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Trading on their Looks

Arnel Gener, an accountant from Studio City, turned on the television last summer and saw a face that stopped him in his tracks. It was his own, seemingly transplanted onto the head of a Superior Court judge named Lance Ito.

“I got chills looking at him,” said Gener. “When you see yourself on TV like that, it’s really pretty terrifying.”

Over the next few months, the unassuming office worker was stopped repeatedly by colleagues who kidded him about the resemblance. The round face, the close-trimmed beard, even the stern glance… Gener had found his media twin.

About two weeks ago, he decided to capitalize on it. “I figured I may as well make it work for me,” he said.

With that fateful decision, Gener turned pro. Last Monday night, he walked into the lobby of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for his first public appearance. Wearing a silver tie and a floor-length black robe, Gener entered the strange world of celebrity impersonation. He joined a crowd of about 130 other look-alikes, all there for what has become the look-alike’s anwer to the Oscars: the Celebrity Look-alike “Reel Awards.”

Flashbulbs popping, Gener joined a menagerie of look-alikes that included three Garths, three Madonnas, two Dollys, two Chers and a Pope. The obligatory Marilyn was there, along with an expected Elvis Presley and an unsurprising Judy Garland (surprisingly played by an actual woman). Also on hand were less obvious choices, including look-alikes of the Gilda Rader character Roseanna Roseannadanna and Doobie Brothers frontman Michael McDonald.

A few look-alikes came for the fun of flaunting their passing resemblance to an appreciative crowd of their peers. But most make a living on their spitting image, playing the part at corporate events, parties, trade shows, commercials and the occasional film.

The awards give an overlooked segment of the entertainment industry a chance to celebrate itself, said organizer Jana Joos. “The look-alikes spend an awful lot of time and energy portraying their characters; they deserve recognition just like their famous counterparts,” said Joos.

International Celebrity Images is a five-year-old agency that sponsors the awards ceremony; it is one of a dozen that matches look-alikes with engagements. A popular look-alike – the virtual Travolta is hot right now, and the phony Pope is always in demand – might mingle with starstruck executives in Korea one week, hop on a place for a commercial shoot in L.A., then crash a party in Manhattan.

More obscure look-alikes are still waiting for their first gig. “I’ve never had a call for my LaToya Jackson, even when she was in the news trashing her brother,” she said. “And no one has ever asked for my Kris Kristofferson. But he’s a really great guy, and he really looks like him.”

Mingling in the ballroom before the awards, George Washington chatted with Cher at the bar. Two Dolly Partons compared breast enhancements. Madonna and the Pope posed for photographs together.

Playing the pontiff was Jane Greytak, a retired real estate agent from Orange County who appeared as the Pope in Naked Gun 33 1/3 and Sister Act. Greytak takes the part seriously, and his audiences return the reverence. “When I walk into a room, people put their drinks behind their backs and put out their cigarettes,” he said.

Respect by association is also experienced by Tony Latoirre, a 25-year-old tour guide at Universal Studios whose real passion lies in aping the most imitated figure of all: Elvis Presley. Dressed in a glittering suit, gold sunglasses and two enormous busy sideburns, Latoirre said he thinks of his role as a sacred trust.

“In all modesty, I can say others impersonate Elvis – I embody him,” he said. “Certain people like to look like a celebrity, but I get into everything that creates the essence of the man.”

Such seriousness was not shared by Kathy Hartsell, a Dolly Parton look-alike from Encino. Sitting hear the bar with her father, a Willie Nelson look-alike with the requisite red bandana and gray stubble, Hartsell said she avoids getting too caught up in her character. “What scares me are the impersonators who really think they are the people,” she said. “The Elvisis are the worst.”

There are moments, she said tugging at a glimmering strand of platinum wig, when the whole profession seems deeply silly. “Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life,” she said. “I stuff socks in my bra and put a wig on and I go to bars that smell like dead animals where men hang all over me because I look like Dolly.”

On top of that, Hartsell suffers what may be the cruelest irony of all: she looks just like the queen of country, a music she can barely stand. “I prefer Stone Temple Pilots and P.J. Harvey and stuff like that,” she says.

Her rival last Monday night was Gail Williams, a professional look-alike who started imitating Dolly after she put on a big blonde wig while rehearsing for a musical. “Someone in the cast told me they’d pay me $250 to do that at the opening of some tract homes in Temecula,” she remembered. Six years and a surgical enhancement later, Williams is a busy Dolly look-alike with a band a sideline as Patsy Cline.

Surprisingly, there are several switch-hitting look-alikes. A rubber-faced performer from San Diego named Jerome Patrick Hoban played Groucho Marx for more than 20 years until the competition on the West Coast began to crowd him out. He diversified by developing an Ed Sullivan act. The switch paid off last year when he went to an audition for a hyperactive young director looking for ‘50s impersonators. He got the part of a maitre d’ in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

Unlike Hoban, most look-alikes stumbled into show business late into their lives. Phil Jeffrey was a real estate broker until the market softened in 1989. “I decided to pursue art and forget about money,” he said. “Someone told me I’d make a scary Sinatra and that was it, basically.”

Jeffrey sat down with a pile of records, a few biographies and a set of fake teeth and set about reinventing himself. He’s had gigs in Las Vegas and now does a regular Tuesday night show at a Hollywood nightclub.

As for Gener, whose resemblance to Ito has already landed him a commercial and offers from several agents, the life of a look-alike doesn’t seem so bad at all. He’s been warned, however, that fame for look-alikes can be just as fleeting as fame for real celebrities. The Ross Perot impersonators, for example, so busy last year, are recently having a hard time keeping their Texas slang fresh.

“I have no idea how long this will last,” said Gener. “But I’ll ride it out as long as I can. It beats accounting.”