Ed Bonja Elvis Photographer

I woould like to welcome everyone to my new blog.  Thank you for stopping by.  I will be posting stories about my relationship with Colonel Tom Parker, Tom Diskin and Elvis Presley.  I hope you enjoy them.

My name is Ed Bonja.  I was born in Chicago, Illinois.  I am from a family of ten children.  In the late 1940’s, my uncle, Tom Diskin, used to visit my family’s home in Chicago and would bring with him a man named Tom Parker.  Some of the time, Tom Parker would bring his wife, Marie, with him.  We all called them Uncle Tom and Aunt Marie.  Tom Diskin and Tom Parker had met while each of them was managing show business acts traveling around the country.  They became friends and later business partners. 

In 1952, my family moved to Alhambra, California, a little suburb in Los Angeles County.  It was there that we started seeing a great deal more of our two Uncle Toms and Aunt Marie.  They had begun doing a lot of touring on the West Coast, and my family was the only arm of the Diskin, Bonja, Williamson, Moreno, Cervenka clan that was on the West coast.  As time went on, we saw them more and more.  Sunday afternoon dinner with them became a regular event. 

In the mid-1950’s, my mother’s brother, Tom Diskin, telephoned my mom and told her that Tom Parker had decided to use an honorary title he had beeen given by the Governor of  Louisiana, Jimmie Davis, in 1948 in appreciation for helping the Govenor with his political campaign.  From then on, he was to be known as The Colonel.  He said that all of us kids should refer to him as Uncle Colonel - instead of Uncle Tom.   In August of 1955, The Colonel and my Uncle Tom were at our Alhambra home for Sunday afternoon dinner.  It was the Colonel’s custom to light up one of his big cigars after dinner and tell us stories about his earlier days with the circus and show business.  On this particular Sunday afternoon, while puffing on his cigar, The Colonel very casually said to us; “I signed a new boy this week, and I thing he’s going to be pretty big.  His name is Elvis Presley.”  That was the beginning…..