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Being a professional celebrity look-alike is not nearly as tawdry and pathetic as it sounds. (That would not be possible.) I know whereof I speak. Having imperson­ated Queen Elizabeth II on numerous occasions over the last 30 years—and been undercompensated to do so—I consider myself something of an expert on this subject.

As I look back at my slightly spotty but otherwise long and happy celeb look-alike career, I am filled with a warm glow. A montage of images, mostly featuring me opening nightclubs and hosting events wearing a tiara and a sash, flits through my brain. Ah, the pay may have been lousy, but I would not trade in those squishy memories for anything! And I certainly would not trade in being a look-alike for being the real thing. Why? Because to be the impersonator of a particular celebrity is much, much, much more fun than actually being that particular celebrity.

Think about it:

You can be Britney without ever having slept with Kevin Federline and lost your marbles.

You can be Michael Jackson without having to entertain all those annoying children.

You can be Marie Antoinette or Eleanor Roosevelt without being dead.

You can be Anna Nicole Smith without being dead or hav­ing been obliged to lap-dance an octogenarian.

Simply put, being a look-alike is infinitely less demanding and stressful than being the object of your impersonation. The expectations are so much lower. There is simply no compari­son.

Always Carry a Purse

I realized this important fact on my first outing as Queen Liz.

On this particular occasion, her majesty was in an especially boisterous mood. With good reason. The year was 1981: Her son was marrying Diana on that very day. While the real queen was attending the dreary, endless nuptials in rainy England, I was living it up in Hollywood.

If my memory serves me correctly, the reigning monarch kicked off the evening with a heavy lard-infused Mexican com­bination platter at ‘El Coyote,’ her favorite Mexican restaurant.

Keeping with the Mexican theme, she then proceeded to knock back about five large margaritas. The cost of these beverages was absorbed by Her Majesty’s subjects, who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in watching yours truly get thoroughly smashed.

This was a lethal combination for a British stomach: neither the Queen nor I was up for the challenge. (Tip: It’s nice to have something in common with your look-alike. It creates a sense of ownership while impersonating.)

Red-faced and somewhat disheveled—and missing one of her long white gloves—the Queen fell into the backseat of a friend’s banged-up Camaro and headed to the official engagement of the evening: I was being paid $35—plus unlimited drink tickets—to cut the ribbon at a brand-new Hollywood nightclub.

During the short ride, the Queen began to feel queasy. Her foundation garments, constricting her digestive tract as they were wont to do, were not helping matters. She thought she needed some air. She rolled down the window. Her nausea increased. Ere long, her Majesty arrived at her destination. She hurriedly performed her official obligations to a blizzard of flashbulbs.

She knew she was about to vomit, but in which direction? Even in her drunken state she knew that it would be decidedly un-regal to blow chunks directly onto the splashy, vibrant new carpet with which this new establishment had seen fit to cover its floors. Her Maj took the only course of action available to her: She snapped open her large white purse and filled it with regurgitated enchiladas.

It was at this exact point that I realized how lucky I was not to be the actual Queen. How on earth would she, Betty Windsor, have coped with the embarrassment of such an episode? How could she ever atone? There would be no way to reclaim her dignity. She would have been obliged to immolate herself in front of Buckingham Palace, waving all the while.

And what of her subjects? It’s impossible to imagine what the Brits would have made of the sight of the real queen puk­ing into her purse. Nobody could argue that this would have anything other than a tremendously negative impact on her image and approval ratings.

And yet, as her look-alike, I faced no such PR crisis. Whereas her prestige would have plummeted, mine soared. As a look-alike I was—rightly or wrongly—not held to the same exacting standard of decorum. Nobody seemed to object to my purse-puking. Au contraire! They cheered. Loudly.

Nobody Cares!

Though bookings dwindled over subsequent decades, my career as a Queen impersonator refuses to die.

In the spring of 2001, Barneys, my employer, unveiled a small co-op boutique on Wooster Street. The budget for the opening party was limited. There was not the requisite cash to throw a celeb red-carpet bash. Look-alikes were the most obvi­ous alternative.

In a cavalier moment I told the top brass at Barneys that I would find someone to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II to add sizzle to the ribbon cutting. Having been one myself, I rashly assumed that Queen look-alikes were a dime a dozen.

A call was placed to a look-alike agency. I requested a Liza, a Marilyn, a Michael Jackson and a QE2.

The agency called back to say that, though they had a queen, she had just undergone a medical procedure and was resting at her daughter’s apartment in Secaucus, N.J. I panicked and begged. She would not budge. No amount of cash would induce her to don her tiara. As a consola­tion prize the agency offered me something special: a Wolf Blitzer!

An Ab Fab-ian panic now filled the Barneys PR office. The die was cast. A press release had already gone out indicating the arrival of her majesty. We simply had to find a Queen.

Word somehow leaked out about my look-alike career, and before you could say “butt pads,” a professional stylist, hairdresser, and makeup artist arrived chez moi and I was being corseted and painted like a circus grotesque.

It felt good to be, as it were, back in the saddle, especially as I did not have to do all the painstaking prep myself.

After three hours I was looking pretty damn regal. I took stock in the mirror and surveyed my middle-aged visage. Her Majesty and I had been through a lot together.

After a light snack—no Tex-Mex—I mentally prepared my­self to leave my apartment en femme. This was the first time I had “done” the Queen in broad daylight. I was used to what we look-alikes call “cover of darkness.”

Ping. The elevator doors opened. I began to traverse the carpeted lobby of my apartment building deploying the measured, flat-footed gait of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which is very easy to imitate but nonethe­less won Helen Mirren an Oscar, and might have done the same for me had I been given a crack at the role.

My doorman approached. I dropped my front door key into my white purse, clicked it shut and tried to look regal. I waved. He did not wave back.

He came out from behind his little desk and blocked my path.

(Cricket sounds.)

I looked at him. He looked at my tits. I looked at his eyes looking at my tits. My tiara flashed in the afternoon sunlight, causing him to wince.

I stood my ground and returned his stare.

It was hard to get a read on his expression. Was he about to call the co-op board? Had he already pressed a concealed but­ton summoning men in white coats from Bellevue?

(More crickets.)

Finally he spoke. “Do you want your mail now,” he asked, “or when you come back?”

(Abrupt cessation of crickets.)

I was too stunned to respond.

I was completely overcome by the profound global, philosophical, and far-reaching significance of this surreal little moment and the thunderbolt of immediate but deep under­standing it had afforded.

In an instant, I understood the utter pointlessness of ever being self-conscious, the utter pointlessness of restraint or “good taste,” the utter pointlessness of not having fun with one’s personal style. I had left my apartment dressed as the reigning monarch of my birthplace, and my doorman seemed not even to have noticed.

You can worry obsessively about what people think of you and your appearance. You fret. You feel like you are being horribly judged 24 hours a day. You gnash your teeth. You try to second-guess the world. You imagine all sorts of awful commentary about your ratty hair or your tragic outfits as soon as your back is turned.

But all these concerns are a total waste of time, because no­body cares!

You can leave your apartment with a peacock feather sticking out of your bottom and your doorman’s only comment will be “There’s a package here for you. Do you want it now or later?” By giving way to feelings of self-consciousness you are merely indulging yourself. Nobody is judging you. You are free to express yourself! You can set fire to yourself in front of Macy’s and nobody will bat an eye. People are much too busy worrying about their own lives to ask why you are dressed up as Wolf Blitzer.

Excerpted from ECCENTRIC GLAMOUR: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You
Simon & Schuster, $24