West Side Story, Midnight Cowboy and The Godfather would all have been very different if Elvis had got his way – or if his manager Col Tom Parker hadn’t turned down so many roles on his behalf
According to Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, Elvis Presley’s dream was to be a great actor. But his Hollywood ambitions were frequently stifled by his controlling manager, Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks). A key scene in the film has a rueful Elvis (Austin Butler) explaining that he won’t be able to co-star opposite Barbara Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born (a part he really wanted), because negotiations between Streisand and Parker ended extremely badly. Though that’s the only example that makes it into the movie, there are a number of other films that Elvis could have made, proving that his big screen career would have been very different if Parker had wielded less influence.
