Jim Bailey

LOS ANGELES - Female impersonator Jim Bailey's onstage portrayals of famous entertainers were so uncanny, not just their voices, but also the mannerisms, costumes and hairdos, that sometimes people thought they were seeing the actual women.

But one couple in Las Vegas, seeing Bailey in his signature role as Judy Garland, took it a step further.

"The audience was from a plumber's convention," wrote Bruce Vilanch in a 1997 article for the Advocate magazine. "One plumber turned to his wife and said, 'I thought she was dead.'

" 'She is,' the wife replied, 'This is the daughter.' "

Bailey, 77, died Saturday at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Los Angeles. The cause was a heart attack brought on by pneumonia, his longtime manager, Steve Campbell, said. Bailey lived in Santa Clarita and had been retired for several years.

He had been a Las Vegas staple, but also appeared on numerous television shows beginning in the 1970s, including "The Ed Sullivan Show" (as Garland, singing "The Man That Got Away"), "The Carol Burnett Show" (as Barbra Streisand, singing a duet with Burnett), "Here's Lucy" (as Phyllis Diller) and numerous appearances on "The Tonight Show."

He did live, full-length concerts as his characters at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, where he appeared in 1972 as Garland and Streisand.

"Bailey is a devastating talent and a phenomenon," Mary Murphy wrote of that show in the Los Angeles Times. Although she admired his Streisand, it was his Garland that got to her. "As Garland, he is magnificent," Murphy wrote. "He is sentimental and strong, like a lion and a kitten."

He hated being called a drag act, much preferring to be described as a "character actor" or "illusionist."