MANY people crave fame and fortune, but if that is beyond their grasp, what is the next best thing?

Gary Strohmer may not be famous in his own right, but his career allows him a glimpse into the world of celebrity after he carved out a niche as the UK's foremost Tom Cruise lookalike.

The father-of-three, now aged 54, was first given his chance at the limelight in the Nineties after he applied to a lookalike agency.

He said: "It all started years ago. “I am the same age as Tom Cruise and in my twenties, when Tom Cruise was doing Top Gun, people started saying that I looked like him.

“People used to say to me do I know you from somewhere and people used to say I recognise you from somewhere. Then a friend of mine mentioned about me doing lookalike work.

“I dismissed it for a while but my friend told me that people can make a good living out of it. He told me that he knew agencies that lookalikes worked for and they found them work.”

Gary’s friend talked him into taking some pictures and sending them off to agencies and telling them he was looking for lookalike work as Tom Cruise.

He said that he played it down for some time as he didn’t think anything would come of it.

Gary added how a brief interview changed his life. He said: “I had a meeting with an agency called Susan Scott, they called me in for an interview.

"When I arrived the woman that interviewed me open the door to me and she said I looked more like Tom Cruise than the guy they were employing as a lookalike at the time.

“Then she offered me the job and it went from there really. I worked with the lookalike company for around ten years in the end."

The varied role of impersonating one of Hollywood's best-known stars included TV adverts, including one for Bupa care, as well as meet and greet events and themed parties.

Gary said: "I also did other work such a modelling. I preferred the meet and greet sessions more than doing the TV work and photoshoots.

“I preferred it because when you are doing things like TV work including adverts and photoshoots, there is a lot of waiting around and often I would be working all day and sometimes I would only be in front of a camera for half an hour or short while.

“With the meet and greets, I was meeting different kinds of people and talking them. I found photoshoots and things like quite tedious."

The dad-of-three also worked in sales while keeping up regular lookalike appearances, but his likeness to Tom Cruise has also had its drawbacks.

Gary revealed: "There were times when I was mobbed in the street because people thought I was the real Tom Cruise and I have been chased by paparazzi in the past when people have tipped them off telling them that I was the real Tom Cruise.

“I have three children, two boys and a girl. My daughter was too young to remember my Tom Cruise days, but my sons were old enough.

"They used to laugh and say 'oh look, dad's on TV again'. We used to watch TV and when we saw myself on TV we used to find it funny.

"I can only describe it as surreal, seeing myself on bill boards and seeing myself on TV. I have been married twice, the lookalike work didn’t cause any problems with my first wife but we split."

He thanked his current wife, Teresa, for all her support.

Mr Strohmer has written a book about his lookalike days and claims it was his wife who persuaded him to write about his days as Tom Cruise.

He held a book launch on Friday, with all the proceeds from the sales of the books up until the book launch going towards Havens Hospices in Thundersley, raising more than £500.

The book, entitled Your Face or Mine? The Adventures of a Professional Tom Cruise Lookalike, is available to buy online now.