And I went, 'I bet Tom Hanks would be into a playing a dark note on his instrument that no one could see coming. Well, Parker finally said, Did they spell his name right?. What turned Colonels head, though, was a report from his old friend Oscar Davis, who went to Memphis in October 1954 to advance an Arnold appearance at Ellis Auditorium, and saw how Elvis packed a local dive, the Eagles Nest, night after night with screaming women. And then I said, Well, we did also a few songs that we didnt write. They finally decided that we were producers. But he was being very respectful and polite. Only then did the Presley-Parker partnership make a triumphant return to television and, soon after that, to the concert stage. Colonel Tom Parker, as played by Tom Hanks in Elvis, was the controversial manager of singer Elvis Presley (played by Austin Butler) with a mysterious past who had a key role in both The King's success and downfall. We had a few run-ins with the Colonel. He was in for a surprise. Elvis Information Network, May-June 2022). Thats really what he was looking for all along. Elvis and the Colonel were associated throughout the musician's entire career, including music, movies, and TV specials. Parker wanted to make Elvis clean-cut after he came back from the army in part because when Elvis went into the army, neither Elvis nor Parker thought rock n roll would last. But the thing that really did it for us Jerry went to a party in New York and met a producer, Charlie Feldman, who was going to do a movie of a novel by Nelson Algren called A Walk on the Wild Side. He had (Elia) Kazan to direct, Budd Schulberg to write the thing and James Wong Howe to do the cinematography. Did Parker talk of things in carnival or carnie or conman terms as much as he does in this movie? In fact, in my book I included a chapter entitled, The Parker Propaganda Machine. It outlines how Parker promoted, marketed, and booked Elvis in ways that undeniably made possible Presleys meteoric rise in show business. Well, yes and no. It has been my thought that Elvis was afraid that his success would evaporate, and therefore it was business, a formula that worked. No one is probably expecting that; any practiced watcher of biopics knows virtually any example will take deep liberties with the facts for dramatic purposes. Oh, Parker instigated that whole thing, but it wasnt to put a lid on the sexual energy. They keep asking us to do more, he said. That was amazing because you still see the twinkle in his eyes. He had never seen that before. I mean, even the 1968 comeback special, he said, "Hey, great. Alan Hanson | 2015, Reader Comment:For me, Elvis was quintessentially suited as a blues artist. We dont have approval on scripts only money. We did Procol Harum [in 1975]. Still, the odds were heavily in favor that hed be a country singer and his stint on the Louisiana Hayride seemed to point him in that direction. One of the first things that we saw was the kid (in the screenplay) was in prison. So far as the wider world knew, the Colonel was Thomas Andrew Parker, born in Huntingdon, West Virginia, some time shortly after 1900. "What he did was keep Elvis alive," Luhrmann explains of how he saw Parker's mindset. At the beginning of 57, wed taken a trip to New York and rented a suite and even rented a piano to put in there. I called Jerry the next morning and said, Hey, he wants a song. So we wrote him a ballad and made a demo of it on Sunday, and I brought it in to him on Monday. And so things resumed as they had been. RELATED: Austin Butler on Elvis and Why it Took Months After Filming to Find Himself Again. The Tom Hanks Tom Parker portrayal was certainly a different type of role for the actor, who is known for taking on characters like the sunny Mr. Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. That potential is what interests him. In the end, they'd become dependent on one another and were in too deep to even know how to start over. This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action, Baz Luhrmann clarifies not casting Harry Styles as Elvis, hopes to work with him in the future. He was astonished to discover Parker was a poorly dressed, slovenly PR hack, rather than the authoritarian, ram-rod image the word "Colonel" summons. I mean, Big Mamas song was a woman singing it to a no-good guy, and the original lyric in the first verse was, You can wag your tail, but I aint gonna feed you no more. And the Presley version almost sounds like hes singing it to a dog: You aint never caught a rabbit, and you aint no friend of mine. I dont know where that came from. In 1983, he was paid $2 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement, which had him turn over any and all audio and video recordings he had of Elvis and terminated his involvement in any Elvis-related earnings for five years. Finally, we got on the ship to sail back into New York, and we almost made it before our ship collided with a Swedish ship and sank. You were business guys as well as writer-producers, and you were not nave enough to have the wool pulled off your eyes, even if you were still in your early 20s. It became a big hit. I dont think the band is great. I do know that while researching for my book, The purpose here is not to recap the relationship between Parker and Presley. How are you preparing for it? They call it The King and I, which is a good title. More or less. It's like you have a record, you have an album by your favorite artist. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. In making him such an antagonist, they have robbed him of his many accomplishments with his client. A nice thing is that the characters names are the real names of the first cast, and its kind of sweet those first members of the cast have been immortalized. When other songs from the catalog show up in contemporary usage out of nowhere, it must be beyond surprising you. Any thoughts on that? That interview gets at the heart of what both Hanks and Luhrmann wanted to say about the Colonel and the give-and-take between manager and artist. But a few of them started playing them all the time. She could be difficult. The actor won his first Oscar for Philadelphia, where he played an AIDs-afflicted lawyer, losing significant weight to portray the character's declining health. Im not a super rap fan. Those guys complaining some of them are not working too good. Copyright 2023 Meredith Corporation. Some people have said the movie undersells Elvis country and crooner influences to make him look like almost solely the product of blues and R&B. The Masked Lookalike Explained. Teenage Elvis, living in Memphis, certainly went to West Memphis, Arkansas and to Beale Street to hear Black performers. But the more I read about the Colonel, it was about the sell overwhelming the other side. Within 30 minutes of their first meeting, Hanks was hooked. Thats Luhrmann being the showman. But if you have gotten over the fear of making the movie in the first place, which you do I think in the first three days of the movie. How did you finally land on the Colonels bad side? And because he had these socialist inclinations, he went off and became a superstar as an American rockstar who decided to become a communist behind the Iron Curtain. Parker adopted the title as if it were part of his identity, frequently being referred to as "The Colonel," despite his military discharge. Me Im happy being able to buy the groceries., As for the reports of declining returns on Elvis movies, Parker didnt believe them. ", We start telling people what to do and they blame us if the picture doesnt go. We had no contract and we were not compensated, but it turned out OK. Gaining or losing weight, taking on accents, and experimenting in a variety of genres that pushed his limits as an actor, Hanks has built a career out of challenging roles. After a lifetime of earning well over $100 million managing Elvis, The Colonel's estate was barely worth $1 million upon his death. And there certainly would've been no Elvis without Colonel Tom Parker.' He cared about the reaction of the audience. The trade paper said, Just buy a boxed set of Phil Spector records instead. The Phil Spector line was the lowest blow of all. And then Jerry added: Screw Variety. I looked up the review, and it wasnt very prophetic, saying that things did not bode well for Smokey Joes Broadway aspirations. So maybe this is a place for you to get some official vindication. After Elvis' death in 1977, the Elvis Presley manager continued on as if The King were still alive. It was supposed to be a Christmas show in the sense that it would air in December, and Parker wanted it to be a family show with Elvis as a 60s-era Bing Crosby or Perry Como. Watch what Tom Hanks had to say in the player above, or you can read our conversation below. Parker sent Elvis all over the United States, but he would never let him out of North America, leaving Canada as the only other nation to host The King in his long career. The one where EW follows up with the cast. And I would love to make a movie about that guy. And it was the Colonel just wanting to do more low-budget stuff and crank it out. Colonel Tom Parker [1909-1997] Colonel Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker (Born Andreas Cornelis van Kuyk) was an enigma from the day he arrived on a freighter in Tampa Bay, Florida, as an illegal immigrant at about the age of 20 until his death at the advanced age of 87 in 1997. Fresh off portraying Sir John Falstaff in a Los Angeles production of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts One and Two, Hanks saw something Shakespearian in the dynamic. Sadly, the blues do not sell well. Tom Hanks is playing Elvis Presley manager "Colonel Tom" Parker in the upcoming Baz Luhrmann film, and to get a better idea of the infamous character, the actor had dinner with Priscilla . In the carnival, he had painted sparrows yellow and sold them as canaries. Coupled with the fact that the character of Tom Hanks' Tom Parker isn't his usual role, and Hanks was eager to play the part. Tom Hanks has questioned his decision to play Colonel Tom Parker who was Elvis Presley's infamous longtime manager in the upcoming biopic "Elvis." The 65-year-old Oscar winner discussed. He didn't care what Elvis (Austin Butler) sang from the. That can be found in detail in two Parker biographies published in recent years Colonel Tom Parkerby James Dickerson (2001) andThe Colonelby Alanna Nash (2003). I think it was presented to the guys who run Leiber and Stoller stuff, and they had already done it and were gonna put it in the movie. Related: The Darkest Moments In Oscars History. No, it never did. Elvis is famously quoted as saying, Down in Tupelo, Miss., I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now and I said, if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, Id be a music man like nobody saw. But its unclear whether this was on the radio or in person. While Elvis and the Colonel carried the movie to several awards, Hanks' omission stands out above most others. The Colonel, who was neither a colonel nor named Tom Parker, was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the Netherlands and came to the U.S. without documentation at the age of 20. The purpose here is not to recap the relationship between Parker and Presley. By the third day, you're in love with him. In his interviews, Parker did seem to have a slight trace of an accent but it sounded almost Cajun so it would have been believable to . The writer explained, Once a deal is made, the studio takes complete control of a film, the Presley camp having no say so on cast, script or production costs., Colonel Parker confirmed that Elvis had no creative say in his films. In the meantime, Colonel Parker had nixed all offers for Elvis to appear on stage, as he had for Presley to appear on TV. Colonel Tom Parker wasn't afraid to meddle in his client's personal affairs. "But he had no other client than Elvis Presley, and he lacked the imagination to see just how truly a greater social force Elvis could have been.". And when he said that, I said, 'Oh, well, okay, now that's brand new,'" remembers Hanks. But she got it. But we had recorded it with a Black duo, who were out of a gospel group, that we got to do a secular song we called em Willy & Ruth on our own little Spark Records label that we had with Lester Sill. I was expecting to hear stories about the distrust she had for Colonel Tom Parker over these many years. We picked up the script, which we hadnt looked at yet, that was in the corner of the room with the Whats On Broadway magazines. Cash was split down-the-line of 75% to Elvis and 25% to the Colonel, with the William Morris Agency taking 10% off of the top of film revenues. Is it fantasy that he was constantly seeing or meeting up with all these important artists? The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Tom Hanks during Tuesday's July 14, 2020 show. The Beatles and the Stones both covered your songs (Kansas City and Poison Ivy, respectively). Capitol didnt want to release it, because it didnt have a back beat. [Laughs.] He had a matter-of-fact method of speaking and didn't suffer fools lightly. You had your share of contact with him during the years you were writing for Elvis. Elvis would never have been so crass as to have fired Colonel from the stage. Is it true that Colonel Parkers reason for being attracted to Elvis was that he thought a white singer who sounded Black was bound to be a star and accomplish what a Black singer could not? He was huge. . It was all to make him into a beloved pop idol, not a dangerous, lugubrious rock n roller. Later, in Memphis, he certainly attended a white fundamentalist church, and with his early girlfriend, Dixie Locke the all-Black East Trigg Baptist Church to hear Black gospel. [Stoller adds that the rabbit lyric might have been added by a lounge act Presley was believed to have seen and liked covering the song in Vegas prior to his taking it on.]. Jerry actually hadnt gone up to see it, but I went up with Corky,. Anything else to say about the Parker characterization? Tom Hanks was also intrigued by the fact that the wider public knew very little about the Elvis manager, claiming this was another reason he took on the role. But yes, adolescent Elvis listened to all kinds of music, from the Ink Spots to Dean Martin. I made sure that he was always in the public eye, and we had a lot of fun.'". ", "Why include the Colonel in all of this?" Didnt he ask to become the manager of Leiber and Stoller, too and, as the story goes, he presented you with a completely blank contract? Your blog on the Colonel is most helpful. and he sounds entirely American to me. Colonel Parker is the devil to many Elvis Presley fans. Variety met with him at the home he shares in the Hollywood hills with his wife, fellow musician Corky Hale.