What are these guys—and their fans—thinking?
A WVU professor finds out.
by Tony Cook
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Growing up in the deep South, I never thought twice about seeing men with black pompadours and mutton-chop sideburns a la Elvis Presley. My cousin Harry Lee, a truck driver, looked this way. And there wasn't anything noticeably wrong with Harry. My cousin Robert, though, owned every record Elvis ever made. In his room were posters of Elvis, smiling down on us as we ened to "Return to Sender" or "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" I thought the music interesting in the same way that Johnny Mathis or Andy Williams music was. Pretty, but old-fashioned. I thought Robert's infatuation made him a little odd. But Harry Lee, he was cool. He looked cool. Like Elvis. People like to be associated with people who are admired by others. Some people who dress up like Elvis Presley, though, are closer to the edge. In order to be good at being Elvis, one must achieve a certain physical likeness that is difficult to hide when not playing the role. Anybody can slap on a wig and paste on some sideburns, but a serious Elvis impersonator must use dye and grow real hair. And that can attract unwanted attention in one's daily non-Elvis life. |
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This dilemma is at the heart of Leslie Rubinkowski's
book Impersonating Elvis. Rubinkowski, a veteran reporter who
teaches in the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, spent
three years in the company of people pretending to be Elvis.
She met Elvis impersonators of all kinds: female, African American,
Japanese, Mexican (El Vez), and many of the typical white male
variety.
As in all subcultures, there is a hierarchy among Elvis impersonators.
At the top are people like Rick Saucedo, who
played
Elvis on Broadway supported by the real Elvis's drummer and backup
singers, earning a small fortune in the months after Presley
died in August 1977. At this level, the jumpsuits with names
like Spanish Flower and Pinwheel are custom tailored, the rings
have real gemstones, and the vocals are often uncannily evocative.
At the bottom are people like Dennis Stella, whose attempts to overcome his amateurishness form the narrative thread in Rubinkowski's book—he must figure out how, but more importantly why, to be Elvis. Stella's first incarnation as Elvis is like those of many who impersonate The King in K-mart parking lots and American Legion Halls around the country: cheap costume, thrift store boots, a wig that won't stay put, flat notes and flubbed lyrics.
But at both ends of the scale, and every level between, the adulation by the fans—most of them female—is real. Rubinkowski puts it this way: "People who impersonate Elvis Presley become something less than Elvis and something more than themselves. They lose themselves to find out who they really are.
"People who judge impersonators only from what they can see think this is sad. But to impersonators it is not. It is the whole point."
Of the Elvis fans who flock to
the shrines in Memphis and Las Vegas and to countless Legends
in Concert performances, trying to rejuvenate a fading emotional
connection with Presley, Rubinkowski says this is a "grassroots
hero worship. They realize they are pretending, but that doesn't
mean they imagine what they feel."
Rubinkowski travels to Memphis with Dennis Stella, ening to his doubts and fears about what to wear, what to sing, and how to act like Elvis on stage. Over three years she watches his impersonation evolve. More importantly, she watches a fairly "normal" guy move farther and farther into a fantasy world.
Surprisingly, the point at which Stella finally achieves his greatest Elvisness is the point where his own personality, his Dennisness, becomes fully known to him—and to others. After a smash performance as the "movie Elvis" at the 1996 national Elvis impersonator competition, Dennis finds himself basking in the glow of hard-won success. "They told him he was special," Rubinkowski writes, "and they told him he was different. And over and over, they called his name."
Rubinkowski says she is not a great fan of Elvis Presley. Her research stemmed from a fascination with "why someone would dress up as a dead rock star." Equally fascinating was the seriousness with which audiences en to Elvis impersonators. Having met so many people who deeply admire a man whose fame perhaps defines the phrase "larger than life," she says she now has "a real appreciation for what Elvis did."
With new Elvis impersonators arriving on the scene constantly—their number has been estimated at more than 5,000 around the world—this is a cultural phenomenon that shows no sign of disappearing.
Whether Elvis look-alikes are doing it for love, money, or both, the bottom line is that they are focusing some of Elvis Presley's enduring limelight on themselves and their adoring fans. In doing so they help perpetuate the memory of a man, once considered a cultural threat, whose admirers have made him a cultural icon.
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"It's not my life," he says. "It's just a way to have a little fun." Before becoming an impersonator, his interest in Elvis was mostly the music, not the man. But he has become interested in Presley's life and has studied many biographies. The few of Hill's patients who know about his sideline activity "get a kick out of it," he says. One Elvis fan, on whom Hill performed a double heart valve replacement, gave him a prized Elvis whiskey decanter as a Christmas gift. Hill, who was born in Parkersburg and earned his B.A. and M.D. from WVU, says he's never met any other Elvis impersonators. He once saw the real Elvis getting out of a limousine in Chicago, but has never been to Graceland. —Tony Cook |
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