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A look-alike is a living person who closely resembles another living person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on television or film, playing the person they resemble.

Look-alikes have also figured prominently at least since the 19th century in literature, and in the 20th and 21st centuries in film.

The genuine "Monty."

M.E. Clifton James, "Monty's double."

• Mikheil Gelovani, a Georgian actor and Joseph Stalin look-alike, played the Soviet leader in propaganda films of the 1930s and 1940s.
• Charlie Chaplin once during the '30s went to a Charlie Chaplin-look-alike competition and ended in third place.
• In 1944, shortly before D-Day, M.E. Clifton James, who bore a close resemblance to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, was sent to Gibraltar and North Africa, in order to deceive the Germans about the location of the upcoming invasion. This story was the subject of a book and film, I Was Monty's Double.
• Jennifer Loeb, a New Jersey native, bears a striking physical resemblance to renowned actress, comedienne, and activist Kathy Najimy. Loeb frequently performs in New Brunswick, New Jersey, billed as Najimy in her own one-woman show, "Buh-Bi." Loeb's critically acclaimed act includes a cover of Enrique Iglesias' "Bailamos" as well as her own rendition of the comedy sketch Najimy provides in Hocus Pocus.
• North Indian resident Dhaval Dave is claimed by many to be a look-alike of actor Daniel Radcliffe, but many critics dismiss this claim as a cheap publicity stunt.
• In 1966, fans believed that Paul McCartney was dead and had been replaced by a Canadian policeman named William Shears Campbell.
• In the 1970s, actor-comedian Richard M. Dixon (born James LaRoe), look-alike to then-President Richard M. Nixon, gained some celebrity, portraying the president in the films, Richard (1972) and The Faking of the President (1976). He also appeared in the unreleased short film Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story.
• Jeannette Charles has, since the early 1970s, worked as a look-alike to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.
• Saddam Hussein allegedly employed several look-alikes for political purposes during his Iraq reign, though this has been disputed by some analysts.[1]
• The BBC comedy programme Doubletake made extensive use of look-alikes playing their doubles in apparently embarrassing situations, seen through CCTV cameras and amateur video, using distance shots and shaky camera-work to disguise the true identity of those being filmed. Due to the nature of this programme and conditions of filming, many of the worlds most authentic lookalikes boycotted the project leaving the producer to rely on the careful use of soft focus, lighting and carefully positioned camera angles to make the mainly amateur lookalikes resemble the characters they portrayed.
• Armando Ianucci's Friday Night Armistice (1996–98) featured "the bus of Dianas," a bus full of Princess Diana look-alikes which was dispatched to "care" at the sites of various minor tragedies.
• Steve Sires, a look-alike of Microsoft's Bill Gates, came to attention when he attempted to trademark "Microsortof," and subsequently acted in Microsoft comercials. He became especially famous for his role in the 2002 film, Nothing So Strange, in which his character makes a speech, looks up and is assassinated.
• The UK's Nick Richmond impersonates the British actor, Sir Sean Connery.
• The 2006 hit ITV 6 part comedy series "The Lookey Likey show" utilised the talents of only the few professional "real dead ringer" lookalike / soundalikes and unlike previous TV projects in which soft focus and odd camera angles have been used to enhance "look-a-bit-alikes", the authenticity of star doubles like "Svenalike" totally fooled all members of the public in a wide variety of totally bizarre situations.
• UK Big Brother contestant Chantelle Houghton once worked briefly and unsucessfully for a look-alike agency as a Paris Hilton look-alike, subsequently earning her the nickname "Paris Travelodge". After Houghton won series 4 of Celebrity Big Brother, the same agency had already signed up another more authentic and professional model as a Paris Hilton look-alike who was briefly also offered as a fake "Chantelle".
• Since the year 2001, one of the UK's most successful lookalikes has been Derek Williams ("Svenalike") a Sven-Göran Eriksson lookalike/soundalike double who was selected by the FA as a stand in for Official Hospitality and has achieved widespread acclaim and the most extensive TV, film and video exposure of any celebrity double in recent history.

• The UK look-alike and tribute industry is among the largest and most successful worldwide and ranks after only the USA in public popularity. Look-alikes and look-alike/sound-alike celebrity doubles have been engaged as "real dead ringers" for a vast cross-section of assignments from corporate events, advertising, TV, Film and radio broadcasts to acting as diversions and body doubles for their real star Doppelgängers and at the top end of the industry, many are "larger-than-life" acts virtually indistinguishable from "the real thing" but often "providing more entertainment" at a fraction of the price of the genuine article.

• Lookalikes-Unite (www.lookalikes-unite.com) is a non-profit / non booking agency with similar aims as the EQUITY organisation for mainstream actors and was founded in 2003 to promote, advise and coordinate the charity activities of the most professional lookalikes. It has grown in reputation worldwide to become recognised as the most impartial, non-comercial source of information and reference to some of the world's most acclaimed celebrity doubles and tribute acts.

• Alexandre Dumas, père's The Man in the Iron Mask (1850; the third part of Dumas' novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne), involving King Louis XIV of France and an identical twin.
• Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), two of whose characters, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, look nearly identical.
• Mark Twain's first historical fiction (1882) — the novel, The Prince and the Pauper, in which Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII of England, and his pauper look-alike, Tom Canty, trade places.
• Anthony Hope's novel, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), in which a man impersonates a king whom he closely resembles, when the king is abducted by enemies on the eve of his coronation.
• Bolesław Prus' novel, Pharaoh (1895), whose characters include the Haranian Phut (aka the Chaldean priest Berossus) and his look-alike (chapter 20), and the protagonist Ramses and his look-alike and nemesis, Lykon; also, chapter 33 refers to look-alikes of an earlier pharaoh, Ramses the Great.
• Robert Heinlein's novel Double Star (1956) in which a down-and-out actor first portrays, then replaces, a powerful political figure.
• Christopher Priest's novel, The Prestige (1995), involving two rival magicians and their respective doubles.

• Alexandre Dumas, père's The Man in the Iron Mask (see "Literature," above) has been adapted into eight film versions between 1929 and 1998.
• Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities (see "Literature," above) has been produced as three film versions between 1911 and 1958, as well as television and stage adaptations.
• Mark Twain's novel The Prince and the Pauper (see "Literature," above) has been the basis for many film and stage adaptations.
• Anthony Hope's novel The Prisoner of Zenda (see "Literature," above) has been the basis for many film and stage adaptations since 1913; the best-known film version is John Cromwell's 1937 film.
• Jerzy Kawalerowicz's film Pharaoh (1966) is adapted from Bolesław Prus' novel, Pharaoh (see "Literature," above).
• Paul Mazursky's film Moon over Parador (1988), in which a man who is filming in the fictitious Latin American country, Parador, is forced to play the role of the country's late president, whom he closely resembles.
• Gary Ross' film Dave (1993), in which a presidential impersonator is hired by the president's Chief of Staff as a temporary decoy and goes on to stand in for the president when the latter suffers a stroke and goes into coma.
• The 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep starred Bruce Campbell in the role of an elderly Elvis Presley who had traded places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff (also played by Campbell), and now lived in a nursing home.
• The 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith features actor Wayne Pygram, who, in the film, looks remarkably like Peter Cushing. Through stock footage, the film's producers wanted Cushing to reprise his role of Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars. However, the footage was deemed unusable.
• The Prestige (2006), directed by Christopher Nolan, and adapted from the novel by Christopher Priest, in which two rival magicians employ doubles in their astonishing disappearing-reappearing acts.
• Vikramarkudu (2006), Tollywood film in which Ravi Teja plays a dual role.
• The film "Goal III" (due for general cinema release during 2008) is set during the 2006 soccer world cup and features convincing look-alike doubles for Sven-Goran Eriksson, Frank Lampard and others who blend the transition from archive footage of the tournament with the fictional action depicted.

• Assassinations in fiction
• Body double
• Doppelgänger
• Impersonation
• Look alike contest
• Mimic
• Political decoy
• Shadowman
• Simulacrum
• Stand-in