Colonel Tom Parker was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk on June 26, 1909, in Breda, Netherlands. He was the seventh of Adam and Maria’s eleven children. As a child, he worked as a carnival barker in the town where he grew up. Parker moved to Rotterdam when he was 15 and worked on boats there. A few years later, he got into the U.S. without permission by jumping ship from the boat he was working on. Parker then went back to the Netherlands. When he was 19, he went back to the US illegally, but this time he was caught. He worked at carnivals there.
Colonel Tom Parker Career
Parker joined the US Army soon after he got back to the US. To hide the fact that he was in the country illegally, he took the name of the officer who interviewed him, Tom Parker. He was in the 64th Coast Artillery for two years, first at Fort Shafter in Hawaii and then at Fort Barrancas in Florida. But after re-enlisting, he went missing in action (AWOL) and was charged with deserting. Parker was put in solitary confinement because of this. When he got out, he had a psychosis that put him in a mental hospital for a short time. This got him kicked out of the Army.
After he got out of the army, Parker went back to working at carnivals. From 1931 to 1938, he was a carnie for Royal American Shows. After that, he went into the music business as a promoter. Gene Austin, a well-known singer, was the first big-name he worked with. During this time, Parker also worked as a field agent for the Hillsborough County Humane Society, helping to raise money and awareness for its work. When he went back to music, he started working as a manager for singers like Eddy Arnold and Tommy Sands.
Also read: John Aniston Net Worth – Complete Info!
Colonel Tom Parker’s Personal Life & Death
In 1935, when Parker was still in the circus, he married Marie Francis Mott. Before Parker’s career as a manager took off, the two of them worked together at carnivals. In the 1960s, Mott started to show signs of dementia, which made Parker pull away from her and turn to gamble for comfort. Mott died at the end of 1986 when he was 78 years old. In 1990, Parker married Loanne Miller, who had been his secretary for a long time.
By the time Parker made his last public appearances in 1994, he was sick with gout and diabetes, among other things. At the age of 87, he died of a stroke in Las Vegas at the beginning of 1997.
Also read: Bobby Valentino’s Net Worth In 2022
What Was Colonel Tom Parker’s Net Worth?
Colonel Tom Parker was a Dutch-American talent manager and music businessman. At the time of his death in 1997, he was worth $1 million. Colonel Tom Parker was best known as Elvis Presley‘s manager. In the 1950s, he helped Elvis Presley become a big star. He also influenced his decisions to join the military and marry Priscilla, among other things. In the early 1980s, after an investigation, a judge ruled that Parker’s way of running Elvis Presley’s business was wrong.
Colonel Tom Parker made more than $100 million during his life, but when he died, he was said to be worth less than $1 million. He is also said to have had gambling debts of up to $30 million at different points in his life. He also lost a big chunk of Elvis’ own money. At the time of his death, Elvis was only worth $5 million, which isn’t much considering how successful and well-known he was.