4 | JUNE 16 • 2022 

for openers
My Life as the Queen 
M

azel tov, Queen Elizabeth! Our 
friends from across the pond 
pulled out all the stops June 
2-5 to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s 
Platinum Jubilee. The four-day celebration 
commemorated Elizabeth’s 
70th year on the throne and, 
not once in all those years, my 
sources tell me, have her legs 
fallen asleep. 
It is the longest reign for 
any British monarch, just 
don’t bring that up in front 
of her son Prince Charles. 
While the Queen has been slowing down 
of late and skipped a few Jubilee events due 
to age-related issues, there’s still no word on 
when QE2 intends to hand over the keys to 
the castle to Chuck. 
The Prince of Wales, of course, is the 
heir apparent. But you can’t spell “apparent” 
without “parent,
” and his mum isn’t ready to 
entrust him with the family business just yet. 
 
Perhaps Liz can’t retire because, like a lot of 
us, her 401K has been tanking lately.
I’m not an authority on all things royal, 
but as former listeners to the Dick Purtan 
radio show may recall, I did portray Her 
Majesty on the air, with supporting Purtan’s 
People impersonating Charles and his sons 
William and Harry. The Royals’ antics pro-
vided us with years of good fodder for our 
comedy sketches.
I’ve referenced my royal radio connection 
in previous issues over the years, perhaps 
most notably my meeting and interviewing 
the real Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson. 
She was in town as a spokesperson for 
Florine Mark and Weight Watchers.
However, allow me to indulge you with 
a few new tidbits of, or should I say crum-
pets of, behind-the-scenes details about the 
escapades that ensued upon the creation of 
my Queen Elizabeth character for Detroit 
radio waves. I’ll call this, with apologies, my 
Jewbilee.
The Queen was not a voice I was looking 
to impersonate with any degree of accura-
cy — we simply made her a character. For 
that I used a high-pitched English accent. 
Remember, radio is the theater of the mind. 

Ironically, it would be an actual theater that 
would take my Queen shtick to a whole new 
level. That theater, rather fittingly, was the 
Royal Oak Music Theater on Fourth Street 
in downtown Royal Oak.
The occasion was the first annual Dick 
Purtan’s Comedy Night Out in July of 2007, 
benefitting the Gail Purtan (of blessed 
memory) Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. 
It included a star-studded line-up of come-
dians with special guest star (drum roll) … 
Tim Allen! 
The Michigan native and superstar of 
television and film has known Dick for years 
and has generously donated to several of his 
causes. He graciously agreed to appear for 
a very rare standup performance. But wait, 
there’s more!
The evening would be the debut of (drum 
roll again, please) me dressed up as the 
Queen! My appearance was a secret to the 
sold-out audience until a spotlight shone on 
me from high atop a balcony revealing yours 
truly in a matronly gown, pearls, white lace 
gloves, gray wig and a large hat. I was the 
belle of the ball! 
I screeched out a hearty “hellooooooo” 
and acknowledged the royal roar of a recep-
tion with a trademark Queenly slow-motion 
hand gesture — a cupped hand with a slight 

twist of the wrist. With apologies to Leo 
DiCaprio from Titanic — I was the Queen of 
the world! 
In the years to come, I would make sev-
eral royal appearances. As part of a WOMC 
radio station promotion, I was the guest of 
honor at a couple’s wedding who got mar-
ried at a White Castle restaurant. The FOX 2 
Detroit morning show had me on set in 
costume providing expert analysis of 
William and Kate’s royal wedding. Oh dear! 
Wait, there’s still more!
I independently produced a video during 
the royal wedding coverage that had me 
dancing to, what else, Abba’s Dancing Queen! 
I hired the services of local PR guru Carolyn 
Krieger, owner of CKC agency, to promote 
the video with the hope of securing appear-
ances on national talk shows. 
An NBC executive overseeing late night 
programming kindly responded, only to 
inform me they had already employed 
the services of Australian comedian Barry 
Humphries, famous for his/her character 
Dame Edna. But we did get a bite from an 
Ellen DeGeneres producer who showed 
some interest! Until they didn’t. A royal dis-
appointment, but not all was lost.
The pièce de résistance came when a 
prominent local ad agency saw my Dancing 
Queen video on YouTube and hired me to 
address a corporate meeting in front of 1,000 
guests plus a national satellite audience. 
I had one obstacle before agreeing to 
the appearance. By an unbelievable coinci-
dence and unbeknownst to the ad agency, 
my daughter Amy had literally just been 
hired by the firm and would actually be in 
attendance at her first big meeting! Oh, the 
horror!
But I only agreed to make the appearance 
with her blessing … which she gave me! I 
went on to provide some “royal” humor that 
fateful day, and my daughter put up with the 
humiliation of her “royal” pain of a father … 
yet again. Hey, it pays the bills. 
Ta, ta for now! 

Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/acting talent, 

speaker and emcee. Visit his website at laughwith-

bigal.com, “Like” Al on Facebook and reach him at 

amuskovitz@thejewishnews.com.

Alan 
Muskovitz

PURELY COMMENTARY

Alan Muskovitz as Queen Elizabeth

