Marilyn Monroe, Captain Jack Sparrow, Britney Spears, and Austin Powers walk into a bar.
No, that’s not the setup for a joke, it’s just a few of the personalities showing up to the Sunburst Convention of Celebrity Impersonators this weekend in Orlando.
Celebrity look-a-likes or impersonators are big business, entertaining people at theme parks, corporate conferences, and many other events. The convention offers seminars, networking, and industry awards for the performers, and shows for the public.
Greg M. Thompson of the Greg Thompson Agency has produced the Sunburst Convention of Celebrity Impersonators for 20 years. He also books these entertainers at gigs year-round.
He says celebrity impersonation first cropped up nationwide with the singing telegram fad in the 80s, but it took root in Central Florida’s theme park culture, in a quintessentially “Orlando” way.
“When Universal Studios opened up in the 90s, they wanted to reflect the golden era of Hollywood, so they brought in the classic actors [characters] like Laurel and Hardy, and Marilyn Monroe, Lucy, the Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Mae West,” said Thompson. “They were so popular that people bringing in their conventions wanted those characters at their conventions, so it kind of opened up, and other entertainers started going, ‘You know what? I think I could do this character, or I think I could do that character…and it kind of took off from there.”
What may at first sound like an unusual profession seems a bit run-of-the-mill in the City Beautiful, Thompson noted. “One of the things I love about Orlando, is that if you go to the grocery store, it is not unusual to walk in and see any number of costumes from the theme parks around here, and nobody bats an eye. You see somebody over there wearing lederhosen, and you don't think anything about it. ‘Oh, they work at Disney.’”
After all, Marilyn Monroe buying cereal may not seem so strange if Chip ‘n’ Dale are shopping in the produce aisle.
There are some perennial favorite personalities to impersonate, among performers and audiences alike. The aforementioned Ms. Monroe and Captain Jack Sparrow are among the most beloved characters, said Thompson, adding, “I'll tell you who's most popular, and I don't know why…but people pay good money to go and see Neil Diamond impersonators!”
At this weekend’s convention, there will also be some serious discussions, like how AI is affecting the industry.
“But the best thing about celebrity impersonation is making people happy,” said Thompson. “It just blows our mind [when] you walk into a room, and people go, ‘Oh, my God, there's Austin Powers! I’ve got to have my picture taken with him!’ Or, ‘There's Tom Cruise!’ Or, ‘Look, there's George Bush!’ People freak out and have the most fun with celebrity impersonation, and that makes our job fun.”
