During her gender-blending performances, Patty Elvis might croon seductively into a woman’s ear one minute, then pantomime going down on a man the next. And those Ed Sullivan Show cameramen who shot Elvis Presley from the waist up in 1957? They wouldn’t know what to do with Patty Elvis’s upper half, which sports a pair of queens the King would have appreciated.
When she’s Elvis, Manning–a 40-year-old Catholic-school graduate from the northwest side–is a pop culture-drenched, big-sideburned riot. She does a fine take on the singer’s voice, and she’s skinny like Presley predrugs. But unlike some Elvis impersonators, she doesn’t expect her audience to behave as if they were witnessing the second coming. Nor does she play the fact that she’s a woman for shock value, a la The Crying Game, or emulate the old-line drag queen’s off-with-the-wig denouement.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Don Bromley, a Chicago photographer, is a fan who’s caught Patty Elvis’s act many times. “She wiggles her ass a lot like Elvis, and you think, ‘Oh yeah, Elvis must have been pretty hot, because look at her, she’s hot and she’s Elvis.’ She’s got these big lamb-chop sideburns, but she’s doing all this lap-dancey kind of thing in the audience, and she’s incredibly cute, and you’re just going right along with her.”
As Manning remembers it, “I wasn’t the only one trying to be funny. We were always laughing and stuff. At the table, there was always silliness, milk coming out of somebody’s nose. You had to try not to do it, because Dad would get mad. But you did it.”
Patty Elvis will perform at Pops Highwood, 214 Green Bay Rd., Highwood, on April 19 and 20; call 847-266-1313 for information. Then she’ll appear at the Boulevard Cafe in Chicago, 3137 W. Logan Blvd., on May 11; phone 773-384-8600 for information.
