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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

All shook up

Female Elvis impersonator takes on the boys

By: Hadas Parush

Posted: 08/14/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Fully transformed, from Manrie Lee Gudz to Miss Elvis Lee. August 13, 2011. (HADAS PARUSH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) (HADAS PARUSH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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(HADAS PARUSH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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Marnie Lee Gudz is an associate at Wal-Mart, an avid hockey player, a painter and an Elvis tribute artist known as Miss Elvis Lee. (HADAS PARUSH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

Pink nail polish on her toenails shows she can still be girly, but Marnie Lee Gudz will take any opportunity she can get to put on a suit and channel the King.

The process of turning from Marnie to Elvis is a bit lengthier than it might take for the other guys participating in the Manitoba Elvis Fest on Saturday in Gimli.

"I can't just grow my own sideburns and have them there all the time," said Gudz, from East Selkirk, after spending at least an hour in the girls' washroom smoothing her hair back to a strikingly accurate Elvis-style do.

Hair is only one of her issues in becoming Elvis.

"I do have to keep physically fit," she said, "so that I can keep the body style and do the moves as Elvis. And as for hiding things, I wear things a little bit smaller and tighter to hide those things..."

Her sister, Marla, is her manager, and her mom, Terry, helps her get ready before every show.

When Gudz is not working at Walmart, playing hockey, or painting, she goes down to her home studio and practises her singing and dancing as often as she can.

Being the only female in the Manitoba Elvis Fest, Gudz said at first it was hard for the guys to take having a female in the fest. In fact, Gudz was not even accepted into the festival until David Greene began running it three years ago. After three years of being part of the festival, she is starting to feel more comfortable with the guys.

"The first year I must say it was very difficult as a female. I think I heard a comment at one point that a female Elvis is like having a white Ray Charles, so I guess it's the kind of things like that. I guess it's kind of an ego thing too," Gudz said.

But they all get along now, and once in suit and character, Miss Elvis Lee was as much an Elvis tribute artist as any of the other guys and the audience didn't appear to be all shook up at all.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 14, 2011 A14

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