Hong Kong Elvis Impersonator Dies at 68

“I cried a very long time,” he advised The Instances, recalling the primary time he noticed the movie, “Elvis: That’s the Manner It Is.”

Mr. Kwok received a pair of Elvis-impersonation contests within the early Nineteen Eighties, The South China Morning Put up reported, however native Chinese language followers usually mistook him for an imitator of different well-known musicians — a Beatle, say, or Michael Jackson.

By 1992, Mr. Kwok had stop his job and branded himself the “Cat King,” the Chinese language moniker for Elvis. He’d additionally set his sights on a better quarry: Western expatriates and vacationers.

His guitar was typically out of tune, his self-taught English a bit tough. (His enterprise card misspelled Presley’s first identify.)

Nonetheless, he earned a dwelling, and stated that being Elvis beat manufacturing facility work. Some revelers got here to know him as Melvis — no relation to Relvis, an impersonator in america — or the “Lan Kwai Fong Elvis,” a reference to a nightlife district the place he usually carried out.

Mr. Kwok died on the finish of a yr through which coronavirus infections in dwell music venues led the federal government to shut them for months on finish, emptying the sidewalks of his potential prospects. Ms. Ma stated that he spent a lot of his pandemic downtime watching Elvis movies and taking part in guitar in his residence.

Mr. Kwok is survived by his spouse, Anna, and their two youngsters, a son and a daughter.

His spouse, who was additionally his supervisor, advised The Instances in 2010 that she had not initially supported his marketing campaign to be Elvis. “However then I used to be moved by his persistence and devotion to the job,” she stated.

It’s laborious to discover a job one loves, she added. “Now that he’s discovered it, I’m blissful to help him.”