A Permanent Identity Crisis

Veteran impressionist Frank Gorshin--along with a star-studded roster of Hollywood’s most famous names--will appear on an Orange County stage for the first time tonight.

The one-night-only performance in the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa is billed simply as “Frank Gorshin in Concert.”

“That’s the kind of thing I like to do, go by myself and just do it,” Gorshin, 65, said earlier this week in Los Angeles. Gorshin, who usually appears in performing arts centers and casino showrooms, won’t have an opening act tonight.

“I’ll probably do an hour and a half. ‘In concert’ is a euphemism for ‘We can’t afford anyone else,’ ” he joked.

With Gorshin, though, you get more than you bargain for: He may be the only one in the spotlight, but he certainly won’t be alone. Not with stars like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Dustin Hoffman along for the ride. Or at least Gorshin’s uncanny impressions of them.

With a gift for not only capturing the voice but facial and body characteristics of a celebrity, Gorshin does everyone from Cary Grant to Rodney Dangerfield. He also does Marlon Brando (the cocky young Brando and the older Brando, circa “The Godfather”), and morphs into Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lechter in “Silence of the Lambs.”

Then there’s the two most popular staples of his star-studded act, Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, impressions he created more than 40 years ago.

“If I don’t do them, the audience will never want to see me again,” Gorshin said, only half kidding. “On occasion, I’ve left them out and had people say, ‘I was so disappointed you didn’t do Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster.’ ”

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Gorshin first made a name for himself as an impressionist after appearances on “The Steve Allen Show” and “The Ed Sullivan Show” in the late 1950s. But he’s probably best known--to baby boomers, at least--for playing the Riddler on the “Batman” TV series a decade later.

Gorshin, in fact, credits his 16 appearances as the Riddler in what was then one of the hottest shows on television as the catalyst that elevated him from opening-act status to Las Vegas headliner.

But even current audience members too young to remember the days when Vegas catered only to adults undoubtedly will get a kick out of seeing Gorshin impersonate Hollywood stars whose heyday may have be en during the Roosevelt administration.

“It’s amazing how much young people respond to me,” Gorshin said. “Because of television and everything, they’re familiar with the old guys like Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet.”

Gorshin’s repertoire of impressions numbers about 50--his Costa Mesa audience can expect to see at least 30, he says--but he doesn’t have a favorite.

“It’s just whatever the audience seems to enjoy, then I’ll seem to enjoy it more,” he said. “They respond to Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster a lot. Jack Nicholson gets a big reaction, and Walter Matthau, strangely enough. It’s surprising how big he’s become. My act has become a barometer [of a star’s popularity].”

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Although Gorshin’s home is in West Port, Conn., he’s been spending most of the past seven months living in an apartment in Los Angeles.

“I just want to be close to the industry, which has been pretty good to me,” said Gorshin, who studied acting at the School of Drama at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pittsburgh and has a long string of movie and TV credits dating back to the late 1950s.

He’s been quite busy of late. He starred in a play in Upland, “Nunsense Amen,” and recently had a couple of days’ work on “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “General Hospital.” He also has parts in several upcoming films, including “Everything’s George,” a warm comedy in which he plays George Burns that is due out next year. He also did a cameo in Adam Abraham’s Slamdance Film Festival winner “Man of the Century,” a nostalgic look at life in the 1920s, which opens Oct. 15. And he has completed a role in “Quick Sand,” a movie starring Eric Roberts.

“I want to do as much as I can,” Gorshin said. “I love it when I’m busy.”

He’ll be plenty busy tonight.

Although impressions are his mainstay, he incorporates music and comedy into his act. He said he’ll open the show with film clips of his performance in the pilot episode of “Black Scorpion,” an as-yet-unsold TV series produced by Roger Corman. The character of the Black Scorpion is a comic-book-style crime fighter. Gorshin, naturally, plays the villain, a time-obsessed character called Clockwise.

As the clips come to a close, he said, the four-piece band he’s bringing with him will begin playing. That’s the cue for Gorshin to make his entrance: “I’ll say, ‘This, my friends, is just the beginning,’ then I’ll sing, ‘But the best is yet to come.’ ” That will lead into a series of impressions.

“The discourse on the impressions is, ‘I’ve been so many people all my life. . . ‘ “ he said, adding that he’ll end the segment by singing “I’ve Got to Be Me.”

For Gorshin, that means being an entertainer.

His flair for doing impressions began in high school in Pittsburgh.

“I saw ‘The Jolson Story’ and I just started singing like him,” he recalled. “I’d do him everywhere I went--school and parties, holiday functions.”

He expanded his repertoire of impressions while working as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre in Pittsburgh. People would come into the theater and, if an Edward G. Robinson picture was playing, for example, he’d snarl a la Robinson: “All right, three of us are going down the aisle; Only one of us is coming back.”

Gorshin’s show business career was officially launched at age 17 when he won a Pittsburgh talent contest: First prize was a one-week engagement in a local nightclub.

Gorshin can’t explain how he goes about creating an impression. “It’s a natural gift I have. I can’t do everybody, but when I see some of these people in movies, I’ve come away capturing something of them--enough so to do them in an act.”

So what makes a good impression?

“Clean clothes and good grooming habits,” he joked.

* “Frank Gorshin in Concert” tonight in the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. Advance reserved tickets: $25 for adults; $22 for OCC students, senior citizens and children younger than 12. Tickets at the door: $28. (714) 432-5880.