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“I cried a long time,” he informed The Times, recalling the primary time he noticed the movie, “Elvis: That’s the Way It Is.”
Mr. Kwok received a pair of Elvis-impersonation contests within the early Eighties, The South China Morning Post reported, however native Chinese followers typically mistook him for an imitator of different well-known musicians — a Beatle, say, or Michael Jackson.
By 1992, Mr. Kwok had give up his job and branded himself the “Cat King,” the Chinese moniker for Elvis. He’d additionally set his sights on a better quarry: Western expatriates and vacationers.
His guitar was generally out of tune, his self-taught English a bit tough. (His enterprise card misspelled Presley’s first identify.)
Still, he earned a residing, and mentioned that being Elvis beat manufacturing unit work. Some revelers got here to know him as Melvis — no relation to Relvis, an impersonator within the United States — or the “Lan Kwai Fong Elvis,” a reference to a nightlife district the place he typically carried out.
Mr. Kwok died on the finish of a 12 months by which coronavirus infections in stay music venues led the federal government to shut them for months on finish, emptying the sidewalks of his potential prospects. Ms. Ma mentioned that he spent a lot of his pandemic downtime watching Elvis movies and taking part in guitar in his condominium.
Mr. Kwok is survived by his spouse, Anna, and their two youngsters, a son and a daughter.
His spouse, who was additionally his supervisor, informed The Times in 2010 that she had not initially supported his marketing campaign to be Elvis. “But then I was moved by his persistence and devotion to the job,” she mentioned.
It’s arduous to discover a job one loves, she added. “Now that he’s found it, I am happy to support him.”
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