In 1962 and on a fast ascent to international stardom, Elvis Presley turned down performing for the royal family as part of the Royal Variety Show, which featured a star-studded lineup with Bob Hope, Eartha Kitt, and more. Extraordinary billing aside, a direct invitation from the late Queen Elizabeth II was nothing to sneeze at as someone who grew up poor in the rural South. Nevertheless, he said no.
Or, perhaps more accurately, his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, said no. While Parker initially cited scheduling conflicts for the refusal, there’s a good chance the decision had far less to do with the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and more with his manager’s seedy past.
Why Elvis Turned Down Performing For The Royal Family
Colonel Tom Parker, who infamously managed Elvis Presley’s business arrangements with an iron fist, reportedly turned down the royal family’s invitation to the Royal Variety Show due to his client’s prior filming commitments. While it’s true that Elvis maintained a rigorous filming schedule during his brief stint as a leading actor, one would imagine arrangements could be made to allow the biggest rockstar of the time to perform in England.
That is, of course, if everyone in Elvis’ party could travel internationally, which they couldn’t. Although the Colonel often told people he was a U.S. Army vet from West Virginia, this was only partially true. He served in the army, yes, but only as a private before the military discharged him following a psychopathy diagnosis. As for his hometown? Parker was about 4,000 miles off. He wasn’t from Appalachia; he was from the Netherlands.
Born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, the future manager of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, immigrated illegally from the Netherlands to the United States when he was 20 years old. He began working in the entertainment industry, first carnivals, then music, as he developed his new persona. All things considered, the Colonel succeeded in creating a new life and a prosperous career. But his shady background and tight control over Elvis meant the musician could only perform in the U.S., where the Colonel could tag along.
Could The Colonel Have Had An Even Darker Backstory?
As the manager of one of the greatest rockstars of the time, one would assume Colonel Tom Parker could have found a way to work around his illegal immigrant status and lack of identification documents. After Elvis died in 1977, new details emerged that presented the possibility of a far darker explanation. A Dutch journalist named Dirk Vellenga received a tip about the Colonel’s connections to Amsterdam, which set Vellenga on a journey to find out more about Andreas von Kuijk.
Upon publishing a report about his findings, Vellenga received an anonymous tip which read: “At last, I want to say what was told to me 19 years ago about this Colonel Parker. My mother-in-law said to me, if anything comes to light about this Parker, tell them that his name is Van Kuijk and that he murdered the wife of a greengrocer on the Boschstraat. This murder has never been solved. He, on that very night, left for America and adopted a different name. That is why it is so mysterious.”
No one formally accused the Colonel of a crime, and all the possible evidence was circumstantial. Nevertheless, rumors persisted about Parker’s abrupt departure from his home country. Alanna Nash, author of The Colonel, said in a 2003 interview, “I cannot say without reservation that he killed this woman. I offer it only as a theory, a possibility. Even his Dutch family is willing to admit that it is a possibility, though they believe, as I do, that if he killed her, it was an accident.”
We suppose that such a rumor, paired with his illegal immigration status, would be enough reason for the Colonel to turn down Elvis’ lofty invitation to perform for royalty.
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