Did Elvis Really Fire Colonel Tom Parker on Stage in Las Vegas?

Publish date: 2024-05-28

Baz Luhrmann's 'Elvis' displays the King of Rock 'n' Roll firing his supervisor, Colonel Tom Parker, on stage in Las Vegas. But is that really what came about?

Source: Warner Bros. Pictures

Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker and Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in 'Elvis'

Fans of Hollywood biopics know that even when a movie is “primarily based on a true story,” it frequently takes several liberties with the truth in service of the plot line.

This is true in Baz Luhrmann’s newest movie Elvis, which covers the lifestyles and occupation of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) as informed in the course of the eyes of his supervisor, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). But just how a lot of the movie is truth and what kind of is fiction? Most importantly, is it true that Elvis dramatically fired the Colonel from the stage in Las Vegas?

Source: Warner Bros. Pictures

Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker in 'Elvis'

Did Elvis really fire Colonel Tom Parker whilst acting on stage in Las Vegas?

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis starts with Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, having a center attack and being rushed to a hospital in Las Vegas. From the clinic, the Colonel is going on to recount the lifestyles and career of the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

The movie main points Elvis’s youth and early profession luck, along side his struggles to stay true to himself, his clashes with the law, and his makes an attempt later on in existence to revive his occupation. However, with over 40 years of Elvis’s lifestyles compressed into one feature-length movie, there are many liberties fascinated by the reality.

One very dramatic second happens when Elvis fires Colonel Tom Parker from the stage in Las Vegas. In the movie, Elvis has simply been informed that the Colonel were lying to him for many years about his actual id. Colonel Tom Parker was in reality an unlawful immigrant named Andreas Cornelis Dries van Kuijk, who saved Elvis from traveling the world over because he himself couldn’t get a U.S. passport to commute.

Source: Warner Bros. Pictures

Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker and Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in 'Elvis'

When Elvis learns the reality, he calls the Colonel out on stage, revealing that he’s an illegal Dutch immigrant and firing him in entrance of his target market. As it seems, this scene was adorned for dramatic impact.

Veteran track journalist Alanna Nash, who's the writer of Colonel Tom Parker’s biography, The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley, instructed Variety that this isn’t how issues went down in actual lifestyles.

“Elvis would never had been so crass as to have fired Colonel from the stage,” Alanna advised the e-newsletter. She posits that Baz drew inspiration from some other incident in 1974, the place Elvis criticized Barron Hilton from the stage for firing certainly one of Elvis’s favourite hotel workers.

Afterward, Elvis and the Colonel argued behind the scenes, with Elvis threatening to fire the Colonel and the Colonel threatening to quit. The combat ended when the Colonel drew up an invoice for what he claimed Elvis owed him, as is depicted in the film.

Elvis eventually relented, mainly since he couldn’t pay the sum, and went again to paintings for the Colonel, as the movie additionally displays. So, it seems this particular scene used to be a mashup of reality and fiction. According to Alanna, “[Baz] Luhrmann hasn’t really given [the Colonel] his due through a long shot.”

Elvis is taking part in in theaters.

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