", For Butler, doing the heavy lifting as Presley, he saw the casting of Hanks as a stroke of brilliance in complicating the Colonel's villainy. Its all a Baz Luhrmann fever dream. I think we maybe killed them! Elvis also stars Helen Thomson as Elviss mother, Gladys, Richard Roxburgh as Elviss father, Vernon, Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley, Luke Bracey as Jerry Schilling, Natasha Bassett as Dixie Locke, David Wenham as Hank Snow, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. Then she was hired on as Elvis' tour secretary and traveled . Elvis picked up an impressive seven Oscar nominations. Randy Newman was brought in and did an exquisite chart fabulous and we produced it out here. "And the Colonel says, 'Because of me. We found that a lot of the blues singers that we knew, he knew them also, which was a surprise to us. The issue of his choices to include in his repertoire would become important to signify his talent. Carl Gardner was the rube or the straight man. Hanks on Wednesday (Dec. 16) dropped byThe Late Show With Stephen Colbertto promote his latest film,News of the World, but he also chatted about other topics, such as the upcoming Elvis picture starring Austin Butler in which he plays the late genius and a scoundrel Parker. I very much like the ballad Dont, which was also written on demand, so to speak, over a weekend. He never went to Elvis and said, "What would you like to do? Paul Shirey is a senior news writer for Screen Rant. I dont like the choice of all the songs. And Jean Aberbach said, Well, fellas, let me speak to the Colonel. In making him such an antagonist, they have robbed him of his many accomplishments with his client. Some people have said the movie undersells Elvis country and crooner influences to make him look like almost solely the product of blues and R&B. "You can see Colonel Parker as despicable, but when it's Tom, he's such an incredible actor, that he can justify everything and he's not playing a bad guy in his mind," says Butler. Marty Lacker told me that Elvis and B.B. So when they call you and tell you Eminem wants to incorporate a song of yours into his, do you just say sure, or ask to hear it? And the Colonel said, What took you so long?. Offers may be subject to change without notice. And so things resumed as they had been. Now hes after us for two more., The Colonel went on to tell a story about a producer who wanted to trim down Elvis film fee. In the carnival, he had painted sparrows yellow and sold them as canaries. "The blues singers that we knew, Elvis knew them also," says Stoller. But living in a colored neighborhood, as he did, he certainly heard early R&B, jump-blues and swing tunes pulsating through the walls at the nearby juke joints, and he loved it, as he did both Black and white gospel. And seeing our names on (45 labels), they thought that Leiber-Stoller was a kind of music, like how they used to put Foxtrot on a record. Tom Hanks is playingElvis Presley manager Colonel Tom Parker in the upcomingBaz Luhrmann film, and to get a better idea of the infamous character, the actor had dinner withPriscilla Presley. We bought our stuff back, a lot of it. The Black-white divide didnt mean much to the Presleys. And we got to demonstrate the others for him. He says, "I said he should sing this kind of thing." "He's so justified that it made me have to double down and question, 'Wait, maybe he's right in this moment. Instead, the focus here will be on sharing some interesting information about Colonel Parker that appeared in a rather obscure source. Yeah, they liked us a lot. The one where EW follows up with the cast. Austin Butler on Elvis and Why it Took Months After Filming to Find Himself Again, The Best Epic Movies of All Time, According to the AFI, The 25 Best Thrillers of All Time, Ranked, The Legend Behind the Jerry Lewis Holocaust Clown Movie Youll Never See. Would Elvis have gone to Black Pentecostal tent meetings as a kid, as seen in the film? Hanks looks almost unrecognizable in the. Elvis is famously quoted as saying, Down in Tupelo, Miss., I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now and I said, if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, Id be a music man like nobody saw. But its unclear whether this was on the radio or in person. What I do remember is that the New York Times gave it, as the producer said, not a money review and that they were very, very nice to Leiber and Stoller, but said that the show didnt rise to the level of our work, more or less. nothing., According to Parker, production costs for the average Presley film ran between $1.5 and $2 million, and if the studio lets it maybe a little more., The Colonel didnt seem too concerned that Elvis film popularity would dry up someday. "One reason is because the Elvis story has become a trope. And I hated the show. A "colonel" in honorary terms only, he was a shrewd, showman-like . Tom Hank's Col Tom Parker accent . Tom Parker wasn't a household name before Elvis, but it's clear that after the biopic, it soon will be. Watch what Tom Hanks had to say in the player above, or you can read our conversation below. But once Elvis was onstage, controlling the music, he did what he wanted. No, it never did. 6 pop hit in 1955 for the group the Cheers). The branding. It's like you have a record, you have an album by your favorite artist. How many times do you want your name on the record? He was annoyed! continues Hanks. Luhrmann describes another story in the aftermath of Presley's death where the Colonel immediately called RCA and instructed them to produce more records, knowing demand would skyrocket. Your blog on the Colonel is most helpful. First of all, have you seen the Elvis movie? King, there was a chance meeting at Sun Studios and, in late 1956, at a famous all-Black charity show, where King was the headliner and Elvis, as an invited guest, came out and wiggled his leg, but did not perform. Colonel Tom Parker, as played by Tom Hanks in Elvis, was the controversial manager of singer Elvis Presley (played by Austin Butler) with a mysterious past who had a key role in both The King's success and downfall. And then, of course, there was (the film) Jailhouse Rock (also retitled after a song Leiber and Stoller came up with), which was where Elvis heard the demos and wanted to meet us. Col. Tom Parker, the strict, unorthodox and controversial manager who orchestrated Elvis Presley's career from 1955 until the singer's death in 1977, died yesterday at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas . Did Parkers accent really sound like the one Tom Hanks is using in the film? He wanted us to write the score for it, and for us to help get Elvis to play the lead. But that was in the 70s. He began negotiating it all with the Pentagon in 1956. Tom Hanks will be playing Colonel Tom Parker, the infamous music manager who discovered Elvis and landed him his contract with RCA. He could turn down scripts. This is Luhrmann showing us Elviss influences. He did not know how to say no to someone who had already made all of his dreams come true. Hard to do. What turned Colonels head, though, was a report from his old friend Oscar Davis, who went to Memphis in October 1954 to advance an Arnold appearance at Ellis Auditorium, and saw how Elvis packed a local dive, the Eagles Nest, night after night with screaming women. But there was never a Christmas sweater or a fairy-tale Christmas set. I was a fan while my friends and peers were not. The Masked Lookalike Explained, Every Baz Luhrmann Movie, Ranked According To Box Office Mojo, Tom Hanks' Tom Parker isn't his usual role, Star Wars Rumor: Rey Would Have Been Recast In Lindelof's Canceled Film, Sisu Is The Inglourious Basterds Reboot We've Been Waiting 15 Years For, Kevin Costner Begins Western Sequel Production That Reportedly Delayed Yellowstone Season 5. According to the Colonel, We make no picture deals without the great potentate Abe Lastfogel. (Lastfogel was the long-time president of the Morris agency. We had a few run-ins with the Colonel. Turns out he didnt have an impediment he was just trying to wrap a Dutch tongue around the English language, Southern-style. Most of the songs he cut of yours, you two wrote expressly for him. The next day we went into the studio to record, at Radio Recorders Annex (in Hollywood), and as we were walking in, Jerry said, You know, she ought to growl it. And I said, Yeah Why dont you tell her? And he said, Why dont you tell her? [Laughs.] Parker was an avid gambler, which is believed to have been the source of many of his "fast money" dealings with Austin Butler's Elvis. Every hero needs a villain, and in the case of Elvis Presley, the man who made him was also the one who destroyed him. He cared about the reaction of the audience. "What he did was keep Elvis alive," Luhrmann explains of how he saw Parker's mindset. The first three days of the movies are chaos. My guess is that, if Elvis had been Black, he wouldnt have been as interested, because it would have been harder to take him to a larger audience, especially in the segregated South, which was Parkers stronghold from his days on the carnival circuit. Also pictured: Scotty Moore, Judy Tyler, Bill Black, Mickey Shaughnessy and D.J. That changed I think as soon as they heard the initial recording. Well, they were a lot of fun. Its (Eminem performing) over the background sound of Elvis recording of Jailhouse Rock, which Jerry and I virtually produced as well as wrote not the movie version, but the single version that Jerry and I were in the studio with Elvis working on back in 1957. But hey, its generational, I think. Is the portrayal of Elvis relationship with Priscilla, however briefly that is dramatized, basically accurate? From the beginning, Luhrmann had Hanks on his shortlist. Scene is from the set of the Presley movie, Love Me Tender.. He didnt care what color he was. We were having brunch one day in the suite, and Jean Aberbach came in and said, Boys, where are the songs? And I think Jerry said, Dont worry, Jean, youll get em. He said, I know I will get them. I thought you guys did such a great job. Yes and no. But he also did extraordinarily genius things. After the divorce, Elvis and Priscilla had little shared experience other than arranging Lisa Maries visits. I think that these days these days meaning going back a couple of decades writers and performers have gotten very hip to protecting their stuff, much more so than we were. And there's the fault that I think also has to land in both of them because Elvis could have said no. In actuality, he worked the carnival circuit, presenting acts like Colonel Tom Parker and His Dancing Chickens, which saw the fowls jumping because they were on a hot plate hidden under sawdust. Because I made Elvis Presley. As you can see in the trailers, Elvis is about the complicated relationship between Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks) and Elvis Presley (Austin Butler). There just werent a lot of other performers who could pull that off. There was a precursor to [Smokey Joes Cafe] that was done up in Seattle. And his son, Jimmie (later Jimmy), envied Elvis and yearned to counsel him on his sinful ways. RELATED: Austin Butler on Elvis and Why it Took Months After Filming to Find Himself Again. We could write pretty fast, but that was an unusual situation. HANKS: There's a YouTube, one was named Comrade Rockstar and another movie called Red Elvis. Second, for a movie about a musician, Elvis also didn't receive any music nominations at the Oscars. He said, Dont worry, Ill fill it in later! [Laughs.] Thats really what he was looking for all along. Hanks and his wife, actress Rita Wilson, had dinner with their friend Priscilla Presley in the hopes of getting a better take on the man he was playing. He was given the honorary title of "Colonel" in the Louisiana State Militia from Governor Jimmie Davis as thanks for the work he did on his political campaign. It'll blow you out of your mind. The actor has proven time and again that he's up to the challenge of playing a real-world personality and the role of Elvis and the Colonel is no different. There's no substitute for going there. In fact, in my book I included a chapter entitled, The Parker Propaganda Machine. It outlines how Parker promoted, marketed, and booked Elvis in ways that undeniably made possible Presleys meteoric rise in show business. Copyright 2023 Meredith Corporation. I Want to Be Free had a kind of special meaning, because we wanted to get out of the goddamn hotel room! Well, yes and no. That was in our minds (during the initial writing). He sells! But the thing that really did it for us Jerry went to a party in New York and met a producer, Charlie Feldman, who was going to do a movie of a novel by Nelson Algren called A Walk on the Wild Side. He had (Elia) Kazan to direct, Budd Schulberg to write the thing and James Wong Howe to do the cinematography. Thats Luhrmann being the showman. I was expecting to hear stories about the distrust she had for Colonel Tom Parker over these many years. Once a big crowd saw Elvis perform, there was a demand for his record. No, all that stuff was rehearsed and rehearsed.

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