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00:00It's an Elvis experience here on Channel 4 and a new series on rock'n'roll managers.
00:12Starting with Colonel Tom Parker, the man behind the king.
00:30Little was known of Thomas Andrew Parker's early years.
00:43His story changed depending on who he was talking to.
00:47One of the first sightings was at the Florida headquarters of the Royal American Shows,
00:52then amongst the biggest travelling carnivals in America.
00:56It was whilst working here in the 1930s that Parker developed his razor-sharp hustling skills
01:02and his taste for eye-catching attractions.
01:05Ha ha ha, hurry, hurry, step this way.
01:08Ha ha ha, hurry, hurry, step this way.
01:11Now the show you're gonna see is strictly high class.
01:15There'll be ten hula dancers shaking their grass.
01:18I remember very well he'd go into parades and advertise the show.
01:22And he'd dress up like a clown.
01:24You know, he was a good hustler, a great hustler.
01:28That was his life.
01:30He was like Ripley.
01:32Believe it or not, he was new things.
01:38Parker had had this childhood dream of working in the circus or the carnival,
01:42so he comes to Tampa, Florida and latches on to the travelling carnivals.
01:47It starts out with simple things like the foot-long hot dog booth.
01:51But to make a little extra money, he would take a regular hot dog,
01:55cut off each end of the hot dog,
01:57stick one in on each end of a foot-long bun
01:59and fill up the middle of the sauerkraut and save a few cents.
02:01But it wasn't so much about saving a few cents,
02:03it was being able to pull one over to being able to get away with it,
02:06something that he would exhibit throughout the remainder of his life.
02:09And I knew him around the carnival.
02:12He was just another carnival guy.
02:14You know, like we all are.
02:17That's about all I know.
02:19There's a man who swallows swords and he never gets hurt.
02:22He's just about the sharpest guy around.
02:25You'll see him here in Carnet Town.
02:31I say we're gonna win.
02:40Parker spent the quiet winter months of his carnival career
02:43promoting country and western concerts.
02:46As a result, he met many of Nashville's biggest names.
02:50And when rising star Eddie Arnold visited Florida on tour,
02:53Parker was so impressed, he offered to manage him.
03:03Parker transformed Arnold into a major country and western star.
03:09With his rehearsal complete, Parker was ready for the main event.
03:12Gabe Tucker was Arnold's bass player at the time,
03:16and he suggested Parker should go and see an exciting new act.
03:22The colonel was telling me about the business,
03:25and I asked him how he was doing and so forth.
03:28And he said, well, I've got a whole bunch of hillbillies here,
03:33but they ain't making me the money I want to make.
03:38And I told him, I said, well, Colonel, I worked with a boy,
03:45me and him played an old club in Houston,
03:49that I don't know what he's doing.
03:53I don't understand it, but he can damn sure entertain the people.
03:57And that big old dance hall down there was full.
04:01I don't know what he's got, but he's damn sure got it.
04:04I'm just minding my own business.
04:07Lord, and I'm leaving other people so long.
04:09In nearby Memphis, a musical revolution was brewing.
04:13The owner of Sun Records, Sam Phillips, had a vision
04:16which would dramatically shake up the music business.
04:18We did not start Sun Records to be another record company.
04:26We started Sun Records to be different,
04:29to look for certain initiatives and people
04:33that had not been explored before.
04:36I wanted to do more of a gut-bucket type of thing.
04:41And it was very, and gut-bucket means,
04:43I mean some of the raw soul of what the black people sang about,
04:52hummed, thought about, talked about.
04:57Elvis at that time was like 17 or something,
05:01actually still in high school.
05:03I just felt like that he was a real candidate
05:06to be maybe that person that could bridge that gap.
05:10Elvis Presley seemed too mild-mannered to send shockwaves through America.
05:21His father Vernon was a labourer,
05:24and his mother Gladys worked in a garment factory.
05:29Fate had decreed that their only child
05:32should become the vehicle for rock and roll's historic mixture
05:35of country music and black rhythm and blues.
05:37The desk clerk's dressed in black,
05:40well they've been so long on the street,
05:43they'll never, they'll never look back
05:45and think you're so, think you're so lonely.
05:48The Colonel being the guy that he is,
05:50the promoter that he is,
05:52his ear must have been to the ground,
05:56because it, I mean, it resonated with him.
06:00Well that's alright mama, that's alright with you,
06:03that's alright mama, just any way you do, that's alright, that's alright, that's alright, that's alright.
06:15Always the opportunist, Parker came up with a strategy to become Elvis' manager.
06:19First he wooed Elvis' parents and brushed aside business rivals.
06:26Then he had to prize Elvis out the clutches of Sam Phillips.
06:30Cunning as ever, he started a rumour that Presley's contract was for sale.
06:35Phillips hit back by demanding $35,000, a breathtaking sum at the time.
06:39Okay, I thought in my head, hey, I'll make them an offer that I know they will refuse,
06:49and then I will tell them they better not spread this poison anymore.
06:57I absolutely did not think Tom Parker could raise the $35,000, he really did not,
07:03and I thought that would be the end of it.
07:04It would have been fine, it would have been fine.
07:07But he raised the money, and damn, I couldn't back out then.
07:10Well it's one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready now, go, can't go.
07:16Parker's plan worked like a dream.
07:18Get on my blue suede shoes.
07:20Well you can do anything but take you overboard.
07:23Although he had enjoyed some success with Eddie Arnold,
07:25he knew that Presley was a star in the making.
07:27Step in my face, slander my name all over the place.
07:31Well do anything that you wanna do.
07:32Back in the 1950s, most managers did no more for their artists than book concert dates.
07:38But Parker threw himself into a grand plan.
07:41Although he knew almost nothing about music,
07:44he understood that a guaranteed supply of good songs was going to be vital to Elvis' success.
07:51Parker always preferred to deal with people he knew,
07:54and he worked with music publishers Hill and Range in Nashville.
07:56Colonel Parker was a very shrewd man, he was not educated, he himself used to brag about the fact that he can't read or write, but he could read or write.
08:09He was a very shrewd deal maker.
08:13Step on my blue suede shoes.
08:14The deal that the Colonel made with Hill and Range was a very simple deal.
08:19We organized a publishing company that belonged 50% to Elvis and 50% to Hill and Range.
08:26And then for the first 12 years, really, Elvis didn't look at the song unless I had seen it first.
08:35Well, bless my soul, but what's wrong with me?
08:39I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree.
08:42My friends say I'm acting wild as a bug, I'm in love.
08:46In the beginning, I mean, they had Otis Blackwell, Palmerston Schumann, Mike Stoll and Jerry Lieber.
08:52I mean, these were all Hill and Range writers.
08:55And so, I mean, these are phenomenal songs that came out of there.
08:58I mean, my God, you know.
09:00I mean, Elvis' biggest hits came from Freddie Beanstalk.
09:04The heat was so quite hot in Hill and Range.
09:08We had the pick of the litter.
09:09I mean, any songs, any writers, we said, okay, we'll take them or we won't take them.
09:12And you had to either give us publishing or you didn't, or we didn't fool with you.
09:16The Colonel kept it sort of a closed-door policy.
09:21With a secure source of songs in place, Parker went scouting for a new recording contract.
09:27Several companies showed interest, and Parker exploited this by playing them off each other to raise Elvis' price.
09:35At the end of the day, though, RCA was always going to be Parker's first choice.
09:39Like Hill and Range, he worked with them during his country in Western days.
09:44I went to meet Colonel Parker at the elevator.
09:50He just seemed to explode out into the hall.
09:54First of all, he didn't want to saturate the market.
09:57He had a thing about overpowering everything.
10:01And as far as the records were concerned, I mean, he worked out with the RCA people how many records a year.
10:07And we were restricted to that.
10:10I think that he just didn't want the people to get tired of Elvis.
10:17He never interfered in the actual music.
10:20And I could understand why, because he really was tone deaf.
10:27Parker never ran out of new ways of exploiting his style.
10:31His inventive mind dreamed up an endless stream of Elvis products.
10:35As a result, Parker almost single-handedly invented the pop memorabilia industry.
10:40Colonel Parker was unique in the idea of merchandising his artists.
10:47There had been merchandising of movie characters, of cartoon characters.
10:51But there really never had been a singer that had had mass merchandising.
10:55He realized that people that liked Elvis were going to buy Elvis Presley products.
10:58But he had the idea, how can I make money from people that don't like Elvis?
11:02I hate Elvis Button.
11:03Elvis is a jerk.
11:04So he made money on both sides of the fence.
11:06The girls bought the I Love Elvis button.
11:09The guys bought Elvis as the jerk.
11:11And the Colonel pocketed the cash.
11:13Well, get out of that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.
11:18Get out of that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.
11:21Parker's brilliance as a promoter meant that every Elvis Presley concert was a major event.
11:28By rationing supply and stoking up demand,
11:30Parker raised the hysteria level of Elvis concerts to fever pitch.
11:45One thing that I think was a real stroke of genius,
11:50do not let him play a venue of any description
11:55that is not sold out in people waiting to get tickets that can't get in.
12:02Many times I was sitting in his office when he'd have someone on the phone
12:06and he'd say, now listen, I'm getting $10,000 for next week
12:10or next Saturday night or something or the other.
12:12Already, if you want him for $12,000, you can have him.
12:14And he'd look at me and wink.
12:16Which I knew that he didn't have him booked for $10,000.
12:20That's just the way he was.
12:21He made a joke out of almost everything.
12:25He was just a con artist, you might say.
12:27Uh-huh, hurry, hurry, step this way.
12:30Uh-huh, hurry, hurry, step this way.
12:31Uh-huh, hurry, hurry, step this way.
12:34Now the show you're gonna see...
12:36Little more than a year after signing Parker as his manager,
12:39Elvis Presley became the first RCA artist
12:42to gross more than a million dollars from a single album.
12:44This way...
12:46Parker had laid down the blueprint of Elvis' career,
12:49but this was just the beginning.
12:50I say we gotta win...
12:52Colonel Tom Parker never liked to think of Elvis Presley
13:16as a rock and roll rebel who'd appeal only to teenagers.
13:18If you can't come around...
13:21He used his stint in the army to promote the idea
13:23that Presley was a dutiful American patriot
13:26eager to appeal to the more lucrative family audience.
13:29Well, baby, if I made a man...
13:32There's something I might have said...
13:35Please, let's forget the past...
13:38The Colonel understood the new medium of television
13:41was perfect for broadcasting the Elvis message to millions.
13:44But his ambitions didn't stop there.
13:47He wanted nothing less than to make Elvis a major international movie star.
13:54I was in Colonel Parker's office when the first call came for Elvis to do movies.
14:00And the conversation went like this.
14:02Buddy Adler says,
14:04I have a property here that is going to make Elvis a big movie star.
14:08He said,
14:11Would you like to read the script?
14:13So the Colonel said,
14:15Well, there's no sense you sending me the script because I can't read.
14:20All I'm interested in is how much you're going to pay me.
14:23So Buddy Adler says,
14:27Well, we're thinking of paying you $25,000.
14:30So the Colonel said,
14:33Well, that's very good.
14:34That's exactly what I want.
14:35He said,
14:36Now, how much are you going to pay Elvis?
14:41Love me tender,
14:45Love me sweet,
14:48Never let me go.
14:52Love Me Tender was the first of a string of more than 30 feature films starring Elvis Presley.
14:56In the early days,
14:59Even the ruthless and calculating Colonel found that he needed some help when negotiating with Hollywood Studios.
15:05And so he turned to the William Morris Talent Agency.
15:10Love me true.
15:12He would decide when Elvis was going to do a picture and what kind of a picture it was.
15:17With all the actors and actresses and people and entertainers that I've dealt with over all these years,
15:21It's the entertainer that it involves.
15:24He says, I want this person or that person.
15:27That was not Elvis.
15:28Elvis didn't have anything to say about it.
15:30It was all done by the Colonel.
15:32And that was very unusual.
15:34It's still very unusual.
15:36I love you.
15:38And I always will.
15:42When it came to taking care of business, the Colonel prized loyalty above all else.
15:57And he gained this by always dealing with the same people.
15:59One of the ways in which he coerced loyalty from his colleagues was to invite them to become members of his own secretive organization.
16:08Dedicated to celebrating the heart of the country, the Snowman's League of America was free to new members, but cost a thousand dollars for those wishing to leave.
16:15Well, that lone black train got my baby head gone.
16:21He came up with a membership booklet that he gave to the members of the Snowman's League.
16:27And you open the book up and you see that snowing is related to hypnosis, counteracting high pressure snowing, advanced snowing techniques and where it leads.
16:37Snowman's League of America, I think I might have got a membership and he gave me a membership in everything.
16:43You turn the pages and you realize that the book's a con. It's completely blank. There's no instructions in here.
16:50When he made me a snowman, he said I snowed so well he would even make my wife a snow woman.
16:55I still got my snowman's guard somewhere. I don't know where to.
16:58As a matter of fact, I think I had one, one time.
17:08Colonel's shrewd negotiations helped make Elvis one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood.
17:14With the money pouring in and the studios falling over themselves to sign this new star, some wondered if the colonel might not be abusing the hypnotic powers he was rumored to possess.
17:26The colonel claimed the power to hypnotize and he would, usually the Memphis Mafia, which was Elvis' inner circle of really hired friends, would be the subjects for this hypnotism.
17:39And the colonel would wave his watch and go into his carnival-like routine. And the mafia would get on the ground, they would bark, they would pretend to be dogs, pretend to be under the colonel's spell.
17:52There was more than one occasion where he would do this, hypnotize me and have me become somewhat like an animal, like a dog type thing, growling and showing teeth and everything.
18:08You ain't nothing but a hounded dog girl, you're crying all the time.
18:14Park had always shown an interest in animals. Almost 30 years earlier, a dog pound in Florida had given the colonel a chance to realize his ambitions, to improve animal welfare and to make himself a lot of money.
18:26I've been an Elvis fan for years, and when I came here to get the job, I was shocked. The first thing I thought of, I said, I know he used to work here.
18:37He would go out and raise money for the Humane Society, solicit donations for the Humane Society, conduct campaigns to find homes for the animal.
18:54But also began his lifelong habit of serving his employer, but also serving himself.
19:02I know he was the dog catcher here. At one point, I think he sold graves for dogs here. Before that, I don't know where he came from, you know.
19:13He would charge you to bury your cats or dogs there, even though he did not own the property, just took it upon himself.
19:19Made a deal with a local tombstone company to make miniature little pet tombstones to put there.
19:25And again, that's another way of making some profit.
19:27Made a deal with a local florist for flowers that were really ready to be thrown out.
19:31And they would give them to Tom Parker. He would sell those to the grieving pet owners.
19:36The Humane Society really turned their cheek to this, really looked the other way because the guy was so successful at making them money.
19:42The guy was a salesman, obviously. Look what he sold. So he must have been a darn good promoter.
19:52And obviously he liked what he was doing here because he stayed here quite a while and did a good job.
19:57Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit. You ain't no friend of mine.
20:07While the Colonel relished his growing power and influence in Hollywood, Elvis was hard at work churning out movie after movie.
20:15Early films like Jowl House Rock and King Creole were well regarded.
20:20But by the late 60s, Elvis' movie career had become a bad joke.
20:24Parker's impossible demands for ever cheaper movies, packed with ever cheesier songs, had locked Elvis into a treadmill of mediocrity.
20:36It's seen that Parker had no conception of artistic integrity.
20:46Finding himself increasingly isolated from the outside world and starved of managerial support, Elvis turned to his newly appointed hairdresser for guidance.
21:04When I entered Elvis' life in 1964, a big change occurred in his thinking, in his emotional body, in his development intellectually and spiritually.
21:19He started to read books on a daily basis.
21:25And when Elvis read a book, he just didn't skim the pages. He perused it.
21:34Larry was into all of this Far Eastern stuff and everything else, and Daya Mata and, you know, all these things. And Elvis found it interesting.
21:49Colonel hated Larry Geller because he thought Larry Geller was poisoning Elvis' mind and playing a game of mind control.
22:02All I wanted to do was for Elvis to become his own person. And I told this to Elvis many times. And he knew it. There was no doubt about it. But Colonel Parker didn't know it.
22:13So tension started to build up over the years. And in a certain sense, I became Colonel Parker's enemy.
22:21All of a sudden, the Colonel invites Geller to dinner, which Parker really never ever did for anybody.
22:34Larry got back home and his house had been ransacked.
22:40That following month, Larry quit. Parker drove him out.
22:47Any manager who's worth a salt would do that. I mean, it's not that Colonel Liss liked Larry Geller. It's he didn't like what was going on.
22:59You know, the object of a manager to keep the artist like he was, not like he is.
23:05By 1968, Elvis had fulfilled the last of his film contracts. Sickened by Hollywood, he wanted to get back on stage.
23:13But the Colonel's fixation with movies had kept Rock and Roll's greatest performer away from live audiences for nine years.
23:22When the Colonel sold NBC television the idea of an Elvis Christmas special, it wasn't clear how much of the old Presley magic remained.
23:30Just look right in my face.
23:32The Colonel, I don't know if he ever was a rock and roll fan.
23:37I was born standing up and talking back.
23:42He always thought the best thing for Elvis would be for him to be Bing Crosby.
23:48My daddy was a green-eyed man to judge because I'm evil.
23:56I had not seen his name connected to a hit record in maybe two or three years on the charts.
24:03So I was not all that enthusiastic or impressed about the opportunity to work with Elvis.
24:10We don't have our full band here tonight, but we'd like to give you an idea of how I started out about 14 years ago.
24:19Television director Steve Binder may not have been inspired by the Elvis Presley of 1968, but his imagination was certainly fired up by the Elvis of the 50s.
24:27Where Parker expected only yuletide schmaltz, Binder presented a dynamic Elvis capable of reclaiming his position at the pinnacle of rock and roll.
24:37Well, that's all right, mama. That's all right with you. That's all right, mama. Just anyway.
24:45Part of the TV show featured an improvised section inspired by Binder, Clinton Elvis rehearsing backstage.
24:54When I asked the colonel if we could bring cameras into the dressing room and film Elvis just in a documentary sense, just doing the improv, he said over my dead body, you know, you can't bring any cameras in here.
25:08And I found out the colonel loved playing games. And it wasn't that he was against it. It's he wanted to just use his authority to show everybody who was the boss.
25:19So eventually he weakened and came to me and said, OK, you can recreate it, but you got to do it out on the stage. You can't do it inside the dressing room.
25:25I think the colonel's great genius was intimidating people, getting them to be subservient to him and so forth.
25:38He was the boss. And I think his gut instinct was that something special that he didn't understand was going on. He shouldn't get in the way of it.
25:47The NBC special was a spectacular success. It reminded both critics and public of the power of this great talent and provided the spring ball for Elvis's return to the stage.
26:06Colonel Parker had a growing passion for gambling. So it was no surprise that he talked Elvis into relaunching his live performing career in Las Vegas.
26:19Back in 1968, the brand new International, as it was then known, was the largest hotel in Las Vegas.
26:38It needed high-profile acts to kickstart its casino operations, and it was here that the colonel chose to showcase his rejuvenated star.
26:48Overjoyed at being in the gambling capital of the world and hell-bent on staying there, Parker launched one of the most impressive promotional campaigns of his entire career.
27:00He promoted Elvis in Las Vegas as no entertainer had ever been promoted before.
27:11His campaign that he produced was unbelievable. He had every billboard in the entire city, not only in Vegas, leading all the way to California.
27:20Los Angeles was loaded with billboards.
27:23The commercials that we ran on radio were the most unusual thing.
27:31He insisted only the word Elvis be used, and the entire commercial accepted to tag it at the end where and when he was appearing.
27:39So the entire commercial consisted of Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, but they were short. They were 20-second commercials.
27:45What he tried to do was virtually blanket the town with the fact that Elvis was in town and was playing at the Las Vegas Hotel.
27:57We got calls from all over the world for reservations. The phones rang off the hook. We couldn't accept all the reservations.
28:08It was blockbusters. I mean, hit like a thunderstorm. We didn't know. People came from everywhere.
28:20They just loaded this hotel. It was unbelievable. There was so much excitement. It was unbelievable. Not only in the city, but in the entire country.
28:31The amount of business Elvis brought to the hotel and its gambling table was staggering. Alex Shufi was desperate to sign Elvis for a five-year contract.
28:44With the Colonel's weakness for gambling, Shufi unexpectedly found himself in a position of some strength.
28:50He says, now tell me again, you'll give me the same money for the five years?
29:01I said, absolutely.
29:04I mean, this was unheard of that anybody would sign for five years
29:08for the same amount of money, no increase.
29:11So he took the tablecloth, he wrote the contract on the tablecloth.
29:15He signed it.
29:20He was very receptive, very cooperative, and very easy to deal with.
29:33The colonel could have named any price.
29:35I heard that the head of the Hilton Hotel firm told someone
29:41they had just gotten the biggest name in show business for the least amount of money.
29:46This is very sad when you think about it.
29:50Every shot time, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost, we've been lost
30:20We're caught in a trap
30:26Las Vegas was the part of the career
30:32that Colonel could have his carnival side come to life.
30:34I love you too much, baby
30:37So he loved Las Vegas.
30:41He and Elvis became Las Vegas.
30:46What you doing to me
30:48It was exciting, it was great, it was fun.
30:52But going in about the third year
30:55it seemed dark and there was no challenge.
30:59You know, Elvis was bored
31:00and it was the same songs
31:02or the same audience and the same people
31:05and we stayed up all night
31:07and we slept all day
31:08and we didn't see sunlight for a couple of months.
31:10What was once exciting and fun
31:13became dark and angry.
31:18Elvis was mad. He wanted out. Didn't want to do it anymore.
31:23He said, I want out of this place.
31:25I'm tired of this place. I don't want to come back.
31:27And as a consequence
31:29this whole brewing, seething cauldron of hate
31:33built up in Las Vegas
31:35and when it went over the edge, that was it.
31:39And that's where the whole breach came.
31:41And then he wanted to go to Europe
31:43and Colonel wouldn't let him go to Europe.
31:44He always said, damn it, why can't I go to Europe?
31:46The Colonel said, well, the security.
31:47Well, the reason Colonel wouldn't let him go to Europe
31:50was because he couldn't control it
31:51because he couldn't be over there.
31:53And Colonel was a control person.
31:54He had to control everything.
31:55The Colonel didn't want to leave America
31:58because he couldn't.
32:01Colonel Parker was an illegal immigrant.
32:05He was born in Breda in Holland in 1909.
32:07His real name was Andreas Cornelius Van Kijk.
32:11And unluckily for him,
32:15he had relatives back home
32:17who came to re-establish concept.
32:29This is my diary, the fifth one.
32:32Today there is a message from a brother of my father
32:37who disappeared in the United States.
32:40Now it's clear that he is the manager of Elvis Presley.
32:44It's, that's very good for the family money.
32:54My father was presented to Elvis.
32:57The Colonel was with him and said to Elvis,
33:00may I present, this is my brother.
33:02And Elvis shaked hands.
33:05There are some pictures of Mr. Parker,
33:07but Mr. Parker himself didn't want to be photographed with my father.
33:11He, he feared perhaps he could be blackmailed later on.
33:15He wanted to be 100% certain that this was his brother
33:20and not a Dutch criminal who wanted to blackmail him.
33:24I'm all shook up, ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:31Over the years, the story of Parker's true origins seek back to America.
33:37He was absolutely shocked.
33:40I thought he was born in Virginia.
33:42And he called Tampa his home.
33:44He couldn't pronounce his R's.
33:45The R, Presley.
33:47But I never did see none of his damn kin, folks.
33:50And then we started putting two and two together.
33:52He wouldn't go out of the country.
33:54And as a consequence, he wouldn't let Elvis go out of the country.
33:57Why can't you see what you're doing to me?
34:03Colonel Parker stage managed Elvis' stunning live comeback in Las Vegas.
34:08But by the mid-'70s,
34:09it seemed that he reached the limits of his managerial vision.
34:14We can't go on together.
34:18He was mesmerized by Las Vegas.
34:20The lure of the gambling table sacked his ambition
34:23and blunted the sharp edge of his deal-making skills.
34:25Parker shifted Elvis out of his Hollywood rut.
34:28But the singer found the long-term commitments of Vegas equally soul-destroying.
34:34Lonely and miserable, Elvis sought refuge in drugs and junk food.
34:41Colonel had him doing two to three shows a day.
34:43And you do three, and you do the third show, you're dead.
34:45And especially the high-energy show that Elvis did.
34:47Here we go again
34:52Asking where I've been
34:54He always started wising up.
34:55He started picking up on stuff.
34:57It always felt like the reason they couldn't get out of this damn contract
35:00is because Colonel owed the hotel so much money,
35:03he always had to play off the dates.
35:04And he didn't like that.
35:05It was like somebody opened a champagne bottle.
35:07Boom!
35:07It just went crazy.
35:08I was gambling at the Las Vegas Hill, and there was one man sitting there.
35:20And I noticed that a security guard would keep coming over and bring a stack of chips like this.
35:25These are $100 chips.
35:27And he would take the whole pile and put the whole pile down and bet the number.
35:32And then they would spin the wheel.
35:35And the security guard would bring over another stack of these chips.
35:38And it's $10,000 at a time.
35:41And I said to the floor man on the blackjack game,
35:43what's going on?
35:44He said, well, that's Colonel Parker.
35:47The Colonel was there before I got here.
35:49I finally gave up and went home.
35:51The Colonel is still doing that.
35:54And the foreman said he's lost a million dollars.
35:57We can't go on together with suspicious minds.
36:03Here's Elvis Presley.
36:05And here's Colonel Parker, the greatest star and probably the greatest manager.
36:09And towards the end of Elvis's life,
36:12Elvis became addicted to medications that doctors were giving him.
36:16Colonel Parker became addicted to gambling.
36:22It was very sad.
36:23As Presley became harder to control, Parker became more confrontational.
36:32The situation came to a head after a ferocious row backstage at the Las Vegas Hill.
36:38When Presley told Parker he was fired, and Parker told Presley he quit.
36:42He was not going to represent him anymore.
36:48He couldn't control him.
36:51He was not going to represent him anymore.
36:52And the reason was, Elvis was becoming fat.
36:59He was on something all the time, it seemed to him.
37:02Colonel didn't say what it was.
37:03He didn't even know what it was.
37:04But he didn't like the way Elvis was going.
37:07And he said to Elvis, go on, I'm out, forget about me.
37:15Back in his fourth floor office, Parker calculated what Elvis still owed him.
37:20He sent an invoice for several million dollars up to Presley's suites on the 30th floor.
37:27Presley knew he couldn't find the money.
37:30Outmaneuvered once again, Elvis reluctantly submitted to the Colonel's will.
37:34And Elvis finally said to him, I need you, I want you back.
37:42And he said, okay, uh, uh, reluctantly I will come back.
37:47But only, uh, I want an increase in my, in my share of it.
37:51As the seventies wore on, more and more of Elvis' Las Vegas concerts were cancelled due to his worsening health.
38:16Although professionally reunited, the gulf between Presley and Parker was now so wide,
38:26that the Colonel appeared indifferent to whether Elvis lived or died.
38:29You heard me say...
38:31He didn't have breathing room, you know, it was a continuous thing.
38:35I even said to the Colonel one time, give him a breather, Colonel, gosh.
38:40You know, he needs a little rest.
38:43He said, oh, he's young, don't worry, he loves every moment of it, you know.
38:49I think he could have let up a little, given him a little more time off.
38:52After Las Vegas, Elvis was shot.
39:03I talked to Elvis two days before he died.
39:06I called him, I said, shut this damn tour down, let's go to Hawaii,
39:09because there were no Betty Ford clinics back then.
39:11And I said, let's go to Hawaii, take a year off and wander around the islands.
39:17And let's just clean up.
39:20He said, I will after this tour.
39:23And he didn't make it.
39:36So strange, you know.
39:39Elvis passed away in August of 1977.
39:42There's something that's so impactful to all of us, really.
39:51And especially to someone like myself,
39:53because I was asked to do Elvis' hair for his funeral.
39:56This is a task that was overwhelming.
40:04Everyone wore, we all wore our suits, black suits.
40:07Colonel Parker wore a Hawaiian floral shirt,
40:14and a baseball cap, and never walked up to the casket.
40:20Very strange.
40:22Very strange indeed.
40:23The shock of Elvis' death dealt a savage blow to fans around the world.
40:39But as far as Colonel Parker was concerned, it was business as usual.
40:43Reissued Elvis' records swarmed into the international charts,
40:47and the manufacture of Elvis' merchandise went into overdrive.
40:50I became involved in trying to market his memorabilia.
40:58There were all kinds of things like this that were on market shelves in
41:04little stores up and down the byways and highways of America.
41:08I remember one funny story from a salesman from somebody in Florida,
41:14came in a helicopter, and parked in a parking lot outside a record store,
41:18and bought all the records he wanted, and took off in his helicopter.
41:22It was almost as though they were terrified they'd never get another record.
41:30In the late 1960s, Parker received 50% of Elvis' income.
41:35Now that the king was dead, a Memphis judge questioned whether Parker could justify such a large cut.
41:44He was reading in the papers all about how he was a crook,
41:47and how he'd taken all this money, and all the things he had done,
41:50and a lot of people that didn't know anything about it were coming out and saying,
41:54isn't that awful? You know how crowds are. Well, that's the way it was.
41:57In those time periods of the 60s, 70s, 80s, probably 10 to 15 to 20, 25% would have been a normal range.
42:05You know, I think clearly 50% was a very unusual figure for any manager to receive.
42:12The man made a lot of money in his lifetime.
42:15More than Elvis. Off of Elvis. He got a bigger split.
42:20It wasn't until the information came out about the true financial relationship that he had
42:27with Elvis and the amount of monies that he'd made from Elvis during a lifetime,
42:30and then the amount of monies that he'd made from the estate after Elvis' death,
42:35that I think he began to realize that, you know, that maybe not only public opinion,
42:40but that the executors of the estate and the probate court would maybe come down on him,
42:45and he would start to lose a lot of money. The court severed Parker's relationship with the
42:51Presley estate, depriving the Colonel of the vast income he had enjoyed for so long.
42:57But Parker had one final trick up his sleeve.
43:05Colonel's home in Nashville has been there all this time. I don't think he'd slept there in 10 years or more.
43:16So he goes to Nashville. First thing he'd done, he called a paving company, a cement country.
43:24Had them to cement the whole damn yard. Cement. Nobody, everybody thought he was crazy.
43:32Then he'd let the word get out that he was going to open up the Elvis Presley Museum in Nashville.
43:40By threatening to turn his Nashville home into an Elvis Presley Museum, complete with parking
43:47facilities, the Colonel had forced the Presley estate into making him a very generous offer
43:52for his impressive collection of Elvis memorabilia.
43:58My God, they bought it. They paid what he wanted for it. I understand it's over a million dollars.
44:04And that's the biggest snow job that anybody ever dreamed of the Colonel had ever pulled off.
44:12The Colonel had proved himself to be a master of the country. A mystery still surrounds parts of his life.
44:27Dutch journalist, Dirk Valenga, wants to know why the Colonel would never try to gain
44:31America's citizenship. During his research, he received an anonymous tip-off.
44:40One day I received a letter, a small letter. Maybe I can read that letter.
44:46I want to talk to you about something that has been told to me 19 years ago about this Colonel
44:55Parker. My mother-in-law told me very confidentially, if something will ever be revealed about this
45:01Parker, tell them that his name is Van Kuik and that he committed the killing of the woman of a green
45:09grocer in the Bosstraat in Breda and that the murder never has been solved. It has been said to me
45:17in confidence. I kept it to myself for years and now I am glad to tell this now. It is the truth.
45:24I don't know who wrote the letter and of course I tried many ways to find out.
45:40Police records show that there was a murder committed in a greengrocer's store in Breda at
45:45the time alleged in Valenga's mysterious letter. No hard evidence links the Colonel with the crime,
45:52but the mystery of who did commit the murder remains unsolved to this day.
45:56The mystery of who did commit the murder remains unsolved to this day.
46:19Are you lonesome tonight?
46:24Parker, seen here in 1995, spent the last 20 years of his life in Las Vegas,
46:29gambling and rarely moving outside a small circle of close friends.
46:37Elvis Presley had been a far greater creation than anyone could have foreseen
46:41and Parker knew there would be no sequel.
46:49During his final years he considered the authorisation of his biography. He got as far as selling the
46:54advertising space inside the front covers and giving it a title. How much does it cost if it's free?
46:59The first time I ever met him, I remember. He brought me into his office and he showed me. He said,
47:13here's what I did in my days as a, as a carny barker. He had a show, he said, called Colonel Parker's Dancing Chickens.
47:19And I said, what are you talking about dancing chickens?
47:22He had a hot iron and he had a lot of straw on it and he put some chickens on it.
47:28He couldn't see the stove and he turned on the hot iron and make their feet hot,
47:34so the chickens had to move. And he was stepping, you know. He was amazing.
47:40Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?
47:54Does your memory stray to a brighter summer day?
48:02Do you miss me tonight? Tell me dear, are you lovesome tonight?
48:24For more details on the managers featured in this series, plus information about key figures and how to
48:29survive the music business, check out the Mr. Rock and Roll website at www.channel4.com.