EVERYONE HAS DOUBLE SIMILARITY SKIN DEEP

Manawatu Times, Issue 6848, 1 March 1929, Page 10

EVERYONE HAS DOUBLE SIMILARITY SKIN DEEP

GENE TUNNEY DOUBLE FOR BEETHOVEN. Everyone has a double somowhero. in tho world. The marked similarity, however, is invariably skin deep. Many reigning monarchs and presidents have used doubles to advantage.. It is authoritatively stated that King Alfonso of Spain employed, a double to appear for him in his younger days at numerous public, ceremonials at Madrid. It is believed to ha.ve been for that reason that, an assassin attempted to blow up the bridal carriage, for he knew that the King could not very well get married by proxy. Count d’lstria, first president of the new Greek Republic in 1828,. hired a peasant who was his living image to drive through tho streets in the State carriage. A few months later the man was murdered in the carriage. Another 'double shared the same fate. Thcn.no one could be found to take the job under any consideration, and finally the count himself succumbed to an assassin.

President Roosevelt had a very unusual face, yet ho had two doubles — Senator Mangus Johnson and Frank Hopper, the actor. A New York man named Fleming was refused a life insurance policy during tho war because he looked so much like President Wilson. Even the typically Coolidge countenance has its replica in that of Charles Holz, a Philadelphia waiter. Indeed tho resemblance is so marked that Holz has been asked to take the part of the President in a motion picture. An actor who took the part of Lincoln in a play some years back was a double of tho Great Emancipator. Impressed by his own impersonation lie began to delude himself with tho idea that he actually was Lincoln. He grew a full beard, he assumed the Lincolnian mannerisms of dress, gait, speech and personal habits, and, in time, ho seemed to believe that his appearance ought to have bceu greeted with the respect due so important a personage. So painstakingly did ho imitate Lincoln that a cynical friend finally remarked, “That actor will never be satisfied until someone assassinates him.” The most recent discovery in doubles is that Gene lunney, the : world’s champion boxer, is a double j for Beethoven.