Top Five Greatest Celebrity Impersonators

I just heard that the reality TV producers who brought us Last Comic Standing are working on a new reality show and will be holding open auditions around the country for celebrity lookalikes. (They start in LA starting next week.) The show (The Next Best Thing) will air on ABC this summer. I'm skeptical about this show's prospects. How much interest does the public have in celebrity impersonations? Come to think of it, apparently a lot of interest. How else to explain some of the people that regularly grace the pages of celebrity gossip magazines? A lot of the faces you see are talentless people who are famous simply for being famous. I'd like to nominate five of these inexplicably famous people as possible contestants for the show. They seem quite adept at masquerading as bona fide, enduring celebrities, so maybe they have a shot on The Next Best Thing.

My list of Top Five Celebrity Impersonators:

1. Paris Hilton. She's sort of an actress, sort of a model, sort of a singer, and sort of a hotel heiress. All of those things alone hardly justify her enduring fame. But then Paris brings that little extra something to the mix: a fifteen minute graphic sex tape where she gets it on with Shannen Doherty's skeevy ex husband, Rick Salomon. (I bet Shannon's just kicking herself that she didn't have a video of her own to market.) 2. Nicole Richie. Initially famous through her association with on again off again BFF Paris Hilton, which gives her an even more tenuous claim to celebrity than her Simple Life co-star. Her subsequent list of credits include an apparent eating disorder, and driving down the wrong side of the freeway. (Still, have to say I like her better than Paris.) 3. Kevin Federline. This one's just too darn obvious. But if you were thinking he might fade into obscurity now that Britney kicked him to the curb you're probably going to be disappointed. I think he's going to be around for awhile. 4. Jamie-Lynn DiScala. Okay, so she has a part on a great show. (She plays Tony's daughter on The Sopranos.) But frankly she's not that good in it. And what else has she done besides Sopranos? There was that Heidi Fleiss TV movie a couple years ago, but that's about it. So how to justify all the coverage she gets in the tabloids? I mean, you can't turn a page in US Weekly or People without seeing her smiling back at you with a little blurb about some aspect of her fabulous celebrity life. I think that girl is selling stories about true A-listers just so the gossip rags will cover her. Either that or she's made a deal with the devil 5. Reichen Lemkuhl. His original claim to fame, winning the Amazing Race, was actually pretty impressive. But lately he's far better known for being Lance Bass' ex boyfriend. Oh, and there was that ghostwritten memoir in which he "appropriated" the experiences of others in his description of being raped. (By "others" he likely refers to actors in a Dirk Yates adult video.) So who would be on your list of greatest celebrity impersonators?