Colonel Tom Parker—the title was awarded to him by Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis in 1948 for political services rendered—claimed until 1982 to have been born in West Virginia. In fact he was a Dutchman, and the circumstances under which he left the Netherlands in 1929 remain a puzzle to this day.
The Colonel always was a mystery. But that was very much the way he liked it.
It was, of course, a tough trick to pull off, because the Colonel’s name was Tom Parker, and Tom Parker managed Elvis Presley. Since Elvis was the biggest name in the entertainment industry, his manager could hardly help appearing in the spotlight, too. For the most part that was not a problem, because Parker had showman’s instincts and enjoyed publicity. But, even so, he was always anxious to ensure that attention never settled for very long on two vexed questions: exactly who he was and where he came from.
So far as the wider world knew, the Colonel was Thomas Andrew Parker, born in Huntingdon, West Virginia, some time shortly after 1900. He had toured with carnivals, worked with elephants and managed a palm-reading booth before finding his feet in the early 1950s as a music promoter. Had anyone taken the trouble to inquire, however they would have discovered that there was no record of the birth of any Thomas Parker in Huntingdon…
This week’s post takes a close look at an unexpected allegation. Legendary music huckster Colonel Parker – who managed Elvis Presley throughout his career and took as much as 50% of his client’s earnings – always claimed to be a native-born American. In fact he was Dutch, an illegal immigrant, an army deserter, and a diagnosed psychopath who had avoided military service during World War II by eating until his weight topped 300lbs.
Enough scandal, you’d have thought, for any lifetime, but it’s been seriously suggested that Parker was hiding a much darker secret. Was he somehow involved in a bloody unsolved murder that took place in his hometown, Breda, within a few hours of his unexpected disappearance in May 1929? And might that explain his highly peculiar and defensive behaviour in later life – not least why, between 1929 and his death nearly 70 years later, he never once set foot again outside the United States?
bloody capitalist
[...] Basically, the single worst decision Elvis ever made was sticking with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Parker couldn’t leave the country, saw Elvis as a money-making machine, and became addicted to gambling, and so we have Parker to blame for a lot of his dire sixties movies (and movie songs) and for Elvis’s Vegas period. Of course, Colonel Tom Parker was not only not a Colonel, but he was also not actually named Tom Parker, and Mike Dash argues here that there is pretty good evidence that Parker was the prime suspect in a 1929 murder in the Netherlands, where he grew up [...]
[...] created a little stir. It seems Colonel Parker, Elvis Presley’s manager, was not who he seemed to be. A claim has been made that he did not grow up in West Virginia as he claimed. He wasn’t even born in the U.S.A. but in the Netherlands [...]