When watching the movie, you think about all the what ifs. He was the American that we all knew." Variety spoke with her about how much rings true about both of the movies primary subjects, point by point. He was given the honorary title of "Colonel" in the Louisiana State Militia from Governor Jimmie Davis as thanks for the work he did on his political campaign. In a way, sure. COLLIDER: I want to start with congratulations on the movie. We thought we were the only white kids who knew all that stuff! 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. The first three days of the movies are chaos. Colonel Tom Parker managed Elvis Presley 's career from 1955 to 1977, overseeing almost every aspect of the star's life. "I had the luxury of essentially recreating somebody who no one really knew. But yes, adolescent Elvis listened to all kinds of music, from the Ink Spots to Dean Martin. And the movies I mean, naturally I liked Jailhouse Rock, but I dont think it was a great movie. I tried to put together, and it was tricky, this story of There was a guy named Dean Reed. Fontana. Tom Hanks is playingElvis Presley manager Colonel Tom Parker in the upcomingBaz Luhrmann film, and to get a better idea of the infamous character, the actor had dinner withPriscilla Presley. He could have said, I mean, Priscilla herself told me he could have said no to those movies. ", "If Shakespeare was looking to take on a historical character now, you couldn't go past the idea of the Colonel and Elvis," Luhrmann adds. "The gargantuan size and complexity of Parker would define the air for Elvis to be internal and spiritual," Luhrmann tells EW. This is Luhrmann showing us Elviss influences. No. 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. First of all, have you seen the Elvis movie? What about Presleys entrance into the Army? 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. He was both a genius and a scoundrel, Hanks said of Parker, Elvis only manager. He mentions that church in the film. That convinced him this would be an opportunity to truly disappear into a different kind of role. No. That caused a big to-do, because they didnt want anybody presenting him with a song that they might not own the publishing rights to. Somebody must be making a buck. Even if the memory of Elvis Presley were completely wiped away, like the Beatles in that Yesterday movie, this pairing would still be in the history books and collective consciousness for Stand by Me, On Broadway, There Goes My Baby, Young Blood, Kansas City, Love Potion #9, Yakety Yak, Charlie Brown, Im a Woman, Ruby Baby, Is That All There Is? and other numbers deeply embedded in pop culture from the mid-50s forward. Scene is from the set of the Presley movie, Love Me Tender.. Anything else to say about the Parker characterization? He cared about the reaction of the audience. Look you got a product, you sell it, explained Parker. 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. And when he said that, I said, 'Oh, well, okay, now that's brand new,'" remembers Hanks. Parker struggled with a gambling addiction while keeping Elvis on a short leash, halting the singer from touring overseas and pushing him into cheap projects that were frequently averse to what the artist wanted to be a part of, eventually taking 50% of Elvis' earnings, of which they both agreed upon. ", Luhrmann similarly saw the dynamic as one on a grand scale that defied any simple construct of villainy. It became a big hit. Parker used Jimmie to sidle up to Elvis and form a friendship to get Elvis to sign with Parker and the elder Snow, who were then business partners. And by the 418th time you've listened to it, you know every pause, every word, every lyric, and you have an emotional connection, an image for every one of those songs, every one of the emotional beats that's on the record. Never one to miss an opportunity to make money off of his prized client, Colonel Tom Parker jumped on Elvis' death as a marketing cash grab. In particular, Hanks was looking forward to taking part in a fresh look at the story, as the tale of Elvis is well-known enough to garner fatigue. "We ended up talking for well over an hour," Hanks recalls. He was a very disciplined man, but also a guy who you might want to check your wallet to make sure you still have all those fives and 10s. The actual Parker diedJan. 21, 1997, at the age of 87. 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. However, it soon became obvious that Elvis had staying power, with the right guidance. What happened at Atlantic Records was, we said, You know, were making these records. I would agree with that. ", So maybe we never win an Oscar but were going to win a few box office awards. Marty Lacker told me that Elvis and B.B. The Colonel was well-known as a strong promoter that frequently leaned into exploitation. King used to visit some in Las Vegas, but that was in the 70s. "The promotion. What is it like for you when you are getting ready to step on set for say a big emotional scene on a Monday, can you explain to me, is it weeks in advance you're thinking about that big scene? He did not know how to say no to someone who had already made all of his dreams come true. The film opens on Parker, absolving himself of guilt for the trajectory of Elvis's life, saying, "Some would have me the villain in this story." Less cash to Elvis, claimed the producer, would allow the use of a great script to get Presleys film career back on the right track. We were picked up by a freighter, and I had to pay cash to send a wire to Atlantic Records that we were arriving. 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. The next day we went into the studio to record, at Radio Recorders Annex (in Hollywood), and as we were walking in, Jerry said, You know, she ought to growl it. And I said, Yeah Why dont you tell her? And he said, Why dont you tell her? [Laughs.] I told him pay us our regular fee and if Elvis gets the Oscar well give him his money back. If not the term producer really coming into usage in music? ", Another guy says he has a script which would cinch an Oscar for Elvis and wouldnt we do it for less money. We bought our stuff back, a lot of it. We had no contract and we were not compensated, but it turned out OK. A lot of the young Brits, the rockers, they were big fans of American rock n roll or rhythm and blues records. I think that these days these days meaning going back a couple of decades writers and performers have gotten very hip to protecting their stuff, much more so than we were. Sadly, the blues do not sell well. In 1958, Parker encouraged Elvis to voluntarily enlist in the Army (part of Elvis' true story) after he received a draft notice and serve a two-year stint as a regular soldier, showing the world that he was just like any average American. [Laughs.] 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. I told him that if were doing so badly maybe next year he wouldnt want us at all, said the Colonel, and we better get all we can while we can and I hiked the price. "He's so justified that it made me have to double down and question, 'Wait, maybe he's right in this moment. 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. I got to really appreciate Elvis. Backstage, he and King had a photo made. up to the suite after the shows. Only then did the Presley-Parker partnership make a triumphant return to television and, soon after that, to the concert stage. Related: The Darkest Moments In Oscars History. Known for his keen promotion and merchandising savvy, Parker, or "the Snowman," would help to make Elvis a household name, putting the singer on everything from lunch boxes to board games to trading cards and beyond. And I would love to make a movie about that guy. He says, "I said he should sing this kind of thing." That led to a colossal shouting match afterwards with Parker and talk of firing and quitting on both their parts, with Colonel ultimately presenting a bill that the Presleys could not pay. Is there anything to that? Colonel Parker is the devil to many Elvis Presley fans. 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. To play additional iconic musical artists in the film, Luhrmann cast singer/songwriter Yola as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, model Alton Mason as Little Richard, Gary Clark Jr. as Arthur Crudup, and artist Shonka Dukureh as Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton. . 1 hit in 1953 with Big Mama Thorntons Hound Dog, which you wrote for her. As long as the studios come up with the loot well make the deal. Colonel Parker is seen as under pressure from secretive governmental forces who want to keep Elvis from corrupting youth and to try to get him to tamp down Presley, they threaten toexpose his past, as a non-American native of Holland, which hes desperate to hide. Anytime we want $75-100,000 a week.. Austin Butler and Tom Hanks star in this musical biopic about the life of Elvis Presley, specifically his relationship with his manager Colonel Tom Parker. And we finally were called in, and Jean Aberbach, in his Viennese accent, said, Vell, ze Colonel said, if you ever dare try to interfere in the career of Elvis Presley, you will never work anywhere again New York, London, Hollywood nowhere. And I dont think we ever wrote anything more for him. Then we didnt see her at all for the next five or six years until she was presented with a demo that we had done of Is That All There Is? She said the song was written for her, that it was based on her life which it wasnt, but she said it was her life story. And then I said, Well, we did also a few songs that we didnt write. They finally decided that we were producers. As a matter of fact, when we were in Paris, I heard Edith Piaf at LOlympia doing a French translation of Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots, called LHomme a la Moto The Man on the Motor Scooter which was a big thrill. Well, yes and no. He then did the unthinkable, convincing Elvis' father, Vernon, to sign over control of Elvis' movie and singing "career" to him. Why not? 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. There was a precursor to [Smokey Joes Cafe] that was done up in Seattle. And when I got to New York and stepped off the gang plank, Jerry ran up to me I hadnt seen him in almost four months and said, Mike, we got a smash hit! I said, Youre kidding. He said, Hound Dog. I said [incredulously], Big Mama Thornton? He said, No, some white kid named Elvis Presley. And thats how I heard about Elvis. And Cornell Gunter was either the female role or some other such role. Colonel Tom Parker absolutely did diabolical things. In 1967, Parker pushed Elvis to marry Priscilla Beaulieu, hoping that it would help change the tide of his career. . Baz Luhrmann's musical biopic Elvis explores the eponymous singer's career, leading up to his tragic death, and one of the characters that has caused a fair amount of controversy is Elvis and the Colonel, Tom Parker. But Im happy to have a show like Smokey Joes Caf in existence. "Playing Elvis is like playing Jesus, and it doesn't really matter who plays Pontius Pilate because if you have a good Jesus, you got it," Hanks says. After Elvis' death in 1977, the Elvis Presley manager continued on as if The King were still alive. Monday at 10:00, you're going to be on set and you're going to be committing to film forever the emotional spine of the movie. And I don't think it had been done the most righteous justice in order to capture why Elvis was this bend in the river of American culture. Country radio stations said Elvis sounded too Black to play, and the stations that played rhythm and blues said he sounded too much like a hillbilly. ", For Butler, doing the heavy lifting as Presley, he saw the casting of Hanks as a stroke of brilliance in complicating the Colonel's villainy. Well, wed had it pulled over already, a few times. I say, 'Oh, here I was worried about geography and logic and the timeline, and Baz saw all those three very specific physical forces as rules that do not need to obeyed.' Its shown as being Parkers idea to get him away for a while to put a lid on the sexual energy and image. He would sniff out talent and attempt to milk them for all they were worth, including Elvis, whom he initially saw as an act that wouldn't last more than a few years. Near the end of his life, Parker is said to have been speaking with two promoters about this, since Elvis was so deeply unhappy about never getting to go tour Europe, but it never happened. Yeah, we did some that were very successful. Then she was hired on as Elvis' tour secretary and traveled . You and Jerry started producing more things that you didnt write, including some rock albums of the 70s that people dont associate with you because they arent the old-school Leiber-Stoller sound like Stealers Wheel and Stuck in the Middle With You.. And then, of course, there was (the film) Jailhouse Rock (also retitled after a song Leiber and Stoller came up with), which was where Elvis heard the demos and wanted to meet us. I played on one of the songs from those sessions (Treat Me Nice), but I wasnt that good of a player. I remember we went out it probably took about 15 minutes and we came back in and performed it for them. The Colonel seized on the moment and put Elvis back on tour, eventually settling on a residency in Las Vegas and a non-stop barrage of venues and recordings that took the singer to the brink, as he deteriorated into a mockery of his former self. 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. "It's possible to be driven mad by it," the actor says. Whats your overall feeling on the movies truth-ometer? 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. But hey, its generational, I think. Read Next: Pink Performs Acoustic Set for No Kid Hungry, Talks Why Her Upcoming Arena Tour Will Feel Intimate. You always preferred Big Mamas version, right? He never fired him on stage, but there was an incident in Vegas in 1974 where Elvis criticized Barron Hilton from the stage for firing one of Elviss favorite employees. 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? He made him. Then after that, you just have to have this faith in your own individual process and the power of the script. And his son, Jimmie (later Jimmy), envied Elvis and yearned to counsel him on his sinful ways. Any thoughts on that? Tom Hank's Col Tom Parker accent . 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. Theres a story behind you two trying to cajole Thornton into singing it a certain way, which she didnt take kindly to it at first? Read Next: Super Mario Bros. Movie Officially Smashes $1 Billion Globally, Shonka Dukureh as Big Mama Thornton in Elvis, Helping Elvis Presley, right, cut a straight furrow is his business manager and confidant, Colonel Tom Parker of Madison, Tenn. on January 7, 1957. Did Elvis ever really fire Parker on stage, followed by Parker getting back at him by threatening to demand repayment for every tiny expense item over the years? Presley had other ways of making money that they could fall back on. They hurl a litany of accusations at Presley's former manager he took too much of Elvis' money, he mismanaged Elvis' movie career, he pressured Elvis to work when he was in poor health, he even tried to . And I mean, we enjoyed being in the studio with Elvis; we enjoyed being in the studio with the Drifters, with Ben E. King, with Peggy Lee. Did Parkers accent really sound like the one Tom Hanks is using in the film? Yeah. Related: Elvis Cast Guide: What The Characters Look Like In Real Life. Yes, it was manager Colonel Tom Parker who had his reasons for finally cutting Leiber and Stoller out of Presley's creative camp after 1963, none of them good. And maybe its a given that a director who puts hip-hop and hard rock on his period-film soundtracks, as Baz Luhrmann does, might favor effect over total verisimilitude. They call it The King and I, which is a good title. 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. Jimmie later went to Graceland in 1958 to talk to him about how he had given up drinking and doing pills on the road and had turned his life over to Jesus. The actor wore a fat suit and heavy make-up to appear more like Parker, but the real performance came in the mannerisms, accent, and presence of Hanks embodying Elvis' manager. Did Parker really do everything in his power to make sure Elvis didnt fulfill his wish of touring internationally? Its great. 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. It was craps, roll the dice and see what you get and just keep going.". He said, Well, I gotta do a session with her, so you better get Jerry and come over to my place and listen to it, because Im gonna need some songs. So we went over, and she knocked us out. Second, for a movie about a musician, Elvis also didn't receive any music nominations at the Oscars. Everybody's very familiar with it. Elvis, especially, thought that it might even be over by the time he got out.