Were there professional Elvis impersonators before Elvis died in 1977?
Apparently there were… according to Wikipedia. Question answered.
Elvis himself liked Andy Kaufman’s version the best.
Did Elvis himself count?
After a little google searching, it looks like the first Elvis impersonator was a guy named Jim Smith, who started impersonating Elvis very shortly after Elvis himself just started making it big in the mid 1950s.
From here: http://www.cybercloud.com/elvis/jim/jim.html
Other sites note that Jim couldn’t sing or play the guitar. He just looked the part and lip synced along to Elvis records.
You’ve read this month’s Fortean Times, right?
Actually, I don’t subscribe to that. Never been much of a Fortean, in fact; that’s just one of those useless facts I happen to have on hand.