By the time of
Unbeknownst to Presley, Parker negotiated a side agreement with the casino where his gambling debts were forgiven, and Parker got unlimited credit as long as Presley continued performing at the casino. Presley eventually discovered Parker's true intentions and attempted to fire Parker.
Parker kept Presley performing nonstop in Vegas to pay off his gambling debts, which ballooned to $30 million at the Hilton alone by 1977.
Towards the end of his career, the Colonel was taking a 50% commission, which was considered completely exploitative. Elvis Presley's performance in Hawaii in 1973 was the first performance telecast via satellite to the world.
More still went to RCA records, sole owner of all of Elvis' music before 1973, thanks to a $5.4-million deal Parker arranged in that year. It is a deal that severed the Presley estate from the royalties for more than 700 songs and put $2.6 million in the colonel's pocket.
Since he had never applied for U.S. citizenship, he was essentially a man without a country and no one had jurisdiction over him. Such tactics delayed resolution so long that the Presley estate finally settled with Parker, and he received a $2 million settlement from RCA Records.
While Presley's star rose, his band remained on a fixed salary, causing increasing dissension. In a joint interview with The Memphis Press-Scimitar in late 1956, his three sidemen said they were being paid $200 a week when on tour (the article called that “good money for sidemen”) and $100 a week the rest of the time.
The Colonel travelled to Memphis for the funeral, where he turned up dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and baseball cap, and smoked his trademark cigar. It was reported that at the funeral, he persuaded Presley's father to sign over control of Presley's career in death to him.
By the time of Elvis' death, the Colonel was said to owe the Hilton Hotel group around $30 million in gambling debts.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, the King of Rock n' Roll was worth an estimated $5 million at the time of his death in August 1977. Adjusting for inflation, Elvis Presley's net worth when he died would round out to around $20 million by today's standards.
Lisa Marie became the the sole owner of the mansion when the trust holding her inheritance dissolved on her 25th birthday in 1993. Graceland has become a popular tourist attraction over the years, with public tours on offer as well as sprawling museum exhibits.
Parker served the U.S. Army for four years (1929-1933). This alone led him to no longer being an illegal alien. Later he got married to a U.S. citizen, Marie Ross. This also provided him a legal right of residence in the United States.
After a lifetime that saw him earn in excess of $100 million, Parker's estate was worth barely $1 million when he died.
The sum varies from $2 million to $10 million, she says, and as the movie shows, Elvis ultimately decided he couldn't afford to pay and went back to work for the colonel.
Despite earning over $100 million during his lifetime, at the time of his death Colonel Tom Parker was reportedly worth less than $1 million. He also reportedly had as much as $30 million worth of gambling debts at various times in his life.
Brown / Getty Images / AFP. Over the years, the trustees decided to open Graceland up to the public via a variety of tours and overnight stays. Elvis purchased the home in 1957 for $US100,000 ($A143,500). In 2020, Rolling Stone reported its estimated worth to be as much as $US500 million ($A718 million).
Prior to her death, she was worth $16 million.
Elvis Presley, who was known as a generous and free spender while he was alive, left behind a cash-poor estate on his death, worth about US$5m, according to Forbes, but with a mountain of debt.
Although Parker himself would live for another 20 years after Presley, dying at 87 in 1997, a big part of him died with Elvis.
Colonel Tom Parker was likely moved to tears for two reasons. One, was that he loved seeing "his boy" do so well at his craft. But the other reason was purely financial.
Today, the Presley estate is estimated to be worth between $400 million and $500 million, according to one Presley exec. That's less than the Beatles (whose song catalog is said to be worth more than $1 billion) and Queen (thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody, the surviving members top Presley at $575 million).
The money. It has been widely reported that the colonel took more than half of Presley's income in return for negotiating merchandising deals, TV appearances and acting roles.
In 1973, Presley and Parker went to RCA and negotiated a $5.4 million deal for all future royalties from the songs he had made up until that point. The pair split the money 50/50 and RCA legally received all of the royalty commissions from his extensive catalogue of music.
Despite the fact that Sony BMG owns the rights to Elvis' recordings, they continue to release them under the RCA Records label. The songs are owned by the composers and publishers. The Sun and RCA recordings were never his.