Story by Kristen Hwang | Photos by Richard Lui

On a searing hot day in the summer of 1992, Teresa Barnwell was playing double-diamond slots at the Edgewater Casino in Laughlin, Nev. It was a time when slot machines still took coins, and Barnwell was looking for somebody to give her some quarters.

“The change attendant guy came up and he said ‘Hey you know if Bill Clinton gets elected you’re going to get a lot of attention. You look just like his wife, Hillary.’ And I was like ‘Oh really, can I get some change?’” Barnwell said.

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She turned around and kept playing slots, relishing a carefree weekend away from home with friends. At that moment, the 5’2”, blonde from North Carolina had no idea that her life was about to transform.

Bill Clinton, then-governor of Arkansas, had just won the Democratic presidential nomination and he and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton were broadcast on televisions in every home.

Their faces were on the front page of newspapers and magazines across the nation. As the country got to know the Clintons, they got to know Barnwell too. In stores and restaurants, Barnwell was met with people saying “Hey it’s Hillary Clinton.” She couldn’t go anywhere without people mentioning her likeness.

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“It was happening so much I didn’t know what to do. I was commiserating with a couple of girlfriends one night and I said ‘It was funny at first, but it’s not funny anymore,’” Barnwell said from her Palm Desert home.

At the time, she was working as an advertising sales representative for The Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa. She “never, ever, ever in a million years” thought she would become a Hillary Clinton impersonator, but those comments and brief asides swiftly turned into a 23-year career that has taken Barnwell all over the world and even landed her in front of the steps of the U.S. Capitol for Bill Clinton’s second inauguration.

“I wish I could find that guy and say ‘Hey look at what happened to me! You have the honor being the first person to recognize I looked like Hillary,’” Barnwell said.

In 2016, political impersonation is the lens through which many Americans get to know their leaders. It’s a comedic art form that pervades pop culture and living rooms across the country. Nearly every week the internet is in stitches over the latest portrayal of Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.” Vaunted into recent fame by Tina Fey’s 2008 portrayal of Sarah Palin, which attracted 10 million viewers in a single night, the late night comedy show has become synonymous with political humor.

“An impersonator can be quite an important figure in breaking down how you look at a person – which things are important, which things do you ignore. They teach us how to look at some of our public figures,” said Nicholas Cull, a professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “This is a really important subfield of political communication. Satire is important. I think it is important that we are able to laugh at our leaders and sometimes this can be a way that we get to know them better.”

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But it wasn’t always so. Americans used to be much more careful about poking fun at the highest office in the land.

“In the past, a living president would be represented almost like the way they would represent Jesus in old time movies by just having a shadow or having a photograph from behind. They would really try and take care...to do it very respectfully,” Cull said.

It wasn’t until Vaughn Meader, a musician and comedian, released a comedy album in 1962 called “The First Family” spoofing President John F. Kennedy that the “mystique” of the presidential office began to be dismantled. Meader’s album, in which he impersonates Kennedy, was an overnight success. It was the fastest selling record in history to that date. It won a Grammy for Album of the Year, and Meader became a household name.

Kennedy himself is said to have enjoyed Meader’s impressions. While doing research in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Cull said he stumbled across written evidence of a presidential aide who heard Meader’s impression on the radio and mistook him for the real deal. In a panic the aide sped to the White House, fearing that Kennedy had tanked his career over a crass joke.

“It went all the way up the chain of command, and when they told President Kennedy about it he thought it was hilarious. He said ‘I’ve got to get copies of those records to send out with my Christmas cards,’” Cull said.

Meader paved the way for generations of presidential and political impersonators to come, but his fame was short-lived. A year later, Kennedy’s assassination and the nation’s collective mourning brought Meader’s career to a screeching halt. He was never able to recover.

The same is true for impersonators of all kinds. When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash, Diana impersonators were devastated. When Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, Al Gore impersonators faded into the background, while Bush impersonators had eight years or more of steady work ahead of them. Celebrity impersonators - like the many Elvises, Michael Jacksons or Marilyn Monroes seen on Hollywood Boulevard - can be timeless, but often the career of a political impersonator is ephemeral. Their careers live and die in a strange parallel universe that often only lasts as long as the politician is in the limelight.

“There are times when I think ‘Hillary why do you want to run again? Why do you want to put me through this? Why? Why? Why?’” Barnwell asked in mock anguish.

Barnwell’s career as a Hillary Clinton impersonator began innocuously enough. The first job she landed was an appearance at a fundraiser for a Catholic church in Anaheim in 1993. Her paycheck was $40, and all she had to do was stand up and wave alongside a fake Elizabeth Taylor and a fake Pope.

But over time, the jobs got more interesting and the pay more lucrative. Clinton was a different kind of first lady. She took an active role in politics, and that helped Barnwell find jokes and land jobs. In the 1990s, Barnwell made more than 30 appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” She had cameos on “The Nanny” and on “Mad TV” as well as in some b-rated movies. She’s worked fundraisers at the Playboy Mansion, ran a booth at the 1996 Republican National Convention and filmed commercials in Australia and Sweden. In 2007 and 2008 when Clinton made her first bid for the White House, Barnwell said she was at her busiest doing comedy routines at corporate events and private parties of political donors non-stop. In 2011, she was in a photo spread in the April issue of Rolling Stone magazine with Bill Maher.

Her most interesting job to-date: a photoshoot with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The job was shrouded in mystery at first. In the spring of 2011, Barnwell got a phone call from a booking agency inquiring whether she’d like to do a photoshoot in London with Alison Jackson, an award-winning British photographer famous for her work exploring the cult of the celebrity by using impersonators. Barnwell had worked with Jackson before and agreed to the job.

“As we were working through the details, the agency said ‘Oh by the way this photoshoot is with Julian Assange.’ My heart stopped,” Barnwell said. “I was hoping the FBI or somebody wouldn’t show up at my door.”

She flew to London and was driven through the English countryside to Ellingham Hall, the 600-acre estate Assange was staying at on bail before seeking asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange has been hiding in the embassy since July 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape allegations that he denies. Assange and his legal team have said that once in hands of British or Swedish authorities he would be turned over to the U.S. to face charges over publication of classified material.

The photo, which depicted Clinton, Assange and a Middle Eastern man playing Texas Hold’em, appeared in a European magazine.

At times, Barnwell said she’s been mistaken for the real Hillary Clinton. In June of 1996, she was asked to make remarks at the dedication of a school in South Central Los Angeles. The school was to be renamed the Mary R. Shepard Christian Center after the matriarch of the local community.

She walked on stage wearing a pistachio-colored St. Johns suit very similar to one Clinton had been photographed in just days before and gave a funny speech. But Barnwell could tell the crowd wasn’t quite getting the jokes. As she left through the kitchen, a worker came forward, his outstretched hand shaking slightly. “I’m so thrilled to meet you. You’re the first lady,” he said. Miffed, Barnwell told him she was an actress and her secret service agent was really her husband.

“He got this real angry look on his face, because he felt like he’d been fooled,” Barnwell said, adding that most of the people at the event thought she was the real Clinton. “You would think people would get the joke but not everybody does.”

One time, though, the joke was on Barnwell. She and Pat Rick, a Bill Clinton impersonator, attended the California Ball in Washington, D.C. after President Bill Clinton’s 1997 inauguration. Around 9:30 p.m. they arrived at the ball and as they stepped through the doors of the convention center, the band began playing “Hail to the Chief.” Everybody in the room ran away from the two impersonators.

“We looked at each other like ‘Was it something we said?’ It was so ironic,” Barnwell said laughing. “That’s when we realized the real Clintons had arrived, and everybody wanted to see them and they were all rushing up to the stage.”

Rick, who has been impersonating Bill Clinton since the 1990s too, said Barnwell has always been a “dead ringer” for Hillary. She also has an advantage over newer, younger people who might see an opportunity impersonating the Democratic frontrunner. Barnwell is older, plain and simple. As Clinton has aged naturally, so has Barnwell.

“Teresa really and truly had the look then and she has the look now,” Rick said. He expects her to get a lot more work as November approaches but knows that Bill Clinton impersonators like himself will have to take a back seat. It’s just the nature of the business.

Barnwell is a little more cautious, however. She doesn’t doubt that there will be a lot of work in the coming months. Already in this election cycle she’s appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and flown to Miami for the 50th birthday party of a long-time Hillary Clinton supporter. But Barnwell said as politics have become more polarized in the U.S. finding jobs has become harder.

People tend to shy away from hiring political impersonators. They don’t want to run the risk of offending anyone. And the audience can get aggressive.

Back in the day, Barnwell used to work the Republican National Convention because people thought it was funny to have a Hillary Clinton impersonator telling jokes and selling trinkets. Now, Barnwell said you couldn’t pay her to get anywhere near the convention.

“I’ve had people pull my hair. I’ve had people look at my teeth. I’ve had people grab my breasts...I’ve had to deal with people who have said a lot of unflattering things about Hillary, Chelsea, Bill, just a lot of craziness,” she said. “I’ve been in situations where the crowd got out of control and I had to have real security escort me out of the room. I just can’t imagine being in that real situation of running for president.”

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Barnwell has met her doppelganger. In January 1996, Clinton stopped in Los Angeles as part of her book tour for “It Takes a Village.” Barnwell bought a ticket to the event and waited in line to meet Clinton. When she got her minute with the then-first lady, she said “Hello Hillary, it’s so nice to meet you. Has anybody ever told you that you look like Teresa Barnwell?”

She said she’ll always be grateful to Clinton for the accidental career that she’s had. Barnwell, a registered Democrat, is a self-described moderate who has voted for both Republicans and Democrats her whole life, but she plans on voting for Clinton in November. She even voted for her as a write-in candidate in 2008 as a symbolic gesture of thanks

“It’s looking like she’s definitely going to be on the ballot, so yes, absolutely I will be voting for Hillary. A vote for Hillary in a sense is a vote for me.”

Kristen Hwang is a reporter with The Desert Sun. Reach her at kristen.hwang@desertsun.com or follow her on Twitter @khwangreports.