Colonel Tom Parker Helped Make Priscilla Presley Comfortable With Having Elvis’ Rumored Lover Host Her Baby Shower
When Priscilla Presley was six months pregnant, she agreed to let Nancy Sinatra host her baby shower after a suggestion by Colonel Tom Parker. For years, Priscilla had worried that Elvis Presley and Sinatra were romantically involved. As the rumors resurfaced during her pregnancy, Priscilla became suspicious of Sinatra’s offer to host her baby shower. Here’s how Parker made Priscilla comfortable with the event.
Colonel Tom Parker helped convince Priscilla Presley to let Nancy Sinatra host her baby shower
In the earliest stages of her relationship with Elvis, Priscilla found rumors about Sinatra concerning. He insisted they were just friends, but the fact that the rumors resurfaced during her pregnancy worried her.
“Then I began hearing rumors about Elvis and Nancy Sinatra, the same rumors I had read about in Germany: that she had a passionate crush on him, that they were having an affair,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I was extremely sensitive and quick to cry. Elvis assured me that I was just being oversensitive because of my condition. I agreed.”
Several months later, Sinatra offered to host Priscilla’s baby shower, which raised her suspicions again.
“Six months into my pregnancy, Nancy called and said she’d like to give me a baby shower,” Priscilla wrote. “I didn’t know her that well and thought it a little strange that she was so accommodating. But Elvis assured me that she was very nice and that I should get to know her.”
Priscilla agreed, but only after Elvis’ manager, Colonel Tom Parker, made a suggestion to ensure things went smoothly.
“It was agreed that I would go to the shower under one condition, which Colonel suggested: All the pictures that were taken that day were to be handed over to me,” she wrote. “That way, there’d be no shots popping up in the national movie magazines. It turned out quite nicely.”
Rumors about Elvis and Nancy Sinatra had long bothered Priscilla
Years before this, the rumors about Elvis and Sinatra devastated Priscilla. She met the musician in Germany, and once he left, reporters asked her what she thought about Elvis and Sinatra’s relationship. She explained that these rumors made her feel sick, particularly because she didn’t hear from Elvis for weeks after he left.
When Elvis finally called her, he denied the rumors.
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Little Girl,” he told her. “You’ll find people trying to stir up trouble, just to make you upset. She’s a friend, Baby, just a friend. I’m appearing on her father’s show, and it was all set up for her to be here at my press conference when I returned to the States.”
Priscilla Parker spoke about seeing Colonel Tom Parker in the ‘Elvis’ movie
Parker’s suggestion helped make Priscilla comfortable with the baby shower. While she appreciated it, she had a complicated relationship with Elvis’ manager. She explained that because of this, she had a hard time watching the Baz Luhrmann film Elvis.
“He didn’t take Elvis where he wanted to be, and that was hard because I lived it,” she said on Today (via Yahoo). “So living that, with him, and watching the movie, it brought back a lot of memories.”
She believed Parker wasn’t the best person to manage Elvis’ career, but she still saw nice sides to him.
“There were two sides to him: the business and, of course, the very gentle side where he’s not working,” she said. “He had to live out what Elvis wanted to do, or what he promised Elvis, and that was he was gonna make him a million dollars.”
