Mary Reynolds: Queen Elizabeth's lookalike retires job after 34 years out of respect for late monarch
COUNTY OF ESSEX, ENGLAND: Mary Reynolds, a Queen Elizabeth II clone is ending her 34-year career to honor the late monarch. She will nevertheless preserve the garments as a memento and a tribute to the woman who, in her words, "felt part of the family."
Reynolds, an 89-year-old from the Essex County market town and civil parish of Epping, started her career as a lookalike of the Queen in 1988. Since she was 17 years old, she had received many compliments on how much she resembled the late queen. Over the course of her 34-year impressionist career, Reynolds appeared in various films and TV shows, including the 1990 comedy Bullseye with the late Sir Roger Moore and Doctor Who in 1988.
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The Ladbible reported Reynolds saying that while she felt "lucky" to resemble the Queen, her days as a clone will soon be over. When questioned about her decision to retire, she responded, "I mean, it's a change of an era now, it's all going to be very weird. I was watching the television the day before and felt that there was going to be some bad news, which of course eventually came and it makes you feel very, very, very sad."
Reynolds added, "And then you do sort of realize that will be the end as far as I'm concerned... out of respect, I don't think one should do anything." She admits that, although she thinks she made the right decision in putting an end on her impersonating career, it wasn't without a great deal of sadness.
Reynolds said, "I've just moved home... and I've got two boxes full of hats and I've just found somewhere to put them and I thought: I'm not really going to need them any more. It makes you feel very sad." She revealed that she would probably keep the clothes since "[they] have been a part of [her] life for so long."
Reynolds claimed, despite never having met the Queen in person, to have been among the crowds present on the Mall for her wedding and coronation. "I slept overnight in the road with my boyfriend, in tents," she said. "We got very wet and we got very lucky because one of the buildings there had a radio so we actually heard the whole of the service. And as they put the crown on her head, the heavens opened."
When asked what she had learned from the late monarch, Reynolds replied that she had always tried to "act like the Queen and to be nice to and respect people" and that there will never be another monarch like Queen Elizabeth II. The late monarch, according to Reynolds, was "the Queen - not Queen Elizabeth, not the Queen of England, it was the Queen."
