Q : When did you
first meet Colonel Parker?
A : I first met
Colonel Parker in 1969. In the spring of 1969, when he
came into Las Vegas to sign a contract for the opening
of the International Hotel. And the hotel wasn't even
opened at that time. It was still under construction. I
was working as a secretary to the advertising and
publicity director of the to-be-opened International
Hotel.
Q : How was it
working with the Colonel?
A: Well, at that
time I was working for the hotel. But I became the
official secretary for RCA Record tours when Elvis
started touring. In the 70s. Colonel was business from
morning til night. 24 hours a day. He thought about
Elvis and his business. He just didn't turn it off. It
kept going. He expected everyone to be as dedicated as
he was. And that made it a little tough on some of his
people, because they needed some private life. And it
was tough for them to get it.
Q : So Colonel Parker
was 24/7 Elvis all the way?
A: 24/7 all the
way. Yes. Colonel never stopped thinking about Elvis.
Never stopped thinking about what he could do. He was a
perfectionist. If the billboards looked good this
engagement, how could I make them look better the next
engagement. He never stopped. We would be driving
around, and he would say, "Now that board, that's a good
location. But I don't think we'll use it the next time.
We're going for a better location." His focus was what
can I do to better present Elvis. What can I do to
better protect Elvis when it comes to contracts and
business affairs. What can I do to let the people know
in a better way that Elvis is going to be there. He
never stopped thinking about it, ever. Never. He had a
very unusual mind. Most people have one voice of inner
dialogue. It's our inner thought. We think all the time,
words are formulated in our minds. That's our thinking
process. Colonel had multi levels of inner dialogue. And
I'm saying that these occurred simultaneously. It's
something that I realized finally, after being around
him 24 hours a day, year in, year out. But I've met a
few people since that time that are similar. But I've
never known anyone who had more than one inner dialogue
in their mind. So, where I might think about one
subject. And I might think about different subjects,
skipping back and forth, Colonel could think about a
dozen things simultaneously. And he did that all the
time.
Q : So that's one of
the reasons he kept everything going?
A: Right. He
could be thinking about a contract he was working on. He
could be thinking about setting up a tour. He could be
thinking about something that was going to be happening
at the Hilton. He played Santa Claus for the Christmas
parties for the children. He could be thinking about
something that he needed to do with his wife in Palm
Springs to take care of her. She was an invalid for
many, many years, and required around the clock care. He
could be thinking about a friend that he was going to
have dinner with, simultaneously.
Q : When Colonel
Parker came up with an idea, would he get on the phone,
or jot it down?
A
: Here's
another thing. Colonel never made notes. He carried
everything in his mind. And when someone would ask him a
question about something that occurred maybe six months
ago, or 20 years ago, his replay invariably was, "Let me
run my tapes." And he would sit for a minute, and then
he would bring the answer out.
Q : Total recall.
A : Total recall.
Yes. Yes.
Q : Tell us about
Colonel Parkers generosity.
A
: He played
Santa Claus for the children at the Christmas parties.
We could be driving, or going to dinner, and he would
say to me, "Stop, pull over." He would see someone who
was standing on the street that he knew needed
something. And he'd get out of the car and go over and
give them five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars,
whatever he felt they needed. Many times we'd be eating
in the restaurant and he'd see an old couple eating a
very meager meal. And he would call the waitress over
and say, "Tell those people I'd like to buy their
dinner." Maybe they could order a little more. He was
always doing things like that. He gave hundreds and
thousands of dollars to charities. Always with the
stipulation, no publicity.
Q : So the Colonel
had a very warm heart.
A: Yes. Yes. His
friends knew -- you didn't have to ask Colonel for
something if you needed it. It was one of the things
that Colonel would say: "If you're a true friend, your
friend never has to ask you for anything. You
voluntarily tell them you're going to give it to them."
Q : He and President Lyndon Johnson were good
friends?
A: They were
good friends. Colonel used to tell a story. President
Johnson was in Los Angeles and called the Colonel and
said, "Colonel, I'm gonna be leaving tomorrow morning."
He was staying at one of the big hotels. "But if you'd
like to stop by, I'd like to see you for a few minutes
before I leave town." The Colonel was in the lobby and
he was just waiting, and there were a number of people
there. There were of course the publicity people and so
forth. And the president and his staff came down through
the elevator. And Colonel said it was like a wedge, the
secret service made like a wedge to go through the
people. And when Lyndon Johnson saw Colonel, he stopped.
And he said something to one of the secret service men.
And the little wedge just opened up, Colonel walked
inside, he and President Johnson spoke for a while, and
then the president went on his way. And as the president
was going out the door, one of the newsmen said to
Colonel, "Oh, you must know the president pretty well."
And here's Colonel's sense of humor, he said, "Well, I
don't know about that. But he sure knows me, doesn't
he?"
Q : The Colonel was
friends with other presidents. Ronald Reagan?
A
: Ronald
Reagan, yes. In fact, before he was president, we were
on the road touring in the south. And Ronald Reagan was
having problems getting a plane to go, he was making on
one of his tours, doing speeches. And we loaned him one
of the planes that we were using on the tour. To go to
the next town. And of course he knew him from the movie
days as well. He knew Harry Truman. And President Bill
Clinton. We were very good friends with the president's
mother Virginia, a wonderful, wonderful woman. We
attended her 70th birthday party in Las Vegas. And after
Colonel died, President Clinton wrote me a wonderful
letter. And because of this letter, Elvis is officially
king. Because when the top president person in the
United States says Elvis is king, that makes it
official, doesn't it.
Q : The president and
his mother were Elvis fans?
A
: President
Clinton met the Colonel first, before he was even
president. He was then Governor Clinton. And one of our
friends was holding a fund raising dinner here in town.
And as a special surprise, he asked Colonel to come to
the dinner to meet the president. Because he knew the
president, he was the governor then -- would like to
meet him. And it was a nice surprise, and they had a
very long chat. They had a very long talk. That was the
beginning of their friendship. And then Virginia,
president's mother came to our house often with her
husband. She was again, I say she was a wonderful woman.
Q : The Colonel had a
bad back. Wasn't there a time when he picked up Elvis?
A
: When the
Colonel was a young man, he was always big for his age,
he said. And tall. He was six feet tall. Although in
later years he became a bit stooped. But he was about
six feet tall. And when he was a young man in Holland,
one of his jobs was carrying big rounds of cheese from
the factory onto the barges that would carry this cheese
on to destination. And he said they were extremely
heavy. Like a hundred and fifty pounds or something. And
he felt that during his formative years, he was maybe
13, 14 years old, that he hurt his back during that
time. That was the start. Because he had back problems
all of his life. But when they were filming 'That's
the Way It Is' at the International Hotel, I was
sitting in Colonel's booth with Colonel, and they had a
runway, it was going out into the audience. And at one
point Elvis was singing and going on the runway out into
the audience, and Colonel looked around. He always sat
right on the outside of the booth so he could slip out
at any minute. He looked around and he said, "He's gonna
get in trouble". The fans from the back had started to
move forward and he was about to be mobbed. And Colonel
jumped up, ran up, picked up Elvis and put him on the
other side of the barrier. And I sat there. I just, I
absolutely could not believe it. He came back, sat down
like nothing had happened, and I said, "Colonel, your
back. Are you alright?" And he said, "I had to help
him." It was that simple. He didn't think. He just did
it.
Q : Colonel Parker
was always looking out for Elvis?
A: At personal
appearances, Colonel would sit in front of the stage.
And he always was watching the audience to see what was
happening with the audience. He knew Elvis was taking
care of his show on stage. That wasn't his business. His
business was to protect Elvis, to make sure that things
didn't get out of hand.
Q : Colonel Parker
was really loving with the fans.
A
: Colonel
appreciated the fans. He knew that without the fans, it
wouldn't be the same. There would be no business. There
the fans bought the albums. The fans supported Elvis.
The fans were there. He enjoyed them. And he appreciated
them. He would, at the showroom at the International
Hotel, it was like any showroom in Las Vegas. You made a
reservation. You stood in line. And when you got to the
maitre d, you did the best you could to get a good seat.
And a lot of times this cost a little bit. Well, Colonel
got very annoyed with this practice. He didn't, in fact,
he didn't like it at all. But he couldn't do anything
about it. It was Las Vegas practice. So, many times he
would see a fan standing in line, and maybe recognize
the fan as being a hardcore loyal fan. And he would walk
them through the line, and say to the maitre d, "Where
are you going to put these people?" And the maitre d
couldn't say anything but, "The best seat, Colonel."
Colonel would wait and to make sure they got a good
seat. Or, he had two booths at his disposal for every
show. And he made sure that if he wasn't going to use
the booth, I called the showroom and released the booth,
so the fans could have it. And many times he would put
the fans into his own booth.
Q : Would Colonel
Parker go ahead of time to set up the shows?
A
: When we were
on the road, when we were touring, we would do a
pre-tour. And this was the nucleus of Colonels group. I
would go. Pat Kelleher from RCA Records would go. George
Parkhill, who was part of Colonel's staff, would go.
Quite often we would take one of Elvis men. One of his
staff. And then we would take someone from Concerts
West, Management III, which would be Tom Hulett, one of
those men. We would take a jet. A small jet. And we
might do six towns in one day. That was not unusual. We
had a system. We would fly into the town. I stayed on
the plane. Typed up notes from the previous town. The
rest of the men would get into a prearranged car. They
would go to the building, they would talk to the
building manager. They would make the concession deal.
They would physically see the rooms where Elvis would be
staying. They would make sure security could be handled
properly there. They would look around to see what
restaurants were in the area. In fact, they would check
everything. They would check the time from the airport
to the building. The time from the airport to the hotel.
All this was done in advance. So that when the show
actually came into town, it was very easy for them.
Q : Did Colonel
Parker pull any practical jokes?
A: Oh, Colonel
Parker played practical jokes, but never to hurt a
person. I've never known him to do a joke that was
harmful to the person. He was very sensitive about
people's feelings. Colonel was a moon child. They have a
great sensitivity. As an example, before I worked for
RCA Record Tours, Colonel called me one day and said,
"Loanne, I've got a problem. I've got a meeting of some
really important men in Los Angeles. And Jim O'Brien, my
secretary, has the flu. Could you possibly fly over and
take notes at this meeting? I would really appreciate
it." And of course, I was terrified. But I said, "Yes,
Colonel, I'll come. Flew over". Colonel and George met
me at the airport. We drove to the office. And I'm
excited and I'm nervous and I want to make a good
impression, and all. And he's told me over and over,
these are really important people. It's very important
to me. We walk in, and I said hello, and Jim O'Brien was
there. And I thought, what's happened. I said to
Colonel, "Jim's here". And he said, "Well, he recovered.
But we still need you to take notes". We walked into
what was Colonel's conference room, we opened the door,
and there was the long conference table with a dozen
chairs. And each one had a big teddy bear in it. That
was Colonel's sense of humor. That was his practical
joke kind of thing.
Q : You were with Colonel Parker in Portland when
Elvis passed away?
A: The day that
Elvis died, Colonel and his basic staff were in Portland
waiting for Elvis to arrive. I was in my room. I was
doing some work. And Colonel was in the room that
usually we would have, he would have a suite and, we
would use the living room area as a temporary office. He
came to my room, knocked on the door and I could see he
was physically upset. He said, "They have some bad
news". He said, "I've got a call and they think, they're
not sure that Elvis is going to live." He said, "I'll
keep you updated". And he went back to his temporary
office. And of course I was in shock. I remember I just
paced the floor. I was in shock because honest to God we
never thought Elvis would die. He had almost become
bigger than life to us and he felt he could handle
everything. And in hind sight you can look back and say,
well, that wasn't too intelligent of them. But you had
to be there, you would have to have felt the emotional
impact that we felt on the tours.
You would have to
realize that our every moment was guided by what Elvis
needed, what we could do for him. Now I was not
personally involved with his daily activities the way
his own staff was. But from a business point of view, it
was always in our minds, always. And suddenly to think
that it would be gone was just inconceivable, you
couldn't believe it. I felt it's going to be all right.
And then, of course,
Colonel came and he said, "He's gone". He said, "I
talked to Joe, I talked to Vernon". And his biggest
concern at that moment was Vernon. He said, "I don't
know if he can make it." Because we knew Vernon's health
was not good. He said, "He's so distraught, I don't know
what's going to happen to Vernon." And, of course, that
was it. One of the most difficult dinners that I've ever
experienced was the night that Elvis had died. Colonel
said to that staff that were there, "We're going to go
to the restaurant here in the hotel and we're going to
have dinner. We're going to eat, you're not going to put
on a sad face, you're not going to be depressed, no one
is going to sit and cry.
We're doing this for Elvis."
Everyone in that restaurant is going to be watching us.
And he's going to be proud. And we did it. Need I say,
no one ate very much and we all lost weight over that
meal, we pushed food away on our plates, but we
maintained a normal exterior. And it was true, everyone
in the restaurant was focused on our table.
Several of the people
asked to go take time to go shopping because we brought
tour clothes. And our tour clothes were functional,
workable cloths, they weren't dressy clothes, we didn't
go out socially on tours. And they said, Tom Hulett I
believe said, "Colonel, I need to get a suit. I don't
have a suit with me, we can't go to the funeral in the
clothes we wear on tour." And Colonel said, "Tom, these
clothes were good enough for us to work for Elvis,
they're good enough for us to wear at his funeral, he
would understand. And if he saw me in a suit, he
wouldn't recognize me." So we went to the funeral in
very basic work clothes, in our work cloths. I had
slacks, I had nothing else. Colonel wore one of his
caps, he always wore a cap. He wore a sport shirt, you
know, a pair of slacks. And on the plane when we were
flying to Memphis, Colonel gave us a little talk. And he
said, "I want Elvis to be proud of us today. And
everything that you do, think of him. But I want you to
maintain a very calm exterior. No one breaks down, no
one cries. This is our chance to act the part that he
would want us to." And we did the best we could.
Q : The Colonel still
worked with Vernon when Elvis passed away?
A
: Vernon asked
Colonel to stay on and to help them and I think in
Colonel's mind, he had been focused on Elvis for so many
years, you can't turn off something like that. He
thought about Elvis continually. And this didn't stop,
he was working for Elvis in his own way until the day he
died.
Q : He made a lot of
personal experiences?
A : First of all,
at the funeral they asked the Colonel to ride in one of
the limousines, in one of the front limousines with
family. And Colonel said, "No, I have always been behind
the scenes with Elvis, that's the way I want to maintain
it." And he rode in the limousine but not with the
family group.
After that, after all this was gone he made several
personal appearances on Elvis' behalf in a sense. On the
10th anniversay of Elvis death they cleared everything
out of the, what we used to call the Elvis suite at the
Las Vegas Hilton and Colonel brought in memorabilia,
pictures and all kinds of things. And they allowed the
fans to tour and go through and look at all of these
things. Colonel sat at a table and as the fans came by
he shook hands with them, he talked with them and it was
very nice. And by the way, one of the people who came by
during that period, we did this for five days, Wayne
Newton did a tribute to Elvis in the showroom and we
went to the shows every night and sat in the booth where
Colonel always sat at Elvis shows because he wanted the
world to know that he was still there for Elvis. But one
of the men who walked through that line was a Canadian.
And he said to Colonel, "Colonel, I've got a young
singer star who's going to be a sensation, she's
fabulous." Colonel said, "Tell me about her." He loved
to hear about young up-and-coming artists. And they had
quite a long conversation. Colonel, he said, "If I can
help you in any way, just let me know." Well, that man
was Rene Angelil, who is the husband of Celine Dion. And
he was talking about Celine Dion. And, he had come to
our house on occasion and Colonel would talk with him.
When Celine did a show here in Las Vegas, she wished
Colonel a happy birthday from the stage and we visited
with them. They're wonderful people.
Q : When the tabloids
came out with things about him, did Colonel get upset?
A
: Colonel was
always hurt by the way the tabloids talked about him.
The really, really tough time was, when a guardian was
appointed for Lisa in Tennessee. And this guardian said
that they were going to do a total audit of everything.
It turned into being a big mess, a really big mess. But
the way the press picked it up, they said that Elvis
Presley estate was going to sue Colonel. That was not
true. The guardian representing Lisa, appointed by the
Judge in the State of Tennessee, was going to bring a
law suit. And they told the estate they had to join
them. The estate went to the judge - this was in the
papers very small because it wasn't sensational. They
asked the judge to excuse him, they did not want to
bring law suit against the Colonel. And the judge
ordered that they proceed. This was not initiated by the
state, it was not something the estate wanted at that
time, this was a legal order. But the newspapers all
came out saying:
the estate says Colonel cheated Elvis.
And the facts were very much distorted by the press. It
was a very sad time for the Colonel.
He found out who his
friends were. Billy Martin was one of the first people
who called and said, "Colonel, can I do something for
you? Do you need help?" Eddie Arnold called and said,
"Colonel, just know I'm in your corner." Ambasador
Walter Annenburg called and said, "Colonel, if you need
some help, let me know." And that's just a few people I
mentioned. Colonel's personal friends were there for him
all the way. I mean, he would read these accounts or see
us on TV and he would say, "Why are they doing this? I
did the best I could all of my life. Why are they doing
this to me?"
One of Colonel's wonderful traits was that
he loved to see anyone be successful. He was overjoyed
if a friend had success. And he could never understand
why the public seemed to glory in seeing a successful
figure brought to the knees. It was something. It
totally bewildered him, he never understood it. And this whole thing was
a mystery to him. In the beginning he didn't defend
himself, he said, "Why should I? I've done nothing
wrong." And finally toward the end, when it was blown
totally out of proportion, he started to talk and the
press pretty much ignored that, they didn't want to hear
it. Now, in defense of the press I've go to say: the
press reports what the general public wants to hear, and
that's what they were doing. Colonel never held any
grudge against anyone in the press personally. He knew
they were doing the job they had to do. It broke his
heart that that public demanded this kind of journalism,
that was the whole thing.
Number one, Colonel Parker never took 50% of Elvis
earnings, never. It's true, they did sign a contract in
the 70s which was a partnership contract where they each
were to receive 50%. But Colonel never collected his 50%
because it was about that time that Elvis needed extra
money for his divorce settlement with Priscilla. And
they were running short on funds. And Vernon said to
Colonel, "Colonel, would you just take your regular 1/3
for a while until we get on our feet." Colonel took his
regular third and he never, never took 50%. Now, I'm
talking about Elvis personal appearances, I'm talking
Elvis recordings and so forth - they did have an
understanding that if Colonel initiated project wherein
Elvis needed to lend only his likeness or his name, that
Colonel receive 50%. This would be photo albums,
merchandise, things like that. Colonel conceived the
ideas, Colonel followed through on the ideas. And Elvis
had contrbuted nothing but his name and likeness, which
without it, of course, would have been impossible. When
those kinds of things came about, Elvis was quite
willing to have Colonel take 50%.
Q : Is there anything
else you'd like to tell the fans of Elvis about the
Colonel?
A: Well, what I
would like to tell the fans about the Colonel: number
one, he was always there for Elvis in every way he could
be - it became very difficult. I recall we were on, we
were touring and he came back to the room one night and
he was crying. He said, "I've lost him, my friend is
gone." It was because he went to have a meeting with
Elvis and Elvis couldn't be aroused for the meeting. We
all have weaknesses, we all have failings and Colonel
understood there was in Elvis. He tried every way he
could to help Elvis overcome it, but it was not
possible. I want the fans to know that he cared about
Elvis always., and that he did his utmost to prolong
Elvis life, to keep things going. They had a great
partnership - he never interfered with the creative part
of Elvis. He said, "Elvis is a star, he knows exactly
what he's doing. I'm not going to tell him what to sing
or how to dress or how to act.
He knows how to do those
things.
I just do the business part."
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