Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 16, 1993 TAG: 9306160198
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"This isn't a summer thing," says Ray, rubbing a palm over his smooth head. "It's all year round."
Nary a strand has grown on his skull top for a year and a half.
The razor solved one problem, but it had an unexpected byproduct.
His head shaven and his eyeglasses off, Ray resembles Charles Barkley, a professional basketball player of great girth and acclaim.
For those of you who do not follow professional basketball, Barkley is noted for his rough style of play and his willingness to spit on obnoxious fans; holler at obnoxious refs; and, most recently, be cited by obnoxious tabloid newspapers for a fling with Madonna - herself, coincidentally, obnoxious.
Barkley plays for the Phoenix Suns and was named the most valuable player in the National Basketball Association this season.
His is a highly recognized, easily marketed face.
Charles Ray's basketball career is only part time, in pickup games at First Baptist Church. He played for Northside High School in the 1970s.
These days, Charles Ray is a 31-year-old diabetic saddled and blessed with a face that looks like Charles Barkley's.
"I was in the Laundromat and some guy said, `Man, you look like Charles Barkley,' " he said. "What would Charles Barkley be doing in a Laundromat in Virginia?"
Washing his clothes, most likely, but for Ray, the inquiries come daily.
He's the chef at Belle's restaurant in the Holiday Inn on Franklin Road. His co-workers rib him. Visitors do double takes. When he shows up at the gym dribbling a basketball, some players gawk.
"They ask what my name is. When I say `Charles' they almost pass out," he says.
A year or so ago, Ray wondered if there was more to his Barkley connection than just a curiosity. He hoped to interest Barkley in together filming a public service commercial for the American Diabetes Association.
He's written to Barkley and to the Suns, to the NBA, to sportscasters for the major networks, to Arsenio Hall, to Nike and to the diabetes association. Scraps of paper, scratched with phone numbers from distant area codes, litter the tabletop in his Rugby Boulevard duplex.
He has pleaded with Barkley for the two to meet, Nike to design special shoes for diabetics and Hall to exert any influence he might have.
Ray has a slim stack of polite return letters, all rejections. His wife wonders if he's obsessed.
"Charles [Barkley] must think I'm some kind of lunatic," he admits.
By month's end, he'll have an entry mailed to Ladies' Home Journal's celebrity look-alike contest.
Problem is, Charles Ray isn't quite sure what he wants to do with his likeness, but he knows there's got to be a way to exploit it.
"My buddies say I don't play like Charles Barkley, but they admit I look like him," says Ray.
Surely that's got to be worth something.
by CNB