Madonna lookalike tribute act Denise Bella Vlasis, 59, from Los Angeles, US, started her career as early as 1985 when Madonna was only rising to fame and just becoming shown on MTV.
Denise started as a young actress and dancer looking for work when the comparisons to Madonna started to flood in as the singer began to rise in fame, in 1985 she was cast for a few small parts on television and small movies as a Madonna lookalike or Madonna herself.
She said: "If you look at Madonna’s face you can clearly see there were always changes to her look and that was far before any surgery. As I have aged my face has changed in a different way and people see the differences that have always been there.
“People also respond to me when Madonna is in the news. So maybe people see a similarity without seeing an exact look to her. But when Madonna is in the news, that is when people will make comments to me whether they think I look exactly or just remind them of her.
“I have gone this long with a very successful career without having to change how I look.
“My focus is on my performance not getting an exact face. I know many Madonna impersonators who have had lots of surgery to look like Madonna and in my opinion, the surgery did not make them look closer to her."
Although most of her fan experiences have been positive, Denise does remember times when fans would get overly attached or emotional to the idea of her being the real Madonna, including a time when she was chased through an airport by fans thinking she was Madonna herself.
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More Like Madonna
By Shannine O’Neill
**EXCLUSIVE**
THIS MADONNA lookalike has had to endure being chased through airports when fans mistook her for the real pop star because she looks MORE like Madonna than the star herself now does after becoming unrecognisable over the years .
Madonna lookalike tribute act Denise Bella Vlasis (59) from Los Angeles, USA started her career as early as 1985 when Madonna was only rising to fame and just becoming shown on MTV.
Denise started as a young actress and dancer looking for work when the comparisons to Madonna started to flood in as the singer began to rise in fame, and in 1985 she was cast for a few small parts on television and small movies as a Madonna lookalike or Madonna herself.
However, Denise never intended to pursue a life of a Madonna tribute act until in 1985 when she submitted her acting photograph and resume to a production company for a role in music video parts as a regular actress.
It wasn’t until the secretary for the production company opened her photograph and realised how much she looked like Madonna and suggested to the production company that they submit her to the ‘make her video’ nationwide contest Madonna was having at the time.
Before she knew it, Denise met with a television producer and within 48 hours had filmed and sent her submission to the Madonna contest that she had never even heard of due to not having a television at the time.
After only a week, Denise made it past 2,000 entries to the first runner-up place of the competition, where she started to get recognition around Los Angeles from as a ‘Madonna double’.
From here, Denise decided to take the “do you know who you remind me of?” comments and run with it, creating shows with back-up dancers, set lists and eventually being able to sing live while dancing to Madonna’s biggest hits, after a few years of vocal coaching to get Madonna’s sound as perfect as she could.
Although Denise fell into the Madonna role through chance rather than pursuit, she completely embraces her Madonna similarities, but still knows her own individuality and has not and does not want to get plastic surgery to look more like Madonna, as many other Madonna tributes have.
“Each of us have had faces that change over the years,” she said.
“If you look at Madonna’s face you can clearly see there were always changes to her look and that was far before any surgery. As I have aged my face has changed in a different way and people see the differences that have always been there.
“People also respond to me when Madonna is in the news. So maybe people see a similarity without seeing an exact look to her. But when Madonna is in the news, that is when people will make comments to me whether they think I look exactly or just remind them of her.
“I have gone this long with a very successful career without having to change how I look.
“My focus is on my performance not getting an exact face. I know many Madonna impersonators who have had lots of surgery to look like Madonna and in my opinion, the surgery did not make them look closer to her."
Denise is aware of the scrutiny that Madonna has received due to her changing looks and plastic surgery and praises her for being able to overcome the haters in a time when social media is so focused on youth and beauty and understands that she is trying to remain relevant.
“I think there is not one person in the world who is scrutinised more than Madonna,” she said.
“None of us know what it is to be in the public eye as an icon of her calibre so who are any of us to judge her?
“I can’t imagine what it takes to try to feel relevant in a youth obsessed culture.
“She is an artist and she is her canvas.
“And if she feels making changes helps to express her artistic self- then I say Right On Madonna.”
Over the 40-years of being Madonna, Denise has realised that she can use her popstar-lookalike power for good and has worked with countless children’s charities, holding the hands of dying children so they can believe that their favourite popstar is there with them at the end.
Denise has even been asked to sit by the side of a man who was in hospice care after he was having consistent dreams of Madonna, so his partner asked if she would sit by him and let him talk to her as if she was Madonna in his last moments.
Once while on a set in Hollywood Hills working as a Madonna lookalike, a woman past her and told her that her daughter had recently passed away due to being caught in a crossfire gang shooting in Los Angeles and mistook Denise as Madonna and so took it as a sign from her daughter as she loved listening to Madonna and played her songs day and night.
Denise has worked as Madonna for television shows and movies and as a tribute, but her favourite experience that has come from her career has been performing personal parties for the likes of Christina Aguilera and Seal, which she recalls Seal getting on stage with her and ‘voguing’ while she sang as Madonna.
Although most of her fan experiences have been positive, Denise does remember times when fans would get overly attached or emotional to the idea of her being the real Madonna, including a time when she was chased through an airport by fans thinking she was Madonna herself.
“The worst part about being a Madonna tribute artist is dealing with the personal feelings of people and their judgement of Madonna,” she said.
“I am pretty used to the controversies of Madonna at this point and know I will get some of the same slack or hate when she does something crazy but Madonna has been my best teacher in how to let sh*t roll off your back, how to age as a woman, how to not take it personal when the haters hate.
“Throughout my over 40 years dealing with some ‘less adjusted’ Madonna hopefuls (people who want to live their lives believing they are Madonna because they look like her) there have been a slew of those types.
“I have never wanted to BE Madonna or pretend I was her. I have had my own identity since day one.
“I had gone through getting chased at an airport when Madonna was in the headlines more.”
Above all else, Denise has actually been able to meet Madonna twice throughout her career, once while auditioning as a dancer for the ‘Who’s That Girl’ tour in the early 1980s, and the other was when she was cast as Madonna for an MTV commercial.
“I met Madonna in the early 80s when auditioning for her WHO’S THAT GIRL tour,” she said.
“Her choreographer Jeffrey Hornaday asked me to come in and I auditioned as a dancer and made it to the second round where at that point they brought Madonna in to watch and choose.
“The first time I was excited to meet her, I was hungry and ambitious and didn’t think much about feeling nervous. Her choreographer introduced her to me so it was a more relaxed atmosphere at Debbie Reynolds dance studio.
“I had to freestyle dance for her after doing choreography.
“She was professional and polite to me.”
Denise remembers being incredibly excited to meet Madonna the first time and recalls her being polite and professional, whereas the second time she met her she remembers having to sign an agreement not to look at her, walk towards her or talk to her, which made Denise much more nervous than the first time she met her.
“The second time I met her I was cast as Madonna for a commercial for MTV,” she said.
“I also did the casting for several other girls who were supposed to look like Madonna.
“We signed a huge agreement not to walk towards her or talk to her but she walked past me and another girl and said ‘looks good, looks real good’.
“The second time we were both older and Madonna’s name became a much bigger name.
“I was instructed to not look at her, talk, etc, so I was too nervous to be normal- but it was fun to see her beautiful daughter on set.”
Denise’s Madonna career started by chance, but she has been so grateful for how many doors Madonna has been able to open for her in her career, including being one of the top agents for celebrity lookalikes in Hollywood.
“My Madonna work led to me being one of the top agents in Hollywood for this kind of niche entertainment,” she said.
“I started my company after seeing a demand for this kind of entertainment.
“I am constantly helping film directors or other agents find ‘hard to find’ talent.
“My company has slowly grown into my work as; producer, casting agent, talent finder, and coach to new talent.
We even booked an event for Madonna for her Madame X tour.”
Denise has been able to work in a multitude of areas in the entertainment industry over her 40-year career because of Madonna.
“As a tribute performer I have worked as the following: cast as an actor as ‘Madonna’, actor replacing Madonna, a Madonna type, a parody of Madonna, a Madonna voice, a Madonna voice-over, a body double, a body parts model, a stand-in, a decoy, and a print model, a radio host, touring live tribute show, an entertainer at parties, bar mitzvahs, corporate events, international casinos and clubs, Vegas, and have worked many celebrity events as the ‘hired entertainment’.
“My personal favourites were parties for Seal (one of my all-time favourite artists), he was so much fun.
“I grabbed him to come on stage with me and he followed me right up. He did exactly what I asked him to do. This was one of my most favourite Madonna moments ever.
“Also performing for Christina Aguilera’s last night of her tour in Hawaii was pretty amazing.
“I have rode in parades with big name politicians, flown to private islands to entertain well-known people, and finally have worked with Madonna herself. This line of work has led me to the unknown and impossible.”
Although being recognised as Madonna has come with its downfalls, Denise is grateful for the opportunity to be able to use her career for good, including helping charities and acting as Madonna for people and children in hospital or hospice.
“What I love most about working as a Madonna tribute artist is that I have a form of magic that I can utilise to do something bigger with what I do to the world,” she said.
“When I first started this work I began to unfold its possibilities, so I reached out to every single charity for children (after helping my mom with a holiday party as Madonna and seeing the joy it brought to the children) I knew I possessed a certain kind of superpower being Madonna.
“So I pledged my life to using this super power to do something good for others. I’ve sat in hospitals with dying children. I have sat at the bedsides of people taking their last breath of life. I have held the hands of young faces who did not know the difference between me or her and thought for a moment Madonna was singing right to them.
“I had a unique experience with a man in hospice where he kept dreaming of Madonna so his partner asked if I could come to his bedside and visit him. It was a dark room and as I came in- he finally woke out of his deep state and started talking to me as if I were her. I held his hand and just let him tell me the stories.
“Another time, I had a mom come up to me because her daughter was shot and her daughter was a huge fan of Madonna. I just held her while she wept when meeting me. I did not mention I was not her. I just let the moment be what it was. This work has deepened my heart in so many ways.
“I vowed after learning about my Madonna magic- that it was a gift that I would do good with. In my 40 years walking in Madonna’s shoes- I have made sure I only used her name to bring good, respect, love, joy, hope.”
ENDS
