You Ain’t Nothin’ but an Ersatz Elvis

The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, if he were alive today, would have turned 62 last week.

Elvis Presley’s birthday each Jan. 8 is the occasion for an annual ritual in which the faithful around the world commune to play his music, watch his films and, in a most startling display of idolatry, pretend to be him.

For the third year this spectacle was enacted Wednesday night at the Country Star American Music Grill in Universal City.

What better setting for an Elvis worship than Universal’s CityWalk, an entirely fabricated street whose main theme appears to be capturing the style of things past so cleverly that they seem even better than they were back then?

The Country Star, a rib-type restaurant and country-western joint, pushes the nostalgic illusion to a comic extreme with an Art Deco American cafe decor melded into walls of ersatz New Mexico butte rock in sandstone red.

On an ordinary night, the crowd there is likely to get a performer of proven talent, such as Barbara Mandrell or Dwight Yoakam.

But, by some inexplicable dispensation, the stage was relinquished for Elvis’ birthday to a succession of salesmen, food baggers and cops who spend their off hours perfecting the world’s most uncanny likeness of the King.

Most were either too skinny or too flabby to look like Elvis. Or too tall or short. Their voices ranged from a Tennessee Ernie Ford baritone to a Michael Jackson squeak. Consequently, the competition for the night’s best Elvis hinged on each performer’s skill in overcoming his own personal Elvis handicap.

Elaborate costuming was one effect used to draw attention away from innate dissimilarity.

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The preferred Elvis look derives from the singer’s Las Vegas period of the 1970s. Its visual motifs are most commonly a white, bell-bottomed jumpsuit with earlobe-hugging collar, a V-neck open to the navel and varied frills, including colored chiffon scarves, gold lame embroidery, foot-long fringe, silver filigree and belt buckles as big as the cover of Variety.

The final touch for the jumpsuit Elvises consisted of the signature sideburns, most often pasted on under a vaulted shag of jet-black hair.

Just what possesses a superficially well-adjusted and gainfully employed person to gussy himself up in a caricature of a dead entertainer is a mystery too deep for this humble inquiry.

In fairness, not all make-believe Elvi were so clownish.

Bob Sanderson, a lieutenant in the Arcadia Police Department, wore only a sparkling gold jacket over black shirt and slacks.

“It isn’t just the look,” Sanderson said, defending his understatement. “It’s the sound, too.”

Nevertheless, he paid a price. As the 16 Elvi mixed with the Country Star’s patrons before the contest, it became clear that the demand for hugging and mugging in group photographs was in direct proportion to the flamboyance of the costume.

The first Elvis called to the stage, Bryan Bromley of Aliso Viejo, had an almost unjust advantage. Even without hair dye, false sideburns or exaggerated garb, Bromley looked just like the idol.

A newcomer to the trade, though, he was a little stiff on stage and others soon overshadowed his performance, sometimes with rank theatrics.

A round-faced, middle-aged Elvis in a pot-bellied beige jumpsuit got a rise from the crowd by singing, “I want you. I need you. I love you with all my heart,” as he wiped the real sweat from his neck and handed the damp handkerchief to a woman in the crowd. She reached out for it in a mock swoon.

The hankie trick was reprised a few minutes later by Brandon Kaplan, a 7-year-old Elvis with a cowlick, belting: “I’m caught in a trap. I can’t walk out. Because I love you too much baby.”

At the windup, a full-grown woman rushed the stage, wiped Kid Elvis’ forehead and inhaled the make-believe sweat as if it were Obsession. That she later turned out to be Brandon’s mother only marginally diminished the effect.

One Elvis turned out to be worse than a mere caricature. Without apology, scraggly haired Jeff Sandberg, who was introduced for reasons not explained as the German Elvis, merely struck a crouching pose and swung one arm round and round through a gravelly, cracked rendition of “American Trilogy.”

Many truths might be drawn from a night of Elvis impersonation, none so clear as the meaning of originality. Elvis had it, and it isn’t easy to copy.

A good-natured Elvis impersonator named Mike Kennedy admitted as much in a humble evaluation of the craft that for him is a living.

“Elvis was the greatest entertainer there ever was and ever will be,” Kennedy said in a smooth drawl. “There isn’t any impersonator who ever comes close to being Elvis.”

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One Elvis, though, placed his role as an impersonator on a higher level, relating an almost mystic connection to the King.

George Marino, a half-Italian, half-French Creole native of the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, said he became an Elvis impersonator after he was run over by a 3-ton truck, saw the proverbial white light and came back to life.

“My voice became deeper,” Marino said. “Everybody said I sounded like him.”

Marino believes he’s the world’s best Elvis.

“I think I sing them better than he does,” he boasted.

Although the crowd responded warmly, the judges passed over Marino in favor of Kennedy, the potbellied Elvis and a kid for the semifinal round of three.

The judges, it appeared, were indifferent to costuming but demanded a fair voice and gave a lot of credit for good mimicry of the King’s hanging-arm, wobbly knee, gyrating-hip dance moves.

It was no surprise, then, when the winner was announced as 13-year-old Dean Z, whose mother, Jackie Zeligman, had driven him down from Lancaster for the contest.

Dean said he was 3 when he did his first imitation spontaneously while watching Elvis on TV.

“I cleared off a coffee table and started doing the gyrations,” Dean said.

Young Z had a voice as surprisingly mature as the lyrics he sang: “If you want my love tonight, treat me right.” And he generated so much shake, rattle and roll that his black tresses unwrapped from their hair-sprayed wave and his gold lame jacket quivered above his shoulders.

The crowd went wild.

Later, all the older Elvi circled Dean reverently during his coronation with a red velvet crown.

For his prize, Dean scored a weekend in Vegas.

All he needs is a ride.