In a Glass Darkly

The search for Mao clones who could play the Great Leader in theater and film productions began in the late 1970s. Not only did these actors have to look like Mao, they had, above all, to be politically reliable.1 The foremost of their number is Gu Yue, a PLA actor who has made a career of playing Mao. In 1992 Gu Yue was told he could not do product endorsements in his Mao persona. That did not stop him from trying to make up for lost income. In August 1993 Gu, with a number of other performers, put on a "charity concert" for the peasants of the flood-stricken Heze District in Shandong. Chinese press reports claim that he demanded and got an appearance fee of twenty thousand yuan. According to outraged journalists, all Gu had to do for this not inconsiderable sum was to appear on stage and salute the amassed comrades. In answering these questions posed by a Hong Kong reporter, Gu Yue is fairly circumspect, although something of the afflatus of Chairman Mao does seem to make its way through the verbiage

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