Like Chevalier, Bogart was a star that comic entertainers liked to impersonate. Others have included Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Kirk Douglas, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Edgar G. Robinson, James Stewart, and John Wayne. (One of the most popular subjects of comic impersonation as I write this essay is probably Christopher Walken, an eccentric if ever there was one.) Usually the stars are subject to impersonation because of a peculiar voice or accent, an oddity of facial expression, or a distinctive walk. Some have had all three. John Wayne had a deep voice with a drawling California accent, a habit of raising his eyebrows and wrinkling his forehead to express surprise or consternation, and an oddly rolling, almost mincing gait. Marilyn Monroe had a breathy voice, a parted mouth with a quivering upper lip (a quiver that, as Richard Dyer has observed, was designed not only to express yielding sexuality but also to hide an upper gum line), and an undulating, provocative walk that emphasized her hips and breasts. Some of the legendary stars, especially the stoic males like Dana Andrews or the flawless females like Ava Gardner, were difficult to mimic except perhaps in caricatured drawings. But even the less eccentric actors had performing quirks or tricks, such as Andrews’s tendency to cock his elbow out to his side when he drinks from a glass. There are so many famous names one could mention in this context that eccentricity would seem the norm rather than the exception. Sometimes the eccentricity is sui generis, and sometimes it has an influence on the culture. Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe’s mannerisms have been imitated by many other actors in more or less subtle ways; and James Cagney spawned a generation of teenaged performers, beginning with the Dead End Kids, who copied the early Cagney’s ghetto-style toughness and swagger.
In the history of cinema there have been occasions when famous actors have not simply imitated but impersonated other famous actors. One of the best-known examples is Tony Curtis’s impersonation of Cary Grant in Some Like It Hot (1959). (Curtis’s equally amusing impersonation of a woman in that same film is based partly on Eve Arden.) A more recent instance is Cate Blanchett’s remarkable impersonation of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There (2007), a film in which Dylan is also played by Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, and Heath Ledger. Blanchett is the only actor in the group who tries to look and behave like Dylan, and her performance is a tour de force, achieving uncanny likeness to the androgynous pop star in the most drugged phase of his career. But impersonation in fiction film, especially when performed by a star, has a paradoxical effect; the more perfect it is, the more conscious we are of the performer who accomplishes it. Successful impersonation in real life is a form of identity theft, but in theater or film our pleasure as an audience derives from our awareness that it’s Curtis pretending to be Grant or Blanchett pretending to be Dylan, never a complete illusion.
The example of Blanchett serves to remind us that the film genre most likely to involve overt imitation or impersonation of one actor by another is the biopic, especially the biographical film that tells the life story of a celebrity in the modern media. Film biographies of remote historical figures or real-life personalities from outside the media seldom if ever require true impersonation; we have no recordings or films of Napoleon or Lincoln, and the many actors who have played them on the screen needed only conform in general ways to certain painted portraits or still photographs. The audience seems inclined to accept fictional representations of historical characters and some types of modern celebrities as long as the performance is consistent and reasonably plausible: Willem Dafoe has played Jesus Christ, Max Shreck, and T. S. Eliot without radically changing his physiognomy, and Sean Penn is quite convincing as gay activist Harvey Milk in Milk (2008), even though he doesn’t physically resemble Milk. When a conventionally realistic biopic concerns a popular star of film or television, however, the situation is a bit more complex. The actor needs to give a fairly accurate and convincing impersonation of a known model while also serving the larger ends of the story. No matter how accurate the impersonation might be, the audience will inevitably be aware that an actor is imitating a famous personage; but if it becomes too much a display of virtuosity, it can upset the balance of illusion and artifice.
Larry Parks’s portrayal of Al Jolson in a quintessential Hollywood biopic, The Jolson Story (1946), deals with these problems by almost avoiding impersonation during the dramatic episodes of the film. Parks behaves with an ebullience appropriate to an old-time showman, occasionally speaking with a brash New York accent, but he makes little attempt to mimic the famous entertainer’s distinctive looks or vocal tone; far more handsome than the real Jolson, who was alive and a star on the radio when the film was made, he simply adds his attractiveness, youthful vigor, and charm to the generally flattering, glamourizing aims of the project. When he breaks into song, however, he creates a different effect. We hear the actual Jolson’s voice on the soundtrack—a voice that gives the film an aura of authenticity and convinces us of Jolson’s talent—and Parks convincingly re-creates the singer’s eccentric trademark mannerisms, most of which were derived from years of performing in provincial vaudeville and blackface minstrel shows. All the signature Jolson moves are on display: the rhythmic rocking from side to side, the strut across the stage, the broad grin, the widely rolling eyes, the clasped hands, the dropping to the floor on one knee with arms open wide, and so forth. These gestures and expressions had become so much associated with Jolson that he was relatively easy to impersonate; but they were also dated, as were songs like “Mammy,” so that he was in danger of becoming a cliché or quaint caricature. (At one moment, the film seems to acknowledge this possibility: Evelyn Keyes, who plays Jolson’s wife, does an enthusiastic but joking impersonation of Jolson singing “California, Here I Come.” Only a few moments before, we’ve seen Larry Parks as Jolson singing that same number.) Parks’s charisma and energy nevertheless manage to overcome these dangers, enlivening the film and even enhancing Jolson’s image as a singer. Parks never jokes with the all-too-predictable Jolson persona and in the end becomes exactly what Hollywood wants him to be: an idealized version of Jolson as played by the star Larry Parks. (As Leo Braudy has observed in The World in a Frame, the sequel to this film, Jolson Signs Again [1949], creates a double impersonation and adds to the “Byzantine” relation between actor and character [238]. Parks plays the older Jolson, who makes a comeback when he records songs for the actor Larry Parks to lip-synch in The Jolson Story. In a scene in a screening room, we see Parks shaking hands with Parks while the real Jolson, seated in the background, makes an unacknowledged cameo appearance.)
Beyond the Sea (2004), a somewhat Felliniesque biopic about the short life of singer-actor Bobby Darin, is an interesting contrast with The Jolson Story. Kevin Spacey, who not only stars in the film but also produced, directed, and coauthored the screenplay, is an unusually gifted mimic and a sincere admirer of Darin. He sings all the musical numbers in the film himself, and he is such a skillful impersonator that when the film was released he went on tour performing a live re-creation of Darin’s nightclub act. Ironically, however, the closer he comes to reproducing Darin’s voice and mannerisms, the more he reveals a disparity between himself and the man he is imitating. A chameleon performer, Bobby Darin was the equal of Sinatra as a singer of ballads and swing arrangements and just as good at rock and roll, country, and social protest songs. His nightclub and television appearances were filled with sexy energy and exciting dance moves, and his few films demonstrate that he had fine acting abilities in both light comedy and Method-style psychological realism. Spacey, however, is a less dynamic and charismatic personality,