48-year-old was regular on ‘The Tonight Show’ and performed at White House Correspondents’ Associated dinner
Dubya has outlived his double.
Comedian Steve Bridges, best known for his spot-on mimickry of former President George W. Bush, was found dead by a maid at his Los Angeles home over the weekend.
Although no foul play is suspected, an autopsy has been scheduled for the 48-year-old comic, who had just returned home from a gig in China and complained of “super jet lag” when he collapsed.
The real Bush, who is 65 and still going strong, sent condolences to Bridges family.
“Steve was not only a funny man, but a kind and decent human being,” Bush told The Associated Press via his spokesman. “My heartfelt sympathies go out to his parents, his siblings, and his entire family.”
Unlike Bush, Bridges was a native Texan born in Dallas who found his calling as a child by doing Three Stooges impersonations.
Eventually, Bridges expanded his repetoire to politicians.
His impersonation of the syntax-challenged Bush was so on the money it earned him an invitation to the White House for a visit in 2003.
“I tell you: You see a videotape where someone looks like you, acts like you, talks like you — that’s weird,” Bush said when they met, Bridges later recounted.
Three years later, Bush invited his doppelganger to perform at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Bridges said it took two hours of makeup to get the Bush look right — and months of study to get the mannerisms down.
“I try to become that person in a funny way,” Bridges told the Washington Post in 2006. “I try to act like him, from the mannerisms to the phraseology.”
While Bridges was best known for sending up Bush, he was a bipartisan mimic who also did impersonations of President Obama and former president Bill Clinton.
Bridges, who was a regular on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” also did mean Rush Limbaugh and Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions.
csiemaszko@nydailynews.com