Double Take on a Liz Look-Alike

BACKGROUND: Last March in View, Carole Reed of Laguna Hills told of the trials of being an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike.

UPDATE: It’s been a big year for Reed, 49 (pictured below). Her celebrity-double bookings have tripled. She has appeared on television in Hamburg, Germany, and in Tokyo; at a U.S. Air Force base in Milan, Italy, and in People magazine. She also filmed a mock Taylor-Larry Fortensky wedding.

And now she is one of several guests on the Feb. 26 edition of “Geraldo,” which salutes Taylor’s 60th birthday on Feb. 27.

Reed admits that while she was little more than the program’s mascot, there was one question Rivera posed: “He asked if sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my identity, that wouldn’t I just like to crawl into Elizabeth’s identity and stay there?”

Never. “I haven’t changed. I’m me. I like me,” says Reed, a divorced mother of a married daughter. But a boyfriend would be nice: “I’m still not dating.” Men are either intimidated, she says, or “want to be with Liz.”

So, she keeps busy with her appearances and recently founded a celebrity look-alike dating service, Celebrity Dream Date. For a minimum of $300, customers can kick up their heels (“ strictly platonic,” Reed emphasizes) with “Kevin Costner,” “Mel Gibson,” “Madonna,” “Cher,” even “Pope John Paul II.”

As for Reed’s dream of meeting Taylor, it hasn’t happened. “Someday,” Reed says. “Someday.”