That's right. It's not really Gorbachev. Ronald V. Knapp of Huntington Beach, a commercial real estate broker and all-around fun guy, is almost a dead ringer for the Soviet leader (with the help of a little fingernail polish), and he has decided to make the best of the resemblance.
This week, Knapp won a contest at Ron Smith Celebrity Look-Alikes, a Hollywood agency that markets clones of President Reagan and Michael Jackson, among others. Afterward, he posed at a piano for a photo session, arm-wrestling with Reagan look-alike Jay Koch. Knapp said he was singing an Italian song, and "Reagan" was singing "Row, row, row your boat . . . ."
Knapp, whose 5-foot-9, 185-pound frame has a chunky look, said a friend called him soon after Gorbachev was named secretary-general of the Soviet Communist Party, joking that he had seen Knapp's picture on the front page of The Times.
Knapp looked for himself and told his friend, "You know, you're right." After that, hundreds of people commented on the resemblance, he said.
"I've been stopped in the streets in Miami, in Freeport in the Bahamas, in Huntington Beach," said Knapp, who is the divorced father of five children, all of them in college. A friend has nicknamed him "Gorbi."
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-04/local/me-17737_1_ronald-knapp
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