look-alike

A look-alike is a living person who closely resembles another living person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on television and film, playing the person they resemble.

Perhaps the most famous look-alike is Jeannette Charles, who since the early 1970s has worked as a look-alike to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

Another well-known look-alike is Steve Sires, who resembles Bill Gates of Microsoft. Sires came to attention when he attempted to trademark "Microsortof," and subsequently acted in some Microsoft company commercials. He has, however, become notorious for taking part in Nothing So Strange, in which Sires' character makes a speech, looks up and is assassinated.

Politicians and actors are also well represented by look-alikes. A leading actor is impersonated by the UK's Nick Richmond, who bears a resemblance to Sir Sean Connery.

Contemporary history and media

The genuine "Monty."

M.E. Clifton James, "Monty's double."

• Mikheil Gelovani, a Georgian actor and Joseph Stalin look-alike, played the Soviet leader in propaganda films of the 1930s and 1940s.
• Charlie Chaplin once during the 30s' went to a Charlie Chaplin-look-alike competition and ended at third place.
• In 1944, shortly before D-Day, M.E. Clifton James, who bore a close resemblance to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, was sent to Gibraltar and North Africa, in order to deceive the Germans about the location of the upcoming invasion. This story was the subject of a book and film, I Was Monty's Double.
• Jennifer Loeb, a New Jersey native, bears a striking physical resemblance to renowned actress, comedienne, and activist Kathy Najimy. Loeb frequently performs in New Brunswick, New Jersey, billed as Najimy in her own one-woman show, "Buh-Bi." Loeb's critically acclaimed act includes a cover of Enrique Iglesias' "Bailamos" as well as her own rendition of the comedy sketch Najimy provides in Hocus Pocus.
• North Indian resident Dhaval Dave is claimed by many to be the lookalike of actor Daniel Radcliffe but many critics dismiss this claim as a cheap publicity stunt.
• In 1966, fans believed that Paul McCartney was dead and replaced with a Canadian policeman with the name of William Shears Campbell.
• In the 1970s, actor-comedian Richard M. Dixon (born James LaRoe), look-alike to then-President Richard M. Nixon, gained some celebrity, portraying the president in the films, Richard (1972) and The Faking of the President (1976). He also appeared in the unreleased short film Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story.
• Saddam Hussein allegedly employed several look-alikes for political purposes during his Iraq reign, though this has been disputed by some analysts.[1]
• The BBC comedy programme Doubletake made extensive use of look-alikes playing their doubles in apparently embarrassing situations, seen through CCTV cameras and amateur video, using distance shots and shaky camera-work to disguise the true identity of those being filmed. Due to the nature of this programme and conditions of filming, many of the worlds most authentic lookalikes boycotted the project leaving the producer to rely on the careful use of soft focus, lighting and carefully positioned camera angles to make the mainly amateur lookalikes resemble the characters they portrayed.
• Armando Ianucci's Friday Night Armistice featured "the bus of Dianas", a bus full of Princess Diana lookalikes which was dispatched to "care" at the sites of various minor tragedies.
• The 2006 hit ITV 6 part comedy series "The Lookey Likey show" utilised the talents of only the few professional "real dead ringer" lookalike / soundalikes and unlike previous TV projects in which soft focus and odd camera angles have been used to enhance "look-a-bit-alikes", the authenticity of star doubles like "Svenalike" totally fooled all members of the public in a wide variety of totally bizarre situations.
• UK Big Brother contestant Chantelle Houghton once worked for a look-alike agency as a Paris Hilton look-alike, earning her the nickname "Paris Travelodge". After Houghton won series 4 of Celebrity Big Brother, the same agency signed up another model as a Chantelle Houghton look-alike.
• Since the year 2001, the UK's most successful lookalike has been Derek Williams ("Svenalike") a Sven-Göran Eriksson lookalike/soundalike double who was selected by the FA as a stand in for Official Hospitality and has achieved widespread acclaim and the most extensive TV, film and video exposure of any celebrity double in recent history.

Literature

• Alexandre Dumas, père's The Man in the Iron Mask (1850; the third part of Dumas' novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne), involving King Louis XIV of France and an identical twin.
• Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), two of whose characters, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, look nearly identical.
• Mark Twain's first historical fiction (1882) — the novel, The Prince and the Pauper, in which Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII of England, and his pauper look-alike, Tom Canty, trade places.
• Anthony Hope's novel, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), in which a man impersonates a king whom he closely resembles, when the king is abducted by enemies on the eve of his coronation.
• Bolesław Prus' novel, Pharaoh (1895), whose characters include the Haranian Phut (aka the Chaldean priest Berossus) and his look-alike (chapter 20), and the protagonist Ramses and his look-alike and nemesis, Lykon; also, chapter 33 refers to look-alikes of an earlier pharaoh, Ramses the Great.
• Robert Heinlein's novel Double Star (1956) in which a down-and-out actor first portrays, then replaces, a powerful political figure.

Film

• John Cromwell's The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), adapted from Anthony Hope's novel (see "Literature," above).
• Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Pharaoh (1966), adapted from Bolesław Prus' novel, Pharaoh (see "Literature," above).
• Paul Mazursky's Moon over Parador (1988), in which a man who is filming in the fictitious Latin American country, Parador, is forced to play the role of the country's late president, whom he closely resembles.
• Gary Ross' Dave (1993), in which a presidential impersonator is hired by the president's Chief of Staff as a temporary decoy and goes on to stand in for the president when the latter suffers a stroke and goes into coma.
• The 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep starred Bruce Campbell in the role of an elderly Elvis Presley who had traded places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff (also played by Campbell), and now lived in a nursing home.
• The 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith features actor Wayne Pygram, who, in the film, looks remarkably like Peter Cushing. Through stock footage, the film's producers wanted Cushing to reprise his role of Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars. However, the footage was deemed unusable.
• Vikramarkudu

See also

• Body double
• Doppelgänger
• Impersonation
• Look alike contest
• Mimic
• Political decoy
• Shadowman
• Simulacrum
• Stand-in

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