October 7, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Greg McDonald got his start in show business as a teenager after meeting Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, shortly after Parker began managing Elvis in the ‘50s. Here’s Greg with the stories.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Greg McDonald's got
his start in show business as a teenager after meeting
Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, while changing
their air conditioning filters in Parker's Palm Springs, California home.
Greg went on to manage Rickey Nelson for seventeen years
(00:30):
and worked under Colonel Parker and Elvis shortly after Parker
began managing Presley in the nineteen fifties. Here's Greg with
three Elvis Presley story.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
When I was a teenager, Colonel had an office at
MGM Studios. It was called the Elvis Exploitation Office. That's
what it said on the door. In those days, an
exploitation officer was a real thing. Now it sounds terrible,
but it really wasn't. So the exploitation officer at a
(01:07):
studio was a big deal. They wouldn't give a manager
a free office, but they would give a star free
office one of the actors, So they called that Elvis's
office at NGM. Were there for years. So the colonel
had formed a club. He and Ellas formed a club
(01:27):
called the Snowman's League. Well, the Snowman's League. The first
member was Elvis and the Colonel, and you know Priscilla
and just about everybody in the Memphis Mafia, all of us.
I was in it. It was just a fictitious club,
very funny. It's a club of guys with great senses
(01:49):
of humor. Really didn't mean any So it became very,
very prestigious in Hollywood to have a snow card. For
Colonel Parker to give you a snow card, that meant
you were in Elvis's private club, and it really became something. Oh,
it became a joke, but it was also very serious.
(02:11):
All the people at the William Morris Agency, the big guys,
all belonged to the Snowman's League and they'd have luncheons
and it was just fun and great Colonel had a
great sense of humor, great sense of humor. So the
issue with the Snowman's League is you could never ask
(02:33):
for a card. You had to be offered a card.
You couldn't ask for And it cost nothing to get
in the Snowman's League, but it cost ten thousand dollars
to get out. It was a joke, but it was
all the big agents in Hollywood and producers. Pretty soon
they all started wanting to be in the Snowman's League,
(02:53):
but the colonel had to invite them. So again, I'm
just a teenager at MGM and I'm out in a
hallway answering the phone, and in through the door comes
Kirk Kakorian. Well, Kirk Kakoryan owned MGM, and Kirk Kakoryan
(03:14):
owned the Internationale Hotel in Las Vegas. He built it
where at the time Elvis was working, so he was
not only our employer. He had made movies with Elvis
and he owned MGM Studios. So he comes up to me,
and I'm a teenage kid, and he said, he's a billionaire,
(03:35):
and he says, do you think that you could go
in there, young man and ask Colonel Parker if I
could have a snow cart. Now, this is a billionaire
asking a kid if he could have a snow card.
And I said, well, sure, you know. So I walked
in the office and the colonel had heard it over
the partition. He goes he fags him out to tell
(03:59):
me to tell him now. So I come back out
and he said he said. The colonel didn't say anything,
He didn't make an offer. Kacoryan came in three times before.
He had us make up a snow card with his
namelin and he owned the building, he owned all of MGM,
but he wanted that snow card. Out Here in the
(04:24):
desert are some of our mailboxes are mounted on little
blocks up in front of the house. Down you know,
you could certainly reach and grab with I'm going to run,
make a run to the hardware store. He kept stealing
Elvis's mailbox, so he decided he was going to replace
(04:47):
in himself, which of course he had no tools and
no skills either. So we went to Alan Ladd Hardware
downtown in Pump Springs, and a friend of mine that
ran and the rand of the store for Alan Hardware
and is ultimately as white. We'd wake him up at
two and three o'clock in the morning to open the
(05:08):
store so Elvis could pick a mailbox. We did it
three times. People kept stealing his mailbox. It was hilarious.
Whatever you need and a whole lot hold they got
it all over into hardware. So and Elvis is trying
to mount the mailbox. Was hilarious. He had no mechanical
(05:31):
skills whatsoever, and I ended up putting down later. But
it was we were out three d be out there
all night trying to install that mailbox. The Memphis Papia
guys used to call me at my home. Elvis and
the colonel installed a red phone in my bedroom by
my bed, and the phone would ring and one of
(05:53):
the guys would say, Elvis wants you to come up.
He wants to see Well, he really didn't, but they
wanted me to come up. So I finally figured out
that they were trying to get me to come up
and stay at the Chino Canyon house so they could
go be with their wives and girlfriends and I could
stay there with Elvis because somebody had to be at
(06:14):
the house with Elvis. So I go up there and
Elvis is off in the bedroom, and one by one
the guys all leave and I'm sitting in the living
room alone, and Elvis finally comes out, and we spend
the whole evening together sitting in the living room watching
silly shows. And he decides he wants to go down
(06:34):
to Germaine's Liquor, which is down on the corner, and
he wanted some cigarellos and some soda, and he just
got a black Stuts bearcat and he says, come on,
let's go. You want to drive, You want to drive
the new car? I said, sure. It was really a
(06:54):
cool car. It was really a fancy Pontiac. It was
good looking. So we get in the car and go
down to Germaine's and it's spring breaking palm springs, and
there's hundreds of kids around the store and in the store.
So Elvis is not walking the store, and he thinks
he's incognito. And he's got these big glasses and his
big belt in this jumpsuit. It's a running suit, not
(07:18):
his show jumpsuit, so he thinks he's incognito. So we
go in. He goes back to the store and break
the fix the stuff up, and we go up to
the checkout counter and all these people are around the
checkout and I notice everybody is looking at Elvis, of course,
but they're watching his pants. Well, what's happening is there's
(07:42):
a big lump going down his leg and as it
hits the bottom of his pants, it's a barrel of
a gun that clinks out onto the floor. Now everybody
looking at Elvis is backing up, and the girls behind
the desk see the gun and they're scared to death.
So he looks at me. He says, you should probably
(08:04):
pick that up. Oh man, I just got out of
the army. I didn't want anything to do with guns.
So I reached down and I picked this giant gun
up by the barrel, and I'm holding it by the
barrel and the girls at the counter are scared to death.
They think we're robbing them, and I go, we're not
robbing you. This is Elvis. I'm trying to tell the girls,
(08:25):
this is Elvis. You're really young girls. I'm not sure
they knew who he was. And I noticed in the
down the road, in the back of the store there's
a girl on the phone. She's calling the cops. Well,
I want to pay him. They won't take my money.
And I'm holding this big pistol by the barrel, and
(08:46):
Elvis is now backing out of the store out the
front door of the car is parked right in front
of the doors, so he gets into the passenger side
and I'm still guys, still got I pay the bill.
They won't take my money, And I bring that gun
outside to him and I hand it to him and
he's laughing in tears, laughing, takes it so funny. And
(09:07):
we drive off down on to Palm Canyon Drive and
we just know the cops are going to stop the
singing there because we're so obvious. But we did. And
I said if we get arrested to Colonel, if you
get arrested, the Colonel's going to kill me. So going
out with him was he never carried any money, never
carried any money, and he always had several guns on.
(09:30):
So it was an evening with Elvis.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
Greg McConnell. He's the author of Elvis and the Colonel
and Insider's look at the most legendary partnership in show business.
That story about the Snowman's League was just so good
in Kurt Kakori and he was like basically the first
big super rich guy, practical billionaire who was also a
(09:59):
world famous. He owned MGM and the International Hotel. And
that's where Elvis did his never ending residency was at
the International Hotel. And there's Colonel Tom Parker yanking old
Grecorian's chain, wouldn't let him in. The Snowman's Club turned
him now, not once but twice. That's a sense of
(10:20):
humor right there, folks, and also had some depth to it. Hey, look,
you may be the boss, but I represent the King.
I'm with the King, and we're going to let you
know that we don't work for you, we work together.
Three Elvis stories brought to us by Greg McDonald. Here
on our American Stories.
And we continue with our American stories. Greg McDonald's got
his start in show business as a teenager after meeting
Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, while changing
their air conditioning filters in Parker's Palm Springs, California home.
Greg went on to manage Rickey Nelson for seventeen years
(00:30):
and worked under Colonel Parker and Elvis shortly after Parker
began managing Presley in the nineteen fifties. Here's Greg with
three Elvis Presley story.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
When I was a teenager, Colonel had an office at
MGM Studios. It was called the Elvis Exploitation Office. That's
what it said on the door. In those days, an
exploitation officer was a real thing. Now it sounds terrible,
but it really wasn't. So the exploitation officer at a
(01:07):
studio was a big deal. They wouldn't give a manager
a free office, but they would give a star free
office one of the actors, So they called that Elvis's
office at NGM. Were there for years. So the colonel
had formed a club. He and Ellas formed a club
(01:27):
called the Snowman's League. Well, the Snowman's League. The first
member was Elvis and the Colonel, and you know Priscilla
and just about everybody in the Memphis Mafia, all of us.
I was in it. It was just a fictitious club,
very funny. It's a club of guys with great senses
(01:49):
of humor. Really didn't mean any So it became very,
very prestigious in Hollywood to have a snow card. For
Colonel Parker to give you a snow card, that meant
you were in Elvis's private club, and it really became something. Oh,
it became a joke, but it was also very serious.
(02:11):
All the people at the William Morris Agency, the big guys,
all belonged to the Snowman's League and they'd have luncheons
and it was just fun and great Colonel had a
great sense of humor, great sense of humor. So the
issue with the Snowman's League is you could never ask
(02:33):
for a card. You had to be offered a card.
You couldn't ask for And it cost nothing to get
in the Snowman's League, but it cost ten thousand dollars
to get out. It was a joke, but it was
all the big agents in Hollywood and producers. Pretty soon
they all started wanting to be in the Snowman's League,
(02:53):
but the colonel had to invite them. So again, I'm
just a teenager at MGM and I'm out in a
hallway answering the phone, and in through the door comes
Kirk Kakorian. Well, Kirk Kakoryan owned MGM, and Kirk Kakoryan
(03:14):
owned the Internationale Hotel in Las Vegas. He built it
where at the time Elvis was working, so he was
not only our employer. He had made movies with Elvis
and he owned MGM Studios. So he comes up to me,
and I'm a teenage kid, and he said, he's a billionaire,
(03:35):
and he says, do you think that you could go
in there, young man and ask Colonel Parker if I
could have a snow cart. Now, this is a billionaire
asking a kid if he could have a snow card.
And I said, well, sure, you know. So I walked
in the office and the colonel had heard it over
the partition. He goes he fags him out to tell
(03:59):
me to tell him now. So I come back out
and he said he said. The colonel didn't say anything,
He didn't make an offer. Kacoryan came in three times before.
He had us make up a snow card with his
namelin and he owned the building, he owned all of MGM,
but he wanted that snow card. Out Here in the
(04:24):
desert are some of our mailboxes are mounted on little
blocks up in front of the house. Down you know,
you could certainly reach and grab with I'm going to run,
make a run to the hardware store. He kept stealing
Elvis's mailbox, so he decided he was going to replace
(04:47):
in himself, which of course he had no tools and
no skills either. So we went to Alan Ladd Hardware
downtown in Pump Springs, and a friend of mine that
ran and the rand of the store for Alan Hardware
and is ultimately as white. We'd wake him up at
two and three o'clock in the morning to open the
(05:08):
store so Elvis could pick a mailbox. We did it
three times. People kept stealing his mailbox. It was hilarious.
Whatever you need and a whole lot hold they got
it all over into hardware. So and Elvis is trying
to mount the mailbox. Was hilarious. He had no mechanical
(05:31):
skills whatsoever, and I ended up putting down later. But
it was we were out three d be out there
all night trying to install that mailbox. The Memphis Papia
guys used to call me at my home. Elvis and
the colonel installed a red phone in my bedroom by
my bed, and the phone would ring and one of
(05:53):
the guys would say, Elvis wants you to come up.
He wants to see Well, he really didn't, but they
wanted me to come up. So I finally figured out
that they were trying to get me to come up
and stay at the Chino Canyon house so they could
go be with their wives and girlfriends and I could
stay there with Elvis because somebody had to be at
(06:14):
the house with Elvis. So I go up there and
Elvis is off in the bedroom, and one by one
the guys all leave and I'm sitting in the living
room alone, and Elvis finally comes out, and we spend
the whole evening together sitting in the living room watching
silly shows. And he decides he wants to go down
(06:34):
to Germaine's Liquor, which is down on the corner, and
he wanted some cigarellos and some soda, and he just
got a black Stuts bearcat and he says, come on,
let's go. You want to drive, You want to drive
the new car? I said, sure. It was really a
(06:54):
cool car. It was really a fancy Pontiac. It was
good looking. So we get in the car and go
down to Germaine's and it's spring breaking palm springs, and
there's hundreds of kids around the store and in the store.
So Elvis is not walking the store, and he thinks
he's incognito. And he's got these big glasses and his
big belt in this jumpsuit. It's a running suit, not
(07:18):
his show jumpsuit, so he thinks he's incognito. So we
go in. He goes back to the store and break
the fix the stuff up, and we go up to
the checkout counter and all these people are around the
checkout and I notice everybody is looking at Elvis, of course,
but they're watching his pants. Well, what's happening is there's
(07:42):
a big lump going down his leg and as it
hits the bottom of his pants, it's a barrel of
a gun that clinks out onto the floor. Now everybody
looking at Elvis is backing up, and the girls behind
the desk see the gun and they're scared to death.
So he looks at me. He says, you should probably
(08:04):
pick that up. Oh man, I just got out of
the army. I didn't want anything to do with guns.
So I reached down and I picked this giant gun
up by the barrel, and I'm holding it by the
barrel and the girls at the counter are scared to death.
They think we're robbing them, and I go, we're not
robbing you. This is Elvis. I'm trying to tell the girls,
(08:25):
this is Elvis. You're really young girls. I'm not sure
they knew who he was. And I noticed in the
down the road, in the back of the store there's
a girl on the phone. She's calling the cops. Well,
I want to pay him. They won't take my money.
And I'm holding this big pistol by the barrel, and
(08:46):
Elvis is now backing out of the store out the
front door of the car is parked right in front
of the doors, so he gets into the passenger side
and I'm still guys, still got I pay the bill.
They won't take my money, And I bring that gun
outside to him and I hand it to him and
he's laughing in tears, laughing, takes it so funny. And
(09:07):
we drive off down on to Palm Canyon Drive and
we just know the cops are going to stop the
singing there because we're so obvious. But we did. And
I said if we get arrested to Colonel, if you
get arrested, the Colonel's going to kill me. So going
out with him was he never carried any money, never
carried any money, and he always had several guns on.
(09:30):
So it was an evening with Elvis.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
Greg McConnell. He's the author of Elvis and the Colonel
and Insider's look at the most legendary partnership in show business.
That story about the Snowman's League was just so good
in Kurt Kakori and he was like basically the first
big super rich guy, practical billionaire who was also a
(09:59):
world famous. He owned MGM and the International Hotel. And
that's where Elvis did his never ending residency was at
the International Hotel. And there's Colonel Tom Parker yanking old
Grecorian's chain, wouldn't let him in. The Snowman's Club turned
him now, not once but twice. That's a sense of
(10:20):
humor right there, folks, and also had some depth to it. Hey, look,
you may be the boss, but I represent the King.
I'm with the King, and we're going to let you
know that we don't work for you, we work together.
Three Elvis stories brought to us by Greg McDonald. Here
on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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