Freaky, freaky doppelganger news.

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/dna-test-ordered-after-man-discovers-doppelganger-with-same-name-living-identical-life–c-9424560

https://7news.com.au/technology/science/you-have-a-doppelganger-and-probably-share-dna-with-them-new-study-suggests-c-8011629

Kamala/Kamahl

When I look at the dignified, rectangular face of the female candidate for Vice President of the United States of America, I see the face of a highly-respected Malaysian-born male Australian singer who was most popular in the 1960s-70s. Why? They have two thngs in common – similar names and Tamil genes. I never cease to be amazed at the talents of the Tamil people. I would love to see Kamala Harris running the USA!

https://images.app.goo.gl/rZYGdk4SbHUohRJP9

https://images.app.goo.gl/DrnzNPX3WbQTdDAb8

This doco about identical strangers broadcast tonight on Nine TV network in Australia

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/28/three-identical-strangers-the-bizarre-tale-of-triplets-separated-at-birth

Moments that will shock and stun in the story of the late Orion AKA Jimmy Ellis

I had missed the beginning of this documentary about a singer from the south of the United States who’s claim to fame was a singing voice that was naturally and astonishingly similar, even identical, to the voice of the great Elvis Presley. I was fussing over things in the kitchen and not paying 100% attention until there was one jaw-dropping “Oh wow!” moment that stopped me in my tracks. This was the bit where profile photos of Jimmy Ellis and the father of Elvis Presley, Vernon Presley were shown side-by-side. Jimmy had been an adopted, illegitimate child, with a father only listed on his birth certificate as “Vernon”. This wasn’t the only shocking moment in the documentary. Fame and money aren’t the only motivations in entertainers’ careers. There are also groupies.

Do I believe Ellis was Elvis’s half-brother? 150% I do. I’d believe it based on the incredibly similar singing voices and Ellis’ birth certificate alone, but the facial resemblance – that is amazing. This story is a reminder of how sometimes close relatives can look like twins, while at other times they can look like random strangers. Clearly Elvis got his looks from his mother and his voice from his father, and therefore didn’t look much like Ellis. This documentary is also a reminder of the way that extraordinary talents and creative drives can apparently be inherited, coded in DNA to be sent to one child or another like the random results of a throw of a dice. The pattern of apparently inherited desire to sing, along with an incredible singing voice in this documentary reminds me of the apparently inherited talent and drive in ballet dancing in another fascinating real-life mystery of DNA – the story of Somerton Man recounted in the TV series Australian Story, which I have previously written about in this blog.

I recommend this documentary about a third-rate musical career based on an astounding natural talent that cannot be dismissed, even though in many ways it is a sad story. Maybe this is not a good choice of documentary for any viewers who have not come to terms with a childhood in foster care.

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/orion-the-man-who-would-be-king

The man they thought was Elvis
The strange tale of Jimmy Ellis and one of the greatest hoaxes in music history.
LOUISE BRODTHAGEN JENSEN 13. MAJ 2017

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/webfeature/orion-eng

No they aren’t the same actress.

I’m not the only person to wonder if the older and younger actors in the latest Trivago ad might be the same actor altered with makeup etc. It appears that the actors are in fact Charlotte Weston and the Australian actor Gabrielle Miller. Was any kind of face-matching technology or expertise used by an actor’s agency to deliberately find an older actor who looks a lot like Ms Miller?

Wikipedia lists performance artist, tap dancer, mime and puppeteer as talents of Ms Miller, on top of her famous work in advertising. I think that is a remarkable committment to annoying the general public.

 

Young blue eyes….

After watching the American journalist Ronan Farrow, the son of actress Mia Farrow and supposedly the son of actor/director/creep Woody Allen, I must declare that there is no way in the wide, wide, world that Ronan Farrow is not the biological son of Frank Sinatra. Just look at those eyes! And the rest of his face, which I could happily look at for hours. He got genes for looking good from both biological parents. Life is not fair. Surely one doesn’t need to be a super-recogniser like me to see Sinatra when Farrow speaks?

I think Farrow also looks a bit like the blond actor from the TV series Starsky and Hutch, but that’s probably just a coincidental mix of similar attractive features and the blond hair. One American actor that Farrow does not look at all like is Woody Allen, and I think we can all agree, that’s a good thing.

https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/ronan-farrow-discusses-his-investigation-into/11605546

https://www.yourtango.com/2019328782/ronan-farrow-frank-sinatra-son

 

Do you see it?

When I watch this movie director’s face I also see the face of another (more) famous person. Can you see it too?

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/dexter-fletcher-from-press-gang-to-rocketman

P.S. At least a couple of other people have seen the other face too:

[TOMT] Whom does Dexter Fletcher look like?
byu/AmadeusCrumb intipofmytongue

 

 

Doppelganger doco on Nine tonight

https://www.yourtv.com.au/program/finding-my-twin-stranger/358709/

My thoughts after viewing:

Not the most entertaining or interesting documentary that I’ve seen.

The pairs of “doppelgangers” featured on the show highlight the difference between popular or conventional notions of a doppelganger and the concept as I use it, being a super-recognizer. I didn’t find it clear how the pairs of supposedly same-looking people had been discovered, but I think some pairs discovered each other by accident by living in the same town or doing stand-up comedy  in the same festival and being mistaken for the other, while other pairs used some online face recognition tool to identify their “double” in another part of the world. In the matching methods, therefore, some pairs were matched by people looking at live, dynamic people, while other matches were made by technology looking at still images of faces. Not surprisingly, one pair who were matched with face shots and technology were of very different heights in person and not much of a match for skin colour or general facial resemblance.

All of the pairs on the show were matched in genders, age, skin colour, hair colour, hair texture and even non-biological aspects of appearance such the use of glasses to see with and even similar style of glasses worn. Throughout the show the scientist studying the pairs, using computer technology to compare static images or 3D computer models of the pairs faces, compared the similarity scores given for the matches to those typically found in identical twins, so the unspoken concept of the doppelganger used in the show was for the pairs to look so similar as to be identical, but none of the pairs had similarity scores in the same range as identical twins, overall. As soon as our daughter and I started watching the show we could pick that none were identical twins; there were always differences in faces that could be spotted in an instant that wouldn’t be there in identical twins. This concept of a twin-like doppelganger is entirely different to the kind of uncanny similarity that I occassionally spot between people, which is much more like a family or genetic similarity, as in close relatives or people who have the same genetic disorder that alterns appearance, but often neither of these explaantions are obvious. The doppelganger phenomenon that I spot can go across ages, genders, races and skin tones, but often the personalities are uncannily similar, in the same way that their faces are similar. My concept of “doppelganger” violates social norms, in that it suggests that there are more fundamental similarities between people than sharing the same gender or race or age, which many people might find odd or insulting.

The resemblance that I sometimes see between apparent strangers is in multiple aspects of the face that are remarkably similar in shape and appearance, which can include the hairline, the texture of the hair, beard-borderline pattern, the pattern of the teeth and jaw width, along with things that can’t be recorded in a static photograph, such as the way a person speaks, pronounces particular phonemes in a way that is independent of an accent, the rhythm and speed of the way they speak, unique or distinctive facial expressions and the context in which they are made, which might seen incongruous, and similar gestures or postures, such as the angle at which the head is usually held, and the overall personality. My concept of “doppelgangers” goes way beyond simple visual matching of two similar but non-identical images of faces, which is a task that even a machine could be designed to do. My concept of the doppelganger takes in the whole package of sound, speech, movement and facial appearance, and none of those elements alone are interesting or remarkable, because it is the matching of the same convergence of these types of characteristics in two different people that I notice. I believe this is a reflection of a biological similarity between people, and I think there was a hint of a similar sense of biological similarity at work in the documentary. Part-way through the doco pairs were shown givng saliva samples so that they could be compared for genetic similarities, in a similar process to the popular geneological services that aim to identify distant relatives by DNA. While one pair had remarkably similar racial profiles, it appears that only one (other) pair turned out to be actually related, and they were the pair that I felt I’d have the most trouble mixing up if I met them both, because of their similar overall movement style, voices and personalities and appearance. They were both stand-up comedians, which must count as a peronality similarity. This pair nevertheless did not receive a high score from the computer for facial similarity, but tellingly, they did receive the highest similarity score when rated by a crowd of people. Sadly, the fact that human rating managed to identify an objectively real genetic similarity in one of the pairs appeared to be ignored, in the documentary while the similarity ratings of static images by a computer algorithm was spoken of as an objective fact. Once again, it appears that the common infatuation with and awe of technology is a barrier to expanding scientific knowedge of identfying other people.

Famous doubles, celebrity doppelgangers, you know what I mean….

Late-night TV is the best TV, for many reasons: programs don’t have to rate well and don’t have to pander to the mindless masses, programs can have challenging or naughty content, such as satirical comedy or heart-rending documentaries, because of less restrictions from classifications, and news TV in the small hours picks up the best part of the news-creating day on the other side of the world where all the exciting stuff happens, and late-night news TV has shows from the BBC and other overseas news networks with serious content that operates on an entirely different level to the mediocrity of news in remote Perth or down-under Australia. One of these worthy foreign news programs that you only get to see at a ridiculous time of morning is the political interview show Conflict Zone. I do love watching Tim Sebastian glaring over his specs at major foreign public figures while relentlessly demanding that they answer his questions, in full. I have no idea why these politicians and assorted suits consent to these public inquisitions. Masochistic streak? It makes 7.30 on the ABC look like daytime chat.

My super-recognizer thing often “goes off” when I watch Mr Sebastian’s mature male face, with his dark eyes fixed on his prey and his head at a lowered angle that is reminiscent of a wolf’s aggressive stance. I know of no other journo or TV personality who has this “look”. It’s confronting.

I have absolutely no conscious intention to compare Mr Sebastian to any infamous historical figure, but I can’t help automatically seeing the visual facial resemblance and the emotional similarity in the situation between Mr Sebastian’s bracing interview style and scenes from a German movie featuring a mature male actor that are so over-the-top in interpersonal fury and entertaining that they have taken on a second life as internet meme fodder.

Another pair of celebrity doppelgangers

I try to avoid watching the 1990s American TV show Walker, Texas Ranger, but on the odd unavoidable occasion when I do, every time I see the American lead female actor Sheree J. Wilson my super-recognizer brain tells me her face is in some way a match for……

….the Australian politician Terri Butler, who has an intelligent, understated style that I find fascinating, even if I don’t take her politics too seriously. Do Butler and Wilson have anything in common, apart from similar faces? No idea.