With the new Elvis movie – starring Austin Butler as Elvis Presley and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker – attracting cinema goers, Danilo has revealed that it was the first company to launch any Elvis merchandise.
The story began after the death of Elvis on 16 August 1977, when Danilo’s chairman, Laurence Prince, realised the mood of the public to remember the life of the ‘King of Rock & Roll’ and flew to Los Angeles to persuade Colonel Tom Parker to give him the image rights to create the first official licensed calendar – and the celebrity calendar was created.
Since then, more than 10 million calendars in all formats have been sold, worldwide, with three million sold in the UK.
Originally, Danilo Promotions created a mock up calendar and took it to the record label, RCA, to try and get the rights. RCA turned it down because they didn’t like the format and didn’t believe in official merchandise. But they did give Laurence the telephone and Telex numbers for Colonel Tom Parker, which he tried continuously until he finally got a response, which led to him flying to Los Angeles and having several meetings with him.
That meeting opened doors in LA, and Laurence went on to meet Priscilla Presley and the rest of the family, as well as various film studios resulting in the company launching the official licensed calendars for Dallas and Dynasty, other TV productions, movies and pop stars.
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