LOS ANGELES -- From 9 to 5, he is a desk-bound bureaucrat buried in county paperwork, but when he leaves his cluttered downtown office behind, Fred Leaf becomes another man.
With his deep brown eyes, rugged features and athletic build, Leaf has the unusual distinction of looking just like movie star Burt Reynolds, a resemblance that has paid off handsomely.
When not serving as the audit chief of Los Angeles County's Department of Health Services, Leaf, 40, is kept busy moonlighting as a Reynolds look-alike in movies, television shows and commercials.
'It's like leading a double life,' Leaf said in a deep voice which -- you guessed it -- sounds like it should belong to Burt Reynolds.
'You come to work in a three-piece suit, but you leave in tight jeans, a shirt unbuttoned half-way down and cowboy boots, which is what people think Burt Reynolds should wear,' he said. 'It's crazy.'
But it pays well. For the last nine years, Leaf has earned between $20,000 and $70,000 annually as a look-alike, a generous supplement to his $60,000-a-year county salary.
'I earn as much in eight hours (moonlighting) as I make in 30 hours at the county,' Leaf said. 'I feel almost guilty -- for about three minutes.'
Indeed, Leaf, who lives in the Hollywood Hills with his wife and their 18-year-old son and 21-year-old daughter, has few complaints. His county job provides security and a challenge, he says. Moonlighting provides glamour and easy money.
'I have the best of both worlds.'
Hollywood-based Ronald Smith's Celebrity Look-Alikes, which handles the nation's top celebrity clones, says Leaf is one of its busiest look-alikes and outranks doubles of other top draws, such as Dolly Parton, Don Johnson, Tom Selleck, Joan Collins, Sylvester Stallone, Joan Rivers and Linda Evans.
'He could work every day of the week if he wanted to,' spokesman Howard Blasberg said.
Leaf works primarily as a stand-in and even does voice-overs for Reynolds. He also does roles for television and commercials that require a Reynolds look-alike and has traveled the globe as a master of ceremonies for various conventions.
When the makers of 'Star 80,' a film about murdered Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratton, needed someone who looked like Reynolds for a party scene, they called Leaf.
He has appeared on all the national talk shows. On Merv Griffin, he and Burt showed up together.
But not all of his show biz work is glowing.
Leaf's roles have included a male prostitute who worked in a 'look-alike whore house.' In a recent episode of the television show 'Superior Court,' Leaf played a con man who, posing as Reynolds, attempted to convince rich elderly women to finance his next movie.
Leaf has spent so much time as Burt Reynolds during the last decade that the two have developed a 'friendly relationship,' he said.
In fact, Leaf's career has thrived even when Reynolds' has not. For instance, rumors that the movie star is suffering from AIDS, which Reynold's denies, 'has not affected Fred Leaf's popularity at all,' Blasberg said. 'Burt Reynolds has had three lousy movies in a row. It hasn't affected Fred.'
But despite the high pay and glamour of Hollywood, Leaf says he would never leave his county job to become a full-time entertainer.
'It's fun but it's kind of superficial,' Leaf said of show business, and 'I don't know what kind of security it would offer.'
'This job makes you use your mind. And as Burt himself said to me once, 'What are you going to do when Burt Reynolds goes down the toilet?''
Leaf was already comfortably ensconced in his job with the county's health department when Reynolds became famous in the early 1970s. People kept telling him how much he looked like the movie star, so he decided to find an agent and see if there was work for a Reynolds double.
'I figured, 'You might as well use all your cards,'' he said.
Looking like Burt Reynolds does, however, have a price. Men anxious to take a crack at Reynolds' macho image have tried to pick fights with Leaf -- even after they realized he was not Reynolds.
Being a Burt Reynolds double has also been difficult for his daughter, he says. 'I think it was hard for her because this man who was a sex symbol to her friends was her dad.'
And looking like Burt Reynolds makes him 'extremely self-conscious. You feel kind of like a spectacle in a zoo. People scrutinize every little thing about you, every part of your body.'
'You see women walking back and forth in front of your office when you know they don't need to be there. It makes you feel weird.'
