By Jason Hancock

If there are any doubts about how much Micky King loves Elvis, just look him in the eyes.

Or look at his chin.

Or at his nose.

While he is quick to point out how much he sounds like Elvis, and that he has “been doing Elvis longer than Elvis did Elvis,” he is also well aware that he wasn’t born with “The King’s” looks. He says his nose is too typical, his eyes are too wide and Mother Nature didn’t bother to give him much of an upper lip.

This wouldn’t be an issue for most people. But King has been an Elvis impersonator since he was 14 years old. And ever since a car accident 18 years ago, Elvis, along with a disability check, is how he supports himself and his 78-year-old mother.

“[My mother] can’t stand the idea of a nursing home, and neither can I,” King said. “I’ll take care of her until I’m 110 if I have to. I promised her I’d do my best to make sure she never loses her house, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

That drive to take care of his mother is why in January, after years of talking about the idea, King finally went ahead with a plan he thinks could be his ticket to stardom. With $12,000 in credit cards in hand, King surgically altered his face to look like Elvis Aaron Presley.

“Most people either look like Elvis and sound like Humphrey Bogart or look like Humphrey Bogart and sound like Elvis,” he said. “I already sound like Elvis, and I’ve only seen two or three impersonators out there that are better than me. So if I look like Elvis, all the sudden I have a leg up.”

Boyhood dreams

King was born Michael Reed in Iowa City in 1959 (Micky King is his stage name). His family lived in several cities before settling in Des Moines when he was 9.

In 1973, a chance trip to a downtown secondhand store changed his life.

“I was a big John Wayne fan,” King said. “I saw this record with a picture of a cowboy on it, and I figured that guy has to know John Wayne.”

King got his mom to buy him the record, which turned out to be the Elvis album “Flaming Star.”

“I heard his voice and thought it was fantastic,” he said. “So I started singing along with it, and one day while I was listening to the radio with some friends, I started singing along with an Elvis song. They all started staring at me. I said ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘You sound just like him.’ I thought they were full of it. So when I went home that day and recorded myself. I realized I didn’t sound just like him, but I sounded a lot like him.”

His first gig was that year at Bill Riley’s Iowa State Fair Talent Search. From there, he slowly started doing more shows, peaking at about a dozen a year, including nine more trips to the Iowa State Fair. But he’d never considered doing it full time. He was a carpenter for a while, then a printer, and was making a good living. But in 1990, he was badly injured in a car accident.

“I was sitting at a stoplight when a guy rear-ended this Ford Bronco sitting behind me, and he crashed into me,” King said. “My spine is cracked. I didn’t believe it when they said it, but the doctors at the Mayo Clinic said I would never work again.”

King got a $30,000 settlement and $20,000 in lost wages from the accident and put all the money into his show.

“But I went the wrong way,” he said. “I bought equipment. I bought a van to haul the equipment. I bought soundtracks, costumes, wigs and other stuff to make the show. It never dawned on me that the face is what I needed. I could have gotten into mainstream entertainment by now if I had the face back in the ’90s. Instead, I bought the equipment thinking if I sounded like him, I’d get enough work. I do get work, and I get paid very well, but not enough to support myself.”

The realization

King hates money.

“I’d like to buy a one-year-old Rolls Royce, put a four-wheel-drive chassis under it and go mud running to show the world my contempt for money,” he said. “We need money to live, but it’s a real pain.”

He also hates credit cards, and in his entire life, he’s only had one. It was an emergency card in case something happened while he was on the road. In the 10 years he’s had it, he’s used it three times.

But around five years ago, he began looking for money, of sorts.

“I started looking for investors who might want to help me finance the plastic surgery on my face,” he said. “I tried several different business people around Des Moines; I even went as far as writing a letter to Donald Trump.”

Nothing panned out, and King was ready to throw in the towel when a Honda commercial inspired him to keep going.

“The song said ‘Hold on tight to your dreams,’” King said. “I figured, why should I give up on my dream?”

The dream of stardom and the dream of actually having the means to take care of his mother the way he feels she deserves.

“I don’t like living down to the penny, and I hate having to see my mother live that way. She’s 78, she raised eight kids and she shouldn’t have to live that way.”

So when King registered his business, “Micky King’s Elvis Tribute,” and started getting tons of credit card applications in the mail, he decided “What the hell?”

“The worst that can happen is they can say no,” he said.

He was quickly approved for the cards, and all the sudden, he had enough credit for his surgery.

“I called Dr. Cherny that day.”

Under the knife

“It’s somewhat unusual,” said Dr. Eugene Cherny, a board certified plastic surgeon and the owner of Heartland Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery P.C. in Urbandale. “But all the procedures he had done were for him to look better; they were just modeled after a handsome guy.”

Cherny studied photographs of Elvis and analyzed the different aspects of his face. While King will never be able to look exactly like his idol, Cherny knew he could help. King was ecstatic.

“He does nose jobs and face lifts and tummy tucks on a regular basis to make his living, but to take someone and turn them into somebody else, that’s a project worth doing,” King said. “I think he was pretty excited when we talked about it.”

King started with a face-lift to make him look younger and to narrow his eyes. Next came a lip implant to give him Elvis’ trademark snarl. A chin implant and a nose job followed, and nearly two months after his initial visit, King lay bandaged, bruised and in a great deal of pain.

“There were days when it hurt,” he said. “It hurt a lot. It was a rough recovery.”

And when the bandages came off…

“I don’t really think I look all that much like Elvis,” King said. “But I knew it was a risk going in.”

It will take a few months for the swelling to go down, Cherny said, and until then the success of the surgery can’t really be judged.

“But I don’t think it’s necessarily about looking like Elvis,” Cherny said. “I think it’s about self confidence. He won’t be completely healed for a few months, but when he’s on stage, with the lights and the music, and he’s moving around like Elvis, that’s when he’ll look like the King. And I can’t wait to see him perform. I’ll be sitting in the front row.”

For King, it’s back to rehearsal. He had to turn down several gigs while he was healing, so he’s eager to get back on stage, where he makes around $400 an hour.

“The hope is with the surgery, I can raise my prices and get more work,” he said. “I want to mail my headshots to every booking agent in the Midwest. I would love to start playing shows all over the country. But I just want to get out and perform again really soon. I can’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.”

Even if people think he’s crazy for spending all that money and going through all that pain, King has no regrets.

“Lots of people thought I was nuts, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he said. “I had to give it a shot.” CV

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