The Man Who Would Be the King

There he was up on stage--the student leader, football player, all-around good sport grinning sideburn to sideburn as a hypnotist put him under: Deeper, deeper, you’re getting tired, your eyes are closing, you’re relaxed, you’re very relaxed, you’re profoundly relaxed . . . you’re Elvis!

That’s all it took. Twenty-eight years ago in an auditorium at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, a hypnotist named George Sharp did his abba-dabba act on an opera student named Raymond Michael Hebel. The rest is a hunka-hunka history.

In his trance that night, the lanky lad did “Blue Suede Shoes,” and the crowd went wild.

By the time he was 21, he had abandoned his hopes for La Scala. Instead, he was playing Vegas, and he hasn’t stopped.

By day, he’s Mr. Hebel, a teacher of vocal music at Moorpark High School. But in his time off, he’s Raymond Michael, an Elvis impersonator called one of the best by no less an authority than Dick Clark, the wizened sage of “American Bandstand.”

Michael’s next gig is a benefit for Cal Lutheran on Jan. 29 at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. In the 12 years he has done the annual show, Raymond Michael has raised more than $100,000 for his alma mater.

In return, Cal Lutheran offers a performing arts scholarship named in his honor. It would not be a stretch to presume that this is the only Lutheran college in America with a scholarship named for an Elvis impersonator.

How many more years this will go on is an open question.

“I know I’m no spring chicken,” Michael said the other day as he surveyed the Elvis commemorative plates lining the walls of his Moorpark dining room. “I’m hoping for another 10 years. That’s my dream.”

Michael’s enthusiasm for the King is undimmed, although he has now performed as Elvis three years longer than Elvis did. At 46 and a trim 187 pounds, he still can squeeze into ornate skin-tight jumpsuits identical to those worn by Elvis during his leaner years.

“I’m 2 1/2 inches taller than Elvis was, but our torsos are exactly the same length,” Michael said.

His quest for the historical Elvis has been intense. Michael has studied hundreds of hours of Elvis’ performances. His suits are made--for as much as $5,000 each--by the man who made Elvis’. He sometimes wears a necklace reputedly given by Elvis to one of his sidemen. He knows the structure of Elvis’ face as intimately as his neighbors know their cul-de-sac, and he uses makeup by the pound to replicate it.

“I like to joke that with the right makeup, the right light and the right costume, I still look nothing like him,” he said.

He’s close enough, though. Annie Liebovitz, the famed portrait photographer, shot him as Elvis for a recent ‘Got milk?’ ad. But looks fade, and hunks-o’-love turn to love handles. All too well, Michael knows that time stops for no Elvis.

“I’ve seen plenty of plastic surgery,” he said, “and most of it doesn’t look too good. I’ve seen 300-pound guys going, ‘Hey great, now I can be the fat Elvis . . . “

Hundreds of Elvis impersonators haunt the nation’s lounges, but Michael distances himself from most of them--the talent-challenged, the sleazy, the bump-and-grind guys.

“The difference is my act has credibility,” he said. “A lot of guys say they just came in from Vegas. What they don’t mention is they just took the bus from Vegas--they never performed there.”

Michael plays the Strip frequently--as well as Palm Springs, county fairs, amusement parks and shows that companies stage to rev up the sales force, galas where he sometimes appears with ersatz Sinatras and Streisands.

It’s a living, he says--and a good one. Michael makes more as a part-time Elvis than he does as a full-time, top-of-the-scale high school teacher.

Even so, he’s true to his school--he was Moorpark’s valedictorian in his day--and to his college, where his wife, Pam, is director of alumni relations.

That’s why he does the benefit every year. It’s his way of saying, “Thank yuh. Thankyuhveruhmuch.”

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.