That first tour ended in San Diego. I was standing backstage on the last night, looking through the curtain at the crowd, dazed, shell-shocked. Just then, amid all this drifting and dreaming-I was wearing my crocodile boots-the Colonel whacked me on the shoulder with his cane. "Come with me," he said. "We need to talk."
He had a big guy following him with two huge suitcases. We went through the tunnels to a little door, an electrical closet. There was a table inside, a lightbulb, and a bunch of machinery. The Colonel told the big guy where to put the bags, then said, "Beat it. I need to talk to Jerry alone."
The Colonel locked the door. "Get the bags up on the table," he told me. "Open them."
It was like a scene in an old pirate movie, in which the swashbuckler looks into the treasure chest and the glow of doubloons reflects off his face. These cases were filled with money, tens, twenties, fifties, all cash. As if we had robbed a bank. "Pour it on the table," said the Colonel.
"What's this?" I asked.
"The money from the concessions," he said. "T-shirts and collectibles. Half of it's yours."
"No, I had nothing to do with that," I said. "Just the tickets. Just the shows."
The Colonel was already giving me an incredibly generous deaclass="underline" an even split. I got half, and the Colonel and Elvis together got half.
"When I have a partner," he told me. "I have a partner. Now pile up that money."
It was a mountain of bills, some stained with ketchup, some stained with chives, stacked on the table. The Colonel said, "Stand back," then raised his cane and brought it down hard on the pile, dividing it into two huge piles, which he pushed apart with the cane, saying, "That side yours, this side mine… Is that fair?"
"Sure," I said. "It's more than fair."
The tour lasted just six weeks, but it changed everything. Like what happens when you put your picture in a Xerox and press enlarge, enlarge, enlarge. I went on tour at twenty-six as just another young talent manager, but when I came back, I was a millionaire.
The Colonel had houses in LA and Palm Springs. I was with him constantly, in every kind of mood and weather, when he was happy and money was coming in, and when he was ailing and old. No matter how rich he became, he was always ready for a new idea. He was, after all, a carnival man. Take, for example, the Gordon Mills affair, maybe my greatest moneymaking idea that did not come off.
The phone rings in the middle of the night. It's Elvis. He is angry and paranoid, pacing the halls of Graceland.
"Is that Jerry?" he asks.
"Yeah, Elvis. It's me. What's up?"
"I don't know what I'm doing here," he says. "I just don't know."
"What's wrong, Elvis?"
"The Colonel," he says. "I don't need him. I'm done with the Colonel."
"Come on, Elvis."
"Listen, Jerry, you should be my manager."
This is not unusual, these freaked-out, middle-of-the-night calls made by talent-decisions made, then unmade in the morning. Especially when the artist is as brilliant and isolated as Elvis. The Beatles had each other, and Sinatra, well, Sinatra was from another era, but Elvis, who was bigger than all of them, was alone.
I said, "Look, Elvis. I am sorry, but I can't. That's not going to happen."
We talked for a little, then hung up. I could not fall back asleep. I stared at the ceiling, thinking. A few days before, I had seen a copy of Life magazine with a man named Gordon Mills on the cover, a music manager from London. According to the article, his management company, MAM, which was traded on the London Stock Exchange, was the most successful in the industry, representing two of the three biggest stars in the world: Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. Now it happened that these stars were numbers two and three. Elvis was number one.
I went to see the Colonel at six the next morning. He was drinking coffee. I threw Life magazine in front of him.
"What's this?" he asked.
"That," I said, "is Gordon Mills."
"Yeah, so?"
"Look, Colonel, what if I told you I had a way to make a hundred million bucks just like that?"
"I would tell you to keep talking," he said.
"I'm not going to bullshit you," I told him. "Elvis called me in the middle of the night and said he wants to get rid of you and make me his manager."
The Colonel made a noise like this: "Ahhhieeee."
I said, "Now, Colonel, I've had enough clients, done enough business, and been around long enough to know it doesn't mean anything. Elvis is you and Elvis. I get that. But it gave me an idea, seeing as he's talking about getting a new manager, and this is where the hundred million bucks comes in."
"Go on."
"This guy, Gordon Mills, has a publicly traded management company. He also has two of the three biggest recording artists in the world. Now here's my idea: We sell him Elvis's management contract. In name only. It will still be you running the show, but this guy will hold the paper. We structure this deal in stock, so Mills gets the contract and we-me, you, Elvis-get shares in his company. Lots of shares. Then, when word gets out that Gordon Mills has Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Elvis Presley, well, the share price goes through the roof. And we clear a hundred million easy."
"Yeah," said the Colonel. "Do it."
I called Gordon Mills and told him I had an idea, a surefire moneymaker.
"Great," he said. "Come over and explain it."
I would never sell an idea like this on the phone. It's still that way. I need to sit with a person, to watch him, read his eyes and hands, see if he is just as excited as I am, if I'm coming across.
I got on a plane and flew over. Gordon Mills lived in a mansion outside London. He had his own zoo. (A lot of rich people in England have zoos.) He was a poor kid from the East End who had made it all the way to a private zoo. We talked in his garden. Giraffes wandered by, zebras, and tigers. A lion cub pissed my lap! I explained the plan: how we would sell Elvis but not sell Elvis, how he would give us shares, how the stock price would rise. Gordon nodded through this, thinking Elvis, Elvis, then said, "Fantastic, Jerry! Let's do it!"
"Now look, Gordon, I want to make sure you understand the situation," I said. "You are not really going to manage Elvis. He won't accept that. I am talking about a business arrangement. You will sign the contracts and get commissions, but on the ground we will continue as we have been: I will handle the concerts, the Colonel will handle everything else; you will be his manager in name only. You will not talk to Elvis, or try to shape his career, and you will have absolutely no creative input. Get it?"
"Yes, yes, great. Let's do it."
"That's the first caveat," I said. "Here's the second: You can't tell anybody about this. I don't want to pick up the Daily Telegraph or the Sun and see splattered all over the pages, 'Gordon Mills to Be Elvis's Manager.' You can have that later, but not now. You've got to wait for that."
"Great, let's do it."
A few weeks later, Gordon Mills came to Vegas. The Colonel was there, too. It took me two weeks to set up a meeting. Tom Jones worked at Caesars and Elvis worked at the Hilton. Each manager wanted to meet on his home turf. I shuttled back and forth like Kissinger. I finally fixed a date at the Hilton. The Colonel won that round. He showed up in cowboy suit and hat. He sat on one side of the table, and Gordon sat on the other. These men had egos bigger than the moon. They would not talk to each other. Everything had to go through me. The Colonel would say, "Tell him he's not to travel with us." Gordon would say, "Tell him Elvis must make himself amenable to European dates." It went back and forth like that for hours, but I finally got the parameters fixed. Then, just as we were leaving, Gordon said, "Hey, Jerry, as long as I'm here, I would love to see Elvis perform."