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Interview with Elvis Presleys Mananger : Colonel Tom Parker

A second interview with Colonel Parker, this time at the launch of the Elvis stamp in the USA. (02:52).

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Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's Manager Logo

Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's Manager : 1993

As Presley's fame grew, people became interested in Parker as well. For a while he lied about his early years, claiming to have been born in Huntington, West Virginia and that he had run away at an early age to join a circus run by an uncle. The truth about his early years was revealed when his family in the Netherlands recognized him in photographs of him standing next to Elvis; it was confirmed when Parker tried to avert a lawsuit in 1982 by asserting that he was a Netherlands citizen.

He was actually born in Breda, Netherlands on June 28, 1909. Still carrying his baptism name, Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk fled his native land at about the age of 18, joined the United States Army, then changed his name to Tom Parker and became part of the circus world some time after leaving the Army. He also worked as a dogcatcher and a pet cemetery proprietor in Tampa, Florida, in the 1940s.

Colonel Parker died of a stroke on January 22, 1997, aged 87.