Who Murdered Elvis?. Stephen B. Ubaney
The show was renamed Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback and it was an instant success. The deviation from Parker's demands set him into a rage. This newcomer had proven himself to be more effective than Parker could have ever been. Parker's advancing age put him out of touch with the popular trends in music and he feared that he was no longer an effective manager.
Parker had always been terrified that one day someone younger and a little sharper would steal his bread and butter, and Parker saw Steve Binder as this man. He had every reason to be worried: Steve not only got along better with Elvis, he understood the current trend in the music industry and most importantly, he wasn't afraid of Tom Parker.
After the show was complete, Steve Binder and Elvis Presley parted ways, but not before vowing to remain in contact. Elvis shared his private phone number and they looked forward to many years of friendship, but thanks to Parker not one of Binder's repeated phone calls reached their target.
It would have been the best thing for Elvis Presley, but not for Tom Parker. So the friendship, along with all contact, was prevented. Call after call, year after year, was intercepted at Parker's insistence. Immediately after the success Elvis and Binder had enjoyed, Parker put the finishing touches to Presley’s marriage by booking him in Las Vegas and keeping Elvis and Priscilla separated.
It was sad, but Elvis and Priscilla never got to enjoy their marriage. Parker did everything possible to keep the newlyweds separate. With a baby girl involved, the strain on the both of them was simply too much for their relationship to bear. Also thrown into the mix at Parker's request were people surrounding Priscilla filling her head with as much ‘women’s lib’ ideas as possible, designed to transform the subservient young bride into the feminist that Elvis truly despised.
Presley’s increased workload, the time away from his wife, newborn baby, and Pricilla’s newfound independence were all manipulated. Little by little Elvis Presley’s velvet jail was tightening as every aspect of his life became directly, or indirectly mob controlled.
While most performers in today's world would take substantial time off when they're first married to enjoy the moment and raise children, Parker would have none of it. It was supposed to have been the happiest and most enjoyable part of the couple’s lives but Parker had other plans. With the help of his silent partner he used his juice to capitalize on the concert success that Steve Binder had orchestrated to negotiate Presley’s Las Vegas contract. Rumors widely circulated up and down the Vegas strip that the money that put the deal together came from none other than Milton Prell.
Elvis performed to sellout crowds at the new International Hotel (which later became the Las Vegas Hilton) and he would eventually sign a five-year contract to play one month of solid performances two times a year.
Presley was well paid at $125,000 per week and he was doing two shows a night (sometimes three) for an hour and fifteen minutes per show, seven days a week. At first, Elvis, Parker and everyone in the Memphis Mafia were having a blast in sin city. The food, parties, girls, glitz and glamour seemed to be bliss on tap for everyone all the time.
This was an exciting new adventure and everyone was treated like royalty. But by the second and third year into the contract, the daily grind became exhausting and Elvis had no breathing room. Alana Nash quotes Lamar Fike: "Nobody goes to Vegas and plays four weeks anymore – they do five days, tops...And Elvis had such a high energy show that when he would do an honest hour and fifteen minutes twice a night, he was so tired he was cross-eyed."
While Parker toured every casino in the town, dropping money everywhere he went, Elvis, who was suffering from severe depression, would have to pop even more uppers and downers to keep up with the high demand of his grueling show schedule.
The crew was up all night, slept all day and didn't see sunlight for weeks or even months at a time. Everyone had seen enough of Las Vegas, especially Elvis, who was bored to tears with the same songs, and the repetitious nature of it all. It was the same show day in and day out, but Parker wouldn't allow any variations because he was making the mob money with a proven winner.
To get his point across, Elvis would intentionally do lackluster shows just to piss the old man off. He would sing lying on his back on stage, do karate exhibitions and even talk with the audience members instead of perform. He thought surely this would wake Parker up and send a message to him that a change was needed, but Parker only cared about the money.
By the third year of the contract Presley was in total torment and it became very clear that the only thing Tom Parker cared about was the flashing lights and the excitement of the tables. Exactly how bad was Parker’s gambling habit? This is best explained by two members of Presley's entourage in the DVD entitled Elvis: The Last 24 Hours. Lamar Fike, one of Elvis' oldest and closest friends, explains in the DVD: "Colonel Parker was probably one of the most degenerate gamblers I have ever known in my life. In Nevada they used to say his money wasn't worth anything. In a period of an hour and a half he lost over a million and a quarter."
In the same DVD, Larry Geller, another of Presley's close friends, recalls a time when he was walking through the casino and saw a crowd of people around a man gambling. As he drew closer, he saw that the area was roped off and the man gambling and creating such a stir was Tom Parker.
Parker spotted Larry and asked him to sit by him for good luck. Larry explains what he saw: "The Colonel was there for hours (playing the wheel of fortune game with stacks of chips), upon hours until 5 o'clock in the morning, and he lost one and a half million dollars that night."
According to the National Average Wage Index, the average wage in 1969 was $5,893.76, and Parker was gambling away millions of dollars without batting an eye. Parker was totally out of control and had lost sight of his fiduciary responsibly to his client. He also thought his job was done: Elvis was booked, and now the shows were up to Elvis. Unfortunately, the talent that Parker had for promotional skill, he lacked in humanity and human compassion. Tickets to Elvis' shows were very inexpensive at a mere $40.
That price included the ticket to the show and a gourmet meal. Anyone in Las Vegas would have easily paid double, as Elvis was the hottest ticket in town. After a time it appeared obvious that Parker was “giving Elvis away” just to be close to the gambling tables. All totaled Elvis played over 835 shows in Las Vegas and would become the biggest icon the town had ever seen, but he paid a tremendous cost to do so.
The physical and emotional punishment of his contract was crippling. A day had dawned in the music world and 1969 was a very pivotal year in America. Elvis was on his way to making a huge comeback and John Lennon had been actively involved in many anti-war protests trying to stop the Vietnam War.
Lennon's two famous "Bed-Ins" were staged in Amsterdam and Montreal, both receiving worldwide media attention against the American administration's war policies. This was giving the Nixon administration silent fits of rage as it was in conflict with its foreign policy and turned the youth against the administration’s military ambitions.
Needless to say, Lennon was not a fan of the American government and the feeling was mutual. However, since Lennon was outside the country, there really was nothing that could be done about him. That changed in 1971 when Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono came to America and began to protest on US soil.
The events were a massive protest to the entire Vietnam War effort and spat in the face of the country's agenda. Because Lennon wasn't an American citizen, the FBI started to monitor and record information on him as his powerful hold over the youth might stage a governmental takeover.
The Nixon administration, which viewed Lennon as both a national security threat and a social nuisance, started to hear rumors of his intent to hold a concert opposite the Republican National Convention. Both Nixon and Herbert Hoover suspected that this was an attempt by Lennon to disrupt and make a mockery of the American government.
The White House knew that something had to