Eat your heart out. For the past quarter-century, Stan Heimowitz has made his living working with Marilyn and Elvis impersonators, cancan dancers, fire-eaters and a magician who can levitate audience members right off the stage.
"I love my job," said the 70-year-old Bay Area booking agent, whose Celebrity Gems Entertainment's Rolodex is bulging with 2,000 performers he and his wife, Barbara, book at parties, concerts and corporate events around the Bay Area and beyond. "And if you love what you're doing, then it's not really work."
Inspired by a childhood fascination with the prime-time plate-spinners and jugglers brought on stage by variety-show icons like Ed Sullivan and Sid Caesar, Heimowitz walked away from a social work gig with Santa Clara County and started Celebrity Gems in 1987 out of his house. The rest is face-painted, hysterical history.
We spoke recently with Heimowitz, who still operates his business from his Castro Valley home. His comments have been edited for clarity and length.
Q How did you first get interested in the entertainment business?
A Growing up in New Jersey, I just loved watching those classic TV shows of the '50s like Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan. They were live variety shows and I fell in love with the whole idea -- the comedy, the music, the skits, with a potpourri of entertainers from plate-spinners to the Beatles. Years later, I decided to recreate that same magic I'd seen on TV and try to make a living providing that sense of wonderment for others. I still feel like I'm channeling Ed Sullivan.
Q How did Celebrity Gems come into being?
A I founded the company in August 1987 with my wife, Barbara, a schoolteacher. Our two kids helped a lot by letting me bounce ideas off them. It was slow at first, but gradually I began building up a client base. I'd match up my entertainers with bar mitzvahs and birthday parties. If a company doing a product launch in downtown San Jose wanted, say, a marching band, I'd go find them a marching band.
My entertainers are all independent contractors, and a lot of them do what they do as a labor of love in addition to their regular jobs. I have a balloon man, for example. He's also a lawyer, but balloons are really his first love. I can get you a solo guitar player or a Columbo impersonator. One of my entertainers is overweight and wears glasses so we got him a gig as Ben Franklin.
I always pay my performers before the job and I add on 10 to 15 percent for my fee. It's a small world out there and since everyone knows everyone else in the entertainment business, word would get around quickly if I didn't treat my entertainers right.
Q How has the business changed over the past 10 years or so?
A Most of my clients are in the Bay Area and in the dot-com heyday there was a lot more money floating around because companies were doing more events. For example, we did sales meetings with an Austin Powers impersonator for Verizon in five different cities, and things like a stilt-walker for a product launch by a high-tech company in San Jose. There was a lot of money and a lot of excitement.
The recession has taken some of that work away. But there's still a need for companies to do morale-boosting events or thank-you parties for their customers, so I'm still doing the same things; I just have to market it hard because some companies have merged or gone out of business.
Luckily, the shopping malls have replaced a lot of the corporate business we'd lost. The malls are all doing things to attract customers, so we'll do musical series, kids club events, that sort of thing.
Q What are the big trends nowadays?
A Hollywood impersonators are huge. The Hollywood themes, whether it's actor look-alikes or Oscar red-carpet parties for Silicon Valley companies, are big, too. I can arrange to get you paparazzi impersonators or Indiana Jones or the Marx Brothers or Pee-wee Herman. You name it, I can get it.
I think the Hollywood impersonators are popular because of the fantasy people have of rubbing elbows with movies stars, even if they're not the real ones. You're walking down the red carpet at an employee-appreciation event and that makes you feel important, being photographed, say, with Sean Connery.
Q Who are some of the more sought-after entertainers on your roster?
A I work with a couple thousand independent contractors nationwide and each year I connect people with about 200 jobs. Everyone, of course, loves my Michael Jackson. There's a cross dresser from L.A. who does him so-so, but mine's a definite Michael. Elvis is very popular. I have one really good one out in Oakley who can also do Roy Orbison and Neil Diamond. My stilt-walker's quite popular; for a meet-and-greet outside an event, he'll be standing there welcoming people as they pull up in their cars.
Q What have some of your wackiest productions been?
A We sent over The Temp From Hell for an April Fool's joke once. This guy came in and pretended to have a fit in the office. He complained about the fax machine and phones not working right and about the long hours. The CEO was freaking out and about to call 911 when the employees who'd hired him said it was all a joke.
And of course there are the animal acts. I had an organ grinder with a monkey but he got out of the business. His marriage broke up and he lost his house three years ago.
I think he's working full time again, but he's not doing the monkey thing anymore. It's too bad.
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