Word: parkers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Empty Franks. The least surprising fact of Tom Parker's life is that it began in a traveling carnival which his parents worked. Orphaned as a child, he worked for his uncle's Great Parker Pony Circus, had his own pony-and-monkey act when he was in his teens. Barker, merry-go-round operator, candied-apple dipper, ice shaver for snow cones and general man-about-the-midway, he once took a job as a dogcatcher in Tampa, Fla., where he gave away hundreds of puppies to kids...
During the '30s, running a frankfurter concession, Parker beat the foot-long hot-dog fad by using foot-long buns, sticking a bit of frank into each end, and filling up the middle with onions. When the suckers howled, he pointed to little chunks of hot dog previously arranged on the ground, said: "You dropped your meat, son, now just move along." Later, as a carny pressagent, he got interested in singers, profitably managed Gene Austin, Hank Snow and Eddie Arnold before he found the boy with the coin in the groin...
Horsehair Curls. It was Presley who came to Parker: by 1955 the Colonel (the title, he claims, is an honor conferred on him by several Governors) was the top manager in the country-music field. Elvis then had little more than a guitar and an inguinocutaneous tremor-"Who is Parsley?," Parker's friends kept asking him-but RCA was looking for just such a boy and had been trying to buy Presley's contract from Sun records without success. Freelancer Parker talked RCA into putting up $35,000, an unheard-of sum for a relative unknown. Sun sold...
Many big-time singers cut up to eight records a year. Fearing overexposure, Parker drew the line at three. Nevertheless RCA has signed Elvis to a rumored $1,000,000, ten-year contract, now depends on Elvis for an estimated 10% of its business. The Colonel promotes unstintingly. As in his carny days, he has rented elephants and advertised his client with posters placed on their flanks, hired midgets to parade as the Elvis Presley Midget Fan Club, closed deals with notions manufacturers who are licensed to peddle 78 articles bearing the Presley name, from T shirts to lipsticks...
...will not do just anything for money. When Elvis was drafted, one sharpie offered Parker a $500,000 guarantee if he would okay the sale of packets of horsehair as wisps clipped from the singer by military barbers. Parker said no. On the other hand, he also refused to let Elvis go into Special Services and spend two years entertaining troops. "A sure way to debase your merchandise," he said, "is to give it away...