Behind many great stars of stage and screen lurks a mysterious, sometimes sinister manager figure, minder or mastermind, whose precise role in their protégé’s life, especially in terms of creative input, may be hard to define. Richard Burton’s career was kick-started by the Welsh schoolmaster whose surname he took. Tommy Cooper’s affairs were handled for years by a character called Miff Ferrie who lived in Eaton Square. My fragile friend Michael Barrymore was frogmarched to precarious stardom by his amazing wife Cheryl. And even poor little Tom Thumb had the great P. T. Barnum to give him stature.
The man who managed or mismanaged Elvis Presley’s career was a particularly colourful example of this breed and his own life, recorded here with some affection, seems as peculiar as that of the godlike, God-forsaken young man he invented, ripped off and allowed to die at the age of 42.
Though lacking the bare-faced cheek of the nearly eponymous Colonel Barker, whose exposure as a woman thrilled English newspaper readers in the 1930s, Colonel Tom Parker was not short of secrets — or the braggadocio to cover them up.
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