Look-alikes
With Barack Obama’s presidential victory, it isn’t just his legions of advisers, aides and other hangers-on who will benefit. A rash of Obama look-alikes and impersonators will inevitably crop up as well, as they try to cash on their similarity to the new president.
But according to some of the doppelgangers in “First Impersonator,” a new documentary that’s just been released on DVD, they shouldn’t try to artificially alter themselves to become more like Obama.
Take Steve Bridges, the George W. Bush impersonator who appeared alongside the president at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, and who relies on a lengthy makeup job to look like Dubya. “That guy with the prosthetic face takes a lot of work from me, and he’s really expensive,” said Brent Mendenhall, a President Bush look-alike from Missouri. “They’re not particularly well-viewed within the look-alike community.”
The film also shows just how lucrative — and tragic — the industry can be.
Bill Clinton look-alike Tim Watters reveals that he grossed more than $1 million at the height of his business in 1996. But other stories reveal how much of the business is out of the entertainers’ hands. “Her life choices trickle down to me,” says Hillary Clinton doppelganger Teresa Barnwell. Director Chad Freidrichs also follows the story of Grammy-winning performer Vaughn Meader, who hit it big with an album of the Kennedy family. Meader’s career never recovered after Kennedy’s assassination.
Freidrichs spends much of his time with Mendenhall and Lee Lorenz, another Bush doppelganger, both of whom insist they feel just like Dubya on stage. “I don’t feel comical when I go in front of people anymore,” said Lorenz. “I just feel like [the president] feels.”
“When I’m on stage doing a performance, I feel like the president,” adds Mendenhall.
But it’s Saddam Hussein lookalike Frank Mejia who gets off perhaps the most unwittingly funny line of the film: “I don’t only do Saddam. I can sing. I can dance. I can ride a horse.”
