Impersonators

The Securities and Exchange Commission said con artists were impersonating its employees and pressing brokerages and money managers to turn over records in "emergency" inspections. In other instances, investors have been tricked into giving impersonators private information, access to brokerage accounts or money, the SEC said. The regulator has been alerting investors of people posing as SEC staff since at least 2007, according to notices posted on its website.

The False Prince A Novel Jennifer A. Nielsen Scholastic: 344 pp., $17.99, ages 10 and older Most children want to be recognized as someone special. In "The False Prince," Jennifer A. Nielsen takes that desire to an extreme with a romp of a medieval-themed, middle-grade novel. This kickoff to her new "Ascendance Trilogy" is a swashbuckling origin story about orphans forced to compete with one another for a chance to take the crown. The book opens with a boy running through the streets being chased by a cleaver-wielding butcher hoping to retrieve a stolen roast.

Michael Jackson's death has had an electrifying effect on business for those in Las Vegas who make their living imitating the self-proclaimed King of Pop in all his moonwalking, crotch-grabbing glory. One club proprietor hopes to launch a permanent Jackson show by the star's birthday in late August, and booking agents have seen surges in applications from would-be impersonators and calls for their services. In a town in which guys made up like Elvis will marry you, serve as emcee at your business conference or sing "Viva Las Vegas" at your private party, Royal Talent, a booking agency for impersonators, said its Michael Jackson act is now the most requested.

A funny thing happened whenever I set out to see Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady.” I'd invite one of my moviegoing pals to join me and then find myself later that evening at “Shame,” “My Week With Marilyn” or the glorious “Pina.” The reviews for “The Iron Lady” weren't all that glowing, but Streep came in for her usual chorus of hosannas. For some reason, this wasn't proving to be much of a lure. Even after the Oscar nominations came out, with two-time winner Streep making history with her 17th nomination, “The Iron Lady” was still a no-go with them.

Investigators are searching for one or more people who claim to be police officers selling magic show tickets for $25 each to raise money for the department, authorities said Thursday. The department issued a warning Thursday that "neither the Costa Mesa Police Department nor the Costa Mesa Police Assn. sells tickets to magic shows, circuses, rodeos, etc.," Investigator George Johnson said. "There may be some magic show out there, but it's none that we know of," he said.

An Inglewood man who allegedly assumed the identity of a teacher for more than a decade has been charged with perjury, false impersonation and theft, a spokeswoman for the district attorney said Wednesday.

Police appealed to the public Tuesday to assist them in catching thieves known as "trash-can burglars" and another criminal called the "tool-belt bandit." Det. David Straky of the Los Angeles Police Department said thieves masquerading as gardeners are believed responsible for about 30 daytime burglaries across the Westside since February.

When the angry letters and calls started last year, Los Angeles lawyer J. Christopher Kennedy said he dismissed them as the misdirected problems of another lawyer who happened to share the same name. But when the complaints kept coming--from desperate clients and indignant lawyers--Kennedy said he began fearing for his own reputation and for that of his law firm, Irell & Manella, which also has offices in Newport Beach.

There's never been a better time to be Abraham Lincoln. This morning, John Kendall will groom his Quaker-style beard, brush off his stovepipe hat and drive to his dream job: posing as Honest Abe at schools throughout the Southland. He's been earning a respectable living this way for three years.

Marilyn Monroe grips Elvis Presley in a mad, desperate embrace, their passion burning as hot as the eerie public fascination that keeps them both on the front pages of supermarket tabloids. Suddenly, Karen Carpenter bursts in on the carnal scene, her shock nearly as fatal as the eating disorder that ultimately would kill her--Elvis, or so she had thought, had been her man.

Blank stares and double takes follow him from the moment he enters the downtown Ramallah square, where thousands have gathered to celebrate the Palestinians' statehood bid at the U.N. That distinctively large nose. The green fatigues. A scruffy, gray beard. And of course the signature black-and-white kaffiyeh. Wait … is that? Waving a giant Palestinian flag, the Yasser Arafat impersonator bellows to the crowd: "National unity!" He is instantly mobbed by laughing spectators, all wanting to pose for the spray of cellphones cameras.

At a youthful 55, Roger Guenveur Smith is at least a few decades too old to carry baseball cards in his wallet, but the one he takes out to show has a special meaning. The memories he discusses on the outdoor patio of an Echo Park coffee shop are not serene: The card — which he found at a swap meet a few years ago — is a replacement for one he burned more than 40 years ago. On the card is Juan Marichal — then a San Francisco Giants pitcher — who, one summer day in 1965, at bat in the third inning of a close game, hauled off and hit Dodgers catcher John Roseboro, who he thought had provoked him. He hit Roseboro hard, with his bat, in the head, three times — enough to draw blood from a 2-inch gash.

Three former American Apparel Inc. employees who last month sued the Los Angeles company and its chief executive over alleged sexual harassment have filed a new lawsuit alleging defamation. Filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the latest lawsuit seeks damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and impersonation online. The suit names the company, Chief Executive Dov Charney and a company photographer. In the lawsuit, Irene Morales, Alyssa Ferguson and Tesa Lubans-Dehaven said that after they filed sexual harassment lawsuits in March, fake blogs purporting to belong to them began showing up on the Internet.

When outgoing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson turned down a petition to pardon Billy the Kid (1859?-1881) last month, he obviously didn't have to deliver the bad news to the Kid's face. But when the subject of forgiving another 19th century outlaw arose in Los Angeles in 1933, the suspect claimed to be present. "I'm the original Jesse James," a white-haired gent confessed to officers at the old Central Police Station. The notion that he had been killed in 1882 by fellow gang member Bob Ford (known thereafter in Missouri as the Dirty Little Coward)

Silver Lake resident Charles Scott bypassed the malls and the jewelry district in downtown Los Angeles in shopping for an engagement ring. Searching for something out of the ordinary, he surfed onto Etsy and started clicking through photos of handcrafted diamond rings. Using the online marketplace's "shop local" function, Scott found a Pasadena jewelry maker whose handmade Moroccan-inspired wares caught his eye. "I wanted to not have to go to a store and haggle with someone who sells diamonds all day," Scott said.

John Hawkes would prefer that you, dear reader, not get to know him too well. Nothing personal, you understand. It's just that Hawkes, known for playing Sol Star in HBO's "Deadwood" and Bugsy in "The Perfect Storm" opposite George Clooney, believes that it's best for a working actor not to let his personal life upstage his screen personas. "I feel like my real strength as an actor is that no one quite knows me," Hawkes said, hanging out one recent afternoon at the Hollywood club where he sometimes plays in a band when he's not on camera.

Edward Moss, an L.A. actor who has been impersonating Michael Jackson since 1996, has been selected to play the pop singer in the dramatic reenactments of his trial on E! Entertainment Television. The channel's "The Michael Jackson Trial," based on testimony from the Santa Maria courtroom where Jackson faces child-molestation charges, will air nightly once jury selection is completed.

A Riverside man used his resemblance to Los Angeles Rams tackle Darryl Ashmore to steal jewelry from women and scam money from men, going well beyond bar-stool banter to virtually assume the NFL player's identity in local nightclubs, authorities charged Thursday. Darryl Bernard Nolan, 25, wore Rams jerseys and an NFL jacket, opened a checking account and rented a pager in the offensive lineman's name, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.

Before going on stage, six nights a week, dressed in drag as Joan Rivers, Frank Marino painstakingly applies his own makeup for an hour in his star dressing room. As producer of his own show, Marino keeps a chart on the dressing room wall he checks nightly giving the audience counts. "It is color coded red or green to show if I went up on that day from last week. " Translating the chart, he says, "We currently average about 400 tickets a night. To be honest I would like to get that up to 600. " Marino arrived in Las Vegas as an unknown in 1984 to star as the Joan Rivers impersonator in the drag show "La Cage" at the Riviera.

Eddie Carroll, an actor who for decades gave voice to Jiminy Cricket in Disney projects and impersonated Jack Benny in a noted one-man stage show, has died. He was 76. Carroll died Tuesday from a brain tumor at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his wife, Carolyn. "He was so proud to do both roles," his wife said. "He just admired the whole fantasy of Jiminy Cricket, and he loved the man . . . who was Jack Benny." In 1973, Carroll became the second actor to voice the cricket, who was the title character's conscience in the 1940 animated film "Pinocchio."