'Elvis Presley’s Manager Colonel Tom Parker Was the Only Person Willing to Carry the King’s Drugs and Guns, Says New Biography'

3 August 2025

Presley and Parker on the set of Follow That Dream in 1962. Photograph: THA/Shutterstock

Peter Guralnick’s sweeping new biography of Colonel Tom Parker titled The Colonel and the King reframes one of rock ’n’ roll’s most infamous figures by peeling apart decades of myth to expose a manager whose loyalty and strategic care were as essential and overlooked as Elvis Presley’s own talent. Long dismissed as a scheming Svengali who prioritized profit over artistry, Parker is now shown as a man driven by devotion and moral pragmatism even as he faced the chaos brought on by Elvis’s addiction, playing a pivotal role in protecting him from scandal even as he struggled with personal demons himself.

Born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the Netherlands in 1909, Parker entered the U.S. illegally in the 1920s, adopted a false identity and built a life by rewriting his history. Guralnick, armed with Parker’s extensive archive of letters, memos and telegrams, spent years gaining access that allowed him to tell this deeper story offering readers Parker’s own strategic voice through the official and private correspondence he meticulously kept.

Public perception of Parker began to turn sour after Elvis’s death, but Guralnick writes that during Elvis’s rise and peak years, Parker was almost universally admired in the recording, touring and merchandising world. He approached every negotiation with handwritten notes and tablecloth contracts and refused to pay bribes or cut corners even in Las Vegas. He insisted integrity in every deal even when profits were immense and once declared firmly to MGM that they should forget a deal unless everything was done above board.

If Parker’s devotion reads like devotion, it was born in complexity. Rock 'n roll experiences pulled Presley into reckless pill use and routine gun-carrying, habits that couldn’t pass through immigration or customs. Parker understood the risks of international touring less as a logistical challenge and more as a security nightmare.

Elvis would not travel without someone responsible for the guns and medications he carried. Guralnick writes that Parker feared not deportation but assassination risk from border officials. He framed it as a safety issue someone had to be trusted enough to carry those items, someone Parker. As long as Elvis refused to go sober, Parker knew he didn’t have enough control to protect him abroad.

He rose to manage Elvis in March 1956, immediately claiming half the profits on public transactions and merchandise a staggering cut in an era when managers typically earned 25 percent. Parker foresaw Presley’s global appeal and negotiated early for a buyout of the Sun Records contract that ultimately secured Elvis a legendary record deal. He lost fortunes at the craps table and gambled away purses amounting to what would be millions today. But he also laid aside a million-dollar “emergency fund” to shore up Presley’s spiraling taxes and spending habits.

Despite his addictions Parker rarely lost his temper and worked sixteen-hour days seven days a week to ensure Elvis remained insulated from agents or studios who wanted to sanitize his image. Parker earned respect for his consistency and ability to embrace Elvis’s talent as the star’s alone. He never interceded in song choice or staging. Elvis retained full creative control and Parker affirmed it often, writing that Elvis was his own artistic arbiter.

In deeper letters Parker discussed fairness at every level, from factory pricing for merchandise to writer credits on songs. He schooled colleagues on equitable contracts and emphasized transparency in conflicting deals. He also advised silent neutrality in scandals involving Presley friends, quietly correcting behavior while never calling it public. Parker’s life became paradoxically heroic and self-inflicted he divorced himself from Presley’s inner circle, accepted he’d never be “one of them,” yet he remained the essential manager, serving as steward through the leanest life stages.

Towards the end of Elvis’s life the relationship frayed. Their rift in 1973 almost led to Parker’s dismissal but ended only when both reconsidered the trade‑offs. Guralnick reproduces telegrams from the era in which Parker claims with clarity that he had no ill will but remained uncompromised by emotions or loyalty. Presley reciprocated at times by calling him “like a father,” a claim that underscored blurred boundaries of care and control.

After Elvis’s death in 1977, Parker was gradually removed from estate management over concerns about the 50 percent split he had negotiated. He did not take on another major artist, though he did advise emerging acts like Celine Dion. He lived quietly in Las Vegas until his death in 1997, nearly broke despite the empire of Elvis fortune he once commanded.

Guralnick resists washing away Parker’s flaws: he recounts record‑book gambling losses, negative legal assessments by the Presley estate and questions about his immigration status. But his biography pushes past caricature toward empathy, asking readers to consider how one of music history’s most vilified figures was also a moral operator who carried not just Presley’s world but its wreckage. In his care for Elvis’s mess of pills, publicity and promise Parker showed himself to be someone who believed that without him, standing still, the legend would unravel.

In the end this portrait of Colonel Tom Parker stands not as a vindication but as a recalibration. It argues that public legend owed as much to his hidden decisions as to Elvis’s voice. Love him or hate him Parker insisted on being overcomplicated, and Guralnick delivers the evidence to prove it.