A woman who has spent more than 30 years working as the Queen's lookalike is quitting the job after the monarch's death.
Mary Reynolds, 89, was first told she looked like Queen Elizabeth II when she was just 17, and first became a lookalike in 1988. During her 34-year career, Mary has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, even starring alongside the late Sir Roger Moore in the 1990 comedy film Bullseye, as well as an episode of Doctor Who.
However Mary, from Epping, in Essex, has decided to leave the role as a mark of respect after the Queen passed away at Balmoral on Thursday (September, 8). Ms Reynolds, who has been part of Style Lookalikes since 2005, told the PA news agency she felt "lucky" to look like the Queen, but that her days as a doppelganger are to come to an end.
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She said: "It's been a great privilege to look like her because I think she's so incredible. 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. And then you do sort of realise that will be the end as far as I'm concerned... out of respect, I don't think one should do anything."
Ms Reynolds said she had been approached by a Russian television company after the Queen's death on Thursday asking her to don her impersonator outfit. She said: "There was something about a Russian television company wanting to do something with me and they wanted to see me dressed up and I said, the only way I would dress up as the Queen would be in a black dress."
She 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 added that she will probably keep her outfits of the Queen though as "they've been part of my life for so long" and said that she had two separate wardrobes for her normal and royal outfits, but would dip into "the Queen's" closet if she was going "somewhere special".
Recalling moments from her career, Ms Reynolds noted the excitement some members of the public would experience when they saw her. She said: "We went to Uganda for British Airways and Sheraton Hotels and they had a racing event on the shores of Lake Victoria.
"I was just walking around and an African woman dressed up in her robes was going 'ooh' every time she saw me because I was 'the Queen'."
In another moment she remembered having to be rescued while filming for an Indian movie in Greenwich, London, because "there were so many people wanting pictures". Despite never meeting the Queen, Ms Reynolds said that she was present at several of her most important milestones.
She said: "I was in the Mall when she got married and I was just off of the Mall for her coronation. I slept overnight in the road with my boyfriend, in tents. 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." Ms Reynolds added that she always tried to "act like the Queen and to be nice to and respect people".
"She was a person who was so much light and she was a very well-loved person and friends with everybody," she said. "She just felt like part of the family, almost.
"I've had all these years of doing the work and it has helped me earn some money, but at the same time it was a pleasure for people to see you and say: 'It's the Queen.'
"Wherever you went in the world, it was the Queen - not Queen Elizabeth, not the Queen of England, it was the Queen. There will never be anyone like her."
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