He is portrayed by Tom Hanks in the “Elvis” biopic movie to be released on Friday.
“Parker booked Elvis for a show” when he was an unknown, the Tampa Tribune wrote in 1980, “liked what he saw, then signed Elvis for an additional 200 shows. … Shortly, the Colonel had Elvis all to himself, promoting him into one of the greatest show business attractions of the century.”
Parker was the Tampa dogcatcher known as The Colonel, who managed Elvis Presley with a deal that controversially landed him 50% of the King of Rock and Roll’s earnings.
“One of Elvis’ first concerts was held in 1956 at Tampa’s Ft. Homer Hesterly Armory, only weeks before the famous appearance on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ where cameras had to limit their shots of the hip-swinging singer to above the waist,” Webb wrote. “Parker kept the King hidden from fans by keeping him at the Humane Society building.”
He claimed to have been born in West Virginia, but it was later proven that he was an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands and his real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk.
What’s wrong with the Osbournes dog?
Minnie is often seen as the most spoilt of the dogs (thanks to Sharon) as well the most aggressive next to Colin. Despite the pampering, Minnie is known to have diarrhoea on the floors of the house and in Sharon’s offices which has been known to get caught in her fur.
The third season finale of The Osbournes Tuesday showed Jack killing Minnie, the Osbournes’ dog, who later showed up again. … Newsday’s Verne Gay summarizes the finale and concludes with the obvious answer: “a sucker is born every minute.”
Does Sharon Osbourne have a therapy dog?
Talk show personality Sharon Osbourne, 67, stepped up her pet therapy game and is gracing all of us with adorable videos of her precious pooches. … In the videos, Osbourne tries to corral her multiple dogs to make the message a lot more adorable, but the pooches clearly were focused on play time.
The Truth about Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog
TAMPA — Tom Parker used to joke that he was the most famous dogcatcher of all time.
Parker was the Tampa dogcatcher known as The Colonel, who managed Elvis Presley with a deal that controversially landed him 50% of the King of Rock and Roll’s earnings.
He is portrayed by Tom Hanks in the “Elvis” biopic movie to be released on Friday.
“Colonel Tom Parker was a carney, pure and simple,” Hanks told the media after a recent advance screening of the movie at Graceland. “Now, being a carney is a sleazy guy … or you look at a carney as someone who understands these magic lights at the edge of town attract people who want to have a good time.”
He claimed to have been born in West Virginia, but it was later proven that he was an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands and his real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk.
He served in the U.S. Army under the name of Tom Parker, went AWOL and was sentenced to a short term in solitary confinement, but never rose to the rank of colonel. That was a nickname bestowed upon him by a governor of Louisiana.
Parker got his start in show business through the traveling carnivals, work that, in the early 1930s, introduced him to Tampa, where the sideshow employees lived during the off season. His hustles included a show called Colonel Tom Parker and His Dancing Chickens, “in which he placed live chickens on a hot plate covered in sawdust,” according to a 1997 Tampa Tribune article. “The chickens ‘danced’ to the music.” And, for a short while, he served as a publicist for country music star Gene Austin.
He settled full-time in Tampa, though it’s unclear when, and became head of the Humane Society in 1940. The job included free lodging in an apartment connected to the headquarters.
Parker dressed as Santa Claus during the holiday season while gifting dogs to children and often went to the press with a fascinating story of a rescue — there was the 95-pound Great Dane named Black Joe that was too big to fit in a kennel, Pudgy the three-legged mutt and a cat that became the Human Society mascot after it ran away and returned to the headquarters each of the five times it was adopted.
“He would gather the pups from three or four dogs, put them with one mom, and call Tampa Tribune reporter Paul Wilder with the scoop that one dog had 21 pups,” late radio personality Tedd Webb wrote on his Tampa Bay Legends website. “Wilder, a very respected journalist, always fell for” it.