The Colonel (39 page)

The Colonel valued few gifts as highly as a ham. Here, on behalf of Tennessee governor Buford Ellington, he has Elvis present one of Tennessee’s finest to Washington
State’s first Italian American governor, Albert Rosellini. Elvis was in Seattle filming
It Happened at the World’s Fair
in September 1962. From left: Rosellini, director Norman
Taurog, Elvis, Parker, and producer Ted Richman. (Museum of History and Industry, Seattle)

A 1960s portrait, signed to Gabe and Sunshine Tucker. (The author’s collection/source unknown)

Billy Smith sits on the Colonel’s knee during the making of
Frankie and Johnny,
1965. (The collection of Maria Columbus)

The Colonel’s joke button, probably from the 1960s. (Courtesy of Gabe Tucker)

Tom Diskin, with Marie, raises a glass at a party to celebrate the Parkers’ wedding anniversary, probably in the 1970s. (Courtesy Sandra Polk Ross and Robert Kenneth
Ross)

The Colonel at Hatch Show Print, Nashville, in 1987, with a reproduction of one of his early Elvis concert posters. (Nashville Public Library, The Nashville Room)

Described as “a combination of con man and Santa Claus” by the
New York Times,
Parker resembles the latter in this undated portrait in a knit cap. (The
author’s collection/source unknown)

With the author, first meeting, Las Vegas, 1992. (Judy F. May)

The Colonel and Loanne, 1994. (Alanna Nash)

Byron Raphael at Parker’s plaque in the Walk of Stars, Palm Springs, Calif., 1998. (Alanna Nash)

Fed by his father—who was beginning to question the Colonel’s choices, though still bowing to financial concerns, keeping the books and fretting over every
penny—Elvis’s constraint found its genesis in the mother-son teachings of Gladys. After her husband went to prison in 1938, it was she who taught her young son to fear authority so that
he might survive in a hostile world, never dreaming that he would rise above his social class, where such behavior would become inappropriate.

Elvis made fun of the Colonel to the guys, yet he remained subservient to his face. His refusal to challenge the Colonel factored into the stunting of his personal growth and development, as
well as his self-loathing and escalating drug dependency. He turned his anger inward and numbed it with pills.

A turning point came in 1963 with the filming of
Viva Las Vegas,
Elvis’s best MGM picture in the post-army years. With the casting of Ann-Margret, the first costar to generate
real electricity with Presley on screen, Parker should have seen that
Viva Las Vegas
plugged two live wires together, made a formula musical sizzle, and ensured that future films
reconnected such high voltage.

But Parker was threatened by an actress who both competed with his star and engaged Elvis’s attention offscreen, as Ann-Margret did from the start. And it’s true, as the Colonel
complained, that it was difficult to distinguish just whose film it was. Instead of playing up their natural chemistry, he grumbled that Ann-Margret got more close-ups and flattering camera angles,
and fought to cut their duets to just one song. Finally, he vetoed special billing for her in the advertisements that MGM hoped would help draw audiences beyond the usual Presley fans. “If
someone else should ride on our back,” Parker told the studio, “then we should get a better saddle.”

Parker was likewise clueless as to how the movie rejuvenated his - client’s spirits and musical dynamism, particularly with the jumpy title tune. During filming, the Colonel brought his
friend Gene Austin to the set and had Elvis rehearse the tunes to the old crooner for comments.

“He was singing one song,” recalls Austin’s wife, LouCeil, “and the Colonel said, ‘Now, Elvis, I don’t like about eight bars of that. Call David Houston
[Austin’s godson, then a hopeful country singer] and sing it to him, and then tell him to give you the Gene Austin licks for those bars.’ ” Elvis was angry and embarrassed, but
kept it to himself, concentrating instead on his banter with Mrs. Austin. “When you’d pay him a compliment,” she remembers, “he’d always say, ‘Thank you,
ma’am, honey.’ ”

After a string of disappointing flicks,
Viva Las Vegas,
directed by George Sidney (
Annie Get Your Gun
), would topple
Blue Hawaii
as
Elvis’s highest-grossing film ever—by 1969, revenues would reach $5.5 million, up from Elvis’s usual picture gross of $3 million. Its success should have shown Parker that
spending money for more alluring costars, creative directors, and imaginative scripts would go a long way to assure his client of longevity. However, at the time, all he saw was that
Viva Las
Vegas
had soared over budget.

At MGM, Parker preferred working with men like Sam “King of the Quickies” Katzman and Joe Pasternak, who guaranteed tight shooting schedules and production costs, and welcomed the
fact that the Colonel rarely requested story conferences. Katzman nonetheless asked the Colonel to read the screenplay for
Kissin’ Cousins,
but Parker told him it would cost him
$10,000 and then diffused such an outrageous demand with a vote of confidence similar to what he’d told Elvis: “If you didn’t know what you were doing, you wouldn’t be
here.”
Kissin’ Cousins
was an embarrassment to Elvis, however, and Katzman would go on to make the worst picture of Elvis’s career,
Harum Scarum.