Elvis was, early in his career, playing on the Louisiana Hayride. It was a radio show on Saturday night on a 50 thousand watt power house station.
It was the custom of the Hayride to have as the headliner each week a different Grand Ole Opry star. One week the star was the Singing Ranger.. Hank Snow. Colonel Tom Parker was Hanks manager and came with Hank to the show.
As luck would have it, Elvis was on just before Hank and the crowd was going wild for Elvis. After Elvis ended his bit, Parker signed Elvis to a management contract on the spot.
Parker had managed several stars. Amomg them Eddie Arnold and all of them has to agree to the standard Parker contract. Parker got 50 percent of the gross instead of the usual managers 15 percent. Arnold after he made it, went to court to break his contract with the Colonel.
But Elvis signed the 50 percent split with Parker and stayed with him until his death. The probate court handling the Elvis estate voided Parkers contract.
But Elvis was always happy to pay Parker his 50 percent of the take. Elivs used to say, Parker got him millions when other managers only got their clients thousands. Elvis used to say 50 percent of millions is a lot more than 85 percent of thousands.
An example of the parker promotional genius was what he did with the Ed Sullivan Show. Elvis had made a guest appearance on the Tommy Dorsey show. Not much happened.
Then Parker went to Sullivan with the following proposal. Elvis would be paid the unheard of sum of 50,000 dollars for a single TV appearance. He would only sing 3 songs, and they would only show him from the waist up.
It was a fantastic idea. Sullivan took it in a heart beat. The ratings for that show were huge It got one of the largest shares in history.
But it also established that Elvis was going to cost big bucks. That $50,000 image got Elvis good movie contracts. Elvis got top pay, top producers, top co stars, and a good movie budgets. As a result Elvis movies made big bucks.
Elvis got top booking in Vegas. It was the 5o grand Sullivan deal that did it.
It was the first of the great Parker ideas that made Elvis millions rather than thousands.
One funny note. It was somewhere in the late 50s. I was talking to Chet Adkins. I remarked at how good he was at spotting great talent.
Adkins replied he had made lots of dumb moves. Chet said that in 1954 Elvis came to audition for him. Chet listened and turned Elvis down. Chet said he told Elvis he didn't think he could make it as a singer. Chat said a year later he bought Prestly's contract from Sun records for $50,000 dollars. Chet said it was the best buy he ever made. But a year earlier he could have gotten a contract with Elvis by just offering him one.
I have talked to a number of people who knew Elvis.. mostly gospel musicians. The one thing they remembered about Elvis is he had no big ego. It was amazing .. a number of people that knew Elvis said his success never went to his head.
That is unique.