Main

 
The Latest from Billy Miller...
The Latest from Billy Miller...

Below I will address the latest claims and documents posted by Billy Miller on his new website.  I will also go over what we find on Miller's "scrapbook" website, and examine whether fans are getting a good deal.

Let's get started...
The Letter from Frank Sinatra to Billy Miller

On June 8, 2007, Billy Miller posted a PDF file that contains six separate documents, one of which is a letter purportedly from Frank Sinatra to Billy Miller.  In the letter, Sinatra comments that he is writing the letter on his own personal letterhead, per Miller's request.  The letter is dated June 2, 2000.  Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998.  

UPDATE (06/10/2007):  Miller has removed the Sinatra letter from his website, as well as the certification letter from Diane Hamilton (attesting to the authenticity of the Sinatra signature).  More on the Sinatra letter here.
The Contract Between Elvis A. Presley and William W. Miller, Jr.

Miller posted on his website a December 30, 1969, contract that he claims was an agreement between him and Elvis A. Presley (we’ll get to several very important specifics of the contract here).

In this contract allegedly drawn up and signed by Elvis Presley, Elvis makes the following statements:

“No paybacks to Graceland or Elvis Presley Ent.”

“No one will ever take legal action from Elvis Presley Ent. or Graceland against William W. Miller, Jr.”

These two statements are clear signs of fraud because of the reference to “Graceland” as a business entity (which is the context in these two statements). The term “Graceland” did not reference the business side of the estate until the early 1980s, and up until that time, “Graceland” was simply the house and the property.  When Elvis was alive, there was no “Graceland” as we know it today.  In popular vernacular, “Graceland” is Elvis’s estate and Elvis Presley Enterprises, which both fall under the general reference, “Graceland.”  For Elvis (or anyone) to refer to “Graceland” as a business entity tells us that this contract was written after 1977, and thus is fake.

The handwriting on this document does not resemble any authentic Elvis Presley handwriting I have ever seen.  Are we to believe that Elvis wrote out this document by hand, but that this one time, his handwriting changed to the point that there are no recognizable characteristics that are consistent with authentic examples of Elvis’s handwriting?  Interestingly, Diane Hamilton also provided Miller a “certification” pertaining to a three-page letter Elvis Presley wrote by hand and addressed to Billy Miller.  In her assessment of the handwriting, Ms. Hamilton noted several consistent characteristics of Elvis’s handwriting, none of which are seen in the December 30, 1969, contract that Miller has posted on his website.  His own handwriting expert is thus disqualifying the contract, by extension, since none of her findings apply to the December 30, 1969, contract.

On the other hand, it appears that perhaps Miller wrote out this document, if we go by the opening paragraph that begins, “I William W. Miller, Jr….”  But why, then, did he write as if he were Elvis, where he refers to himself (Miller) in the second person?  Later in the contract, we see, “I, Elvis A. Presley,” meaning that the words were written by Elvis.  The handwriting is not Elvis’s, though, so is the handwriting all Miller’s?  If so, we have a situation where a contract was entered into by two parties, one of whom (the main beneficiary of the contract) wrote the document and then had the other party (Elvis A. Presley) sign it.  Does Miller really believe such an amateurish contract would be valid and enforceable?  And if we conclude that Parker knew about this contract (as noted elsewhere), are we to believe that someone as shrewd as he was would allow such a contract between his only client and someone he didn’t even know?  More on the contract here.
The Letter from Colonel Parker to Billy Miller

On Miller’s website, there is a copy of a letter allegedly from Colonel Tom Parker to Billy Miller.  This letter is a very informal piece of writing, which indicates the person who allegedly wrote the letter (Tom Parker) also typed the letter.  If the letter were a formal letter, in that Parker had a secretary or other employee type it for him, the grammar, spelling, and form would be proper.  At the lower left of the letter, there is a set of initials called the identification data (or reference initials).  This identification data tell the reader who typed (or transcribed) the letter, and who signed (or dictated) the letter.
  
At the bottom of the Parker letter, there is a notation that reads “js/TP,” which is intended to tell the reader that a person with the initials “JS” typed the letter for Parker.  However, there is a interesting anomaly here:  such an informal letter would not have such a formal notation on it; if Parker’s secretary typed such a grammatically sloppy letter, certainly Parker would have had him/her edit it to reflect proper writing-style rules.  Simply, this letter was obviously written by the person who signed it (allegedly Tom Parker), and there was obviously no “formal” writing of the letter.  The language, style, and tone of the letter are very informal, and if Tom Parker wrote this letter, he also typed it.  There is no reason for a secretary to re-type a letter and retain (not edit) such sloppy grammar.  That said, there is no reason for the identification data at the bottom of the letter, other than to fool the reader into believing the letter has some semblance of being “official.”  

Two final comments on the identification data:

1.    The initials of the dictator of the letter are placed before the initials of the transcriber of the letter.  In this letter, the initials are in the wrong order, which would be very unusual for a trained secretary or typist.  As typed, the identification data are telling the reader that “JS” dictated the letter, and that “TP” typed the letter, which obviously is not what the person who wrote this letter intended.

2.    No identification data are used in personal letters.

Finally, the key to the Parker letter, and whether it is authentic:

In the letter, Parker writes, “I want to thank you for keeping your word to my boy about not going public until 20 years after his death.”  Parker’s letter is dated December 24, 1996, only nineteen-plus years after Elvis’s death (eight months before August 1997 when the 20-year time stipulation would have ended).  This means that Parker knew before 1997 about the contract(s) Elvis had drawn up between him and Miller, where he specifically mentioned that Miller was required to keep silent for 20 years after Elvis’s death (which is not what the contract says; this is addressed elsewhere).

Also, Miller was supposed to wait until August 16, 1997, for the 20-year silent period to end, so how could Miller have been on Hard Copy before December 24, 1996?  If he was on Hard Copy, why?  And if he was not on Hard Copy, how did Parker know about the 20-year deal?

The date of this letter is December 24, 1996, which was approximately one month before Parker died of a stroke.  It is very unlikely that Parker’s health was good enough at this time to contact Miller (or anyone) about a new project.  

The signature on the letter was apparently made in some sort of marker with a very thick point/tip.  The signature seems to have been copied onto the page, and is not placed where signatures are normally placed.  The signature is unusually large.  If we look closely at the page, we can see a dark line running horizontal just about the signature, which suggests the closing salutation, signature, and identification data were taken from an authentic letter dictated by Parker and typed by “JS.”  The dark line, then, is the cut-off line from a different page, which was then superimposed with the fake Parker letter to create the letter we now see.

There is no way Parker would have let a contract stand between Elvis Presley and an unknown party, where carte blanche was granted in terms of any moneymaking ventures using Elvis Presley’s name.  So, with this impossibility, and with the dark line showing that the signature appears to come from another letter, we must conclude that this letter allegedly written and signed by Colonel Parker is not authentic.

 

page created with Easy Designer