Actor and entertainer Ray James is used to portraying villains but none have been as fearsome as his latest role playing Britain's most cantankerous pensioner.

Ray, 51, has played a ghostly assassin in the blockbuster The Mummy and doubled for Bob Hoskins, who played a crooked accountant in the Michael Winner thriller Parting Shots.

Now he is forging a new career as a lookalike of Warren Mitchell's East End loudmouth Alf Garnett.

Ray said: "I've played him for years as part of comedy shows on the circuit. However, with a resurgence in Warren's character, with his recent Chairman Alf TV show and the popularity of lookalikes in general, I've decided to concentrate on him.

"He is a miserable old man but everybody seems to love him and wants to hear what he has to say, no matter how insulting.

"He's a great British tradition so it's real pleasure to play him.

"I don't think I look much like him and I'm certainly not like him but once I've got my false moustache on and the make-up people seem to think I'm a dead ringer for him."

Ray said despite loving playing Alf his personality could not be more different.

He said: "Alf is a massive West Ham fan but it is not a team I support. The funny thing is I don't like football at all so I don't think you will see me alongside the Alfs of this world on the terraces at Upton Park.

"People just love the way Alf is, telling it like it is. He obviously goes too far and I don't agree with lots of his views but it's great fun to be him, if only for a short time.

"I don't parade around as Alf in my spare time. It's a purely professional thing for me but I do practise at home, in front of the mirror. When I'm out of costume you would never know my secret alter-ego.

"I also do a good impression of Steptoe and find the two of them quite similar. They have the same hat. You just have to change the face a bit."

Entertainers

Of Alf's many victims, including his daughter, played by Una Stubbs, none came off worse than his Liverpudlian son-in-law, played by Cherie Blair's father, Tony Booth.

Alf's trademark insult to him, "You randy Scouse git!", is known across the world as it was adopted by Sixties band The Monkees as the title for one of their singles.

Ray said: "I don't agree with Alf's views on Liverpudlians. That city has produced some of this country's finest entertainers and performers."

Ray, in his disguise, is also featuring as one of the characters on the current ITV fly-on-the-wall documentary, The Lookalikes Agency.

Ray said: "It's really taking off. All us lookalikes seem to be in real demand at the moment."

He is now touring with his show, called It's Alf, and also makes other personal appearances but has been performing on stage, in cabaret clubs and in television and films for most of his life.

In The Mummy, filmed partly at Shepperton Studios, he was one of an army of assassins trying to kill heroes John Hannah and Brendan Frazer.

During the filming of Parting Shots, he was Bob Hoskins's double for a scene where Hoskins's character, Gord Layton, is attacked in a swimming pool by the film's hero, played by the singer Chris Rea.

Ray, of Eastbourne, has also played a murder suspect during the filming of a crime re-enactment on BBC's Crimewatch.

He said: "I don't always play villains but I think they can be quite fun."

Ray is one of a handful of lookalikes from Sussex achieving success.

Andy Harmer, 21, from Eastbourne and his girlfriend Camilla Shadbolt, 18, from Lewes, are professional David Beckham and Posh Spice lookalikes.

Gary Tate, 42, also from Eastbourne, is achieving fame as a George Clooney lookalike. He is even marrying a Nicole Kidman double.

Ray hopes the real stars enjoy the work lookalikes do.

He said: "I've never met Warren Mitchell but I hope he likes what I do. I think if you treat celebrities with the respect they deserve, look like them and imitate them well they probably like it.

"However, if someone did a

bad job it would be a different story."

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