnivals, worked with elephants, and ran a palm reading booth.
Prior to escaping from an orphanage and joining the circus, Parker claimed to have been born and reared in the heart of Appalachia sometime in the early 1900s. That was the Colonel’s truth, as far as the general public was aware.
If someone had bothered to look into it further, they would have found that Huntingdon, West Virginia, had no record of any Thomas Parker’s birth. Additionally, they would have found out that Parker had never owned a US passport.
While he was well-known as “the Colonel,” the moniker was an honorific bestowed upon him by the governor of Louisiana after the latter assisted the gospel singer-turned-politician in winning office in the late 1940s.
In actuality, not much is known about Parker’s brief service in the US Army as a private. He might not have ever participated in the military at all. He had a severe lying problem his entire life.
According to Baz Luhrmann, “I think the word’sociopath’ will enter into the conversation when the topic of the colonel comes up.” Sociopaths “may be extremely enigmatic and amusing.”
In the most unlikely manner and location, Parker’s fabricated genesis narrative came tumbling down in the spring of 1960.
Nel Dankers-van Kuijk was perusing a women’s magazine while seated in her Dutch hair salon when she suddenly came to a complete stop. Her brother, Andreas van Kuijk, also known as “Dries,” was seen in the shot standing next to Elvis. For thirty years, he had been missing.
By that time, everyone knew Dries as “Colonel Tom Parker.” There was no disputing that it was the same man who unexpectedly disappeared without a trace on May 17, 1929, despite the fact that he had aged and gained significant weight since she had last seen him.
The seventh child of a poor stableman and delivery driver, Parker was born in the small Dutch city of Breda in June 1909.
Parker began his life in carnivals and circuses as a young child while growing up in the Netherlands.
He learnt how to combine business and fraud, as well as marketing techniques and image-building techniques, at the fairs. According to his biographer Alanna Nash, “The soul of Tom Parker was beginning to take form in the body of young Dries van Kuijk.”
When Parker was a young lad, his appetite for adventure and desire to make money were insatiable. His sister recalled, “Having money was really important to him.”
Don’t touch his wallet, the family was convinced of that much.
Parker traveled as a stowaway over the Atlantic when he was 17 years old in order to work on the carnival circuit in America. He returned to the Netherlands 18 months later.
He returned to Holland and labored on the docks, fervently hoping to restart his life as a “carny” overseas. Then, in May 1929, the 20-year-old docker missed his scheduled shift and was never heard from again.
He mysteriously abandoned a trunk stuffed with his most prized items, including suits, unopened birthday presents, identification documents, and cash.
Years later, novelist Alanna Nash wondered about the circumstances surrounding his hasty departure, asking: “Why had the youngster who so loved dressing up left behind his beautiful clothes?”
There were other things that didn’t make sense, such as “Why had someone who valued money so highly abandoned his hard-earned profits, especially if he was intending to travel halfway around the world?”
Before a letter arrived written in shoddy English with little explanation, it had been a long time since the family had heard from Dries. Andre/Tom Parker was his signature. The family were perplexed.
He just changed his identification, Marie, Parker’s sister, told Nash. He wished to go unnoticed.