Photographed at Fort Negley
Most actors dream about finding one role in their careers that seems custom-made for them. Dennis Boggs discovered that role in 1990 and has been playing it ever since, making roughly 250 appearances per year as the 16th president.
Boggs' foray into the land of Abraham Lincoln didn't stem from a lifelong fascination with the president or a desire to continue his legacy.
"I'm from Southern Middle Tennessee and North Alabama," Boggs tells the Scene. "Abe Lincoln wasn't my childhood hero."
But in 1990, the retail grocer who dabbled in community theater was asked by a director to shave his mustache, color his beard and tackle the role of Lincoln in a local production of Abraham Lincoln and the Songs He Loved. The show ran periodically for the next six years at venues ranging from local retirement homes to Nashville's Summer Lights festival before concluding at a performance with the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
Boggs thought being Lincoln was behind him, but the character was about to take on a life of its own — in January 1997, a teacher in Murfreesboro invited the actor to do a Lincoln presentation for her class.
"I tried every way in the world to get out of it, and she wouldn't take no for an answer," Boggs says. "So I put together a very elementary-level program about Abraham Lincoln and took it to these third-graders. I was absolutely terrified. But they liked it."
When Boggs returned home from the appearance, he admitted to his wife, "I've got a feeling that I've never had before." She encouraged him not to grow his mustache back and see what happened.
Over the next couple years, through word of mouth, Boggs booked more presentations throughout the state — so many that he quit his job in 2000 to pursue a full-time career in the role.
"I've had my Lincoln in about 34 states," he says. "And I go places that I never dreamed Lincoln would go." Those places include camps for terminally ill children, maximum-security prisons, the Lincoln Memorial, Civil War re-enactments, Sons of Confederate Veterans gatherings, the Washington, D.C., Historical Society and even the Grand Ole Opry.
But there is still one place Boggs dreams of performing: "The holy grail for a Lincoln presenter is to deliver the Gettysburg Address on November the 19th at the cemetery in Gettysburg," he says. "You know, if that's supposed to happen, it will happen."
In the meantime, Boggs is consistently amazed at the response his Lincoln gets wherever he goes. "I may go into an inner-city school and when [the students] first see me, they think it's some kind of big joke. But when Lincoln — not Dennis — starts to tell his story, they start picking up things that they can relate to. Lincoln had a lot of losses in his life ... a lot of failures in his life. He suffered with depression and low self-esteem. There's something for everyone to relate to [with] this character."
To better educate others about Lincoln's remarkable life, Boggs has spent every day of the past 23 years reading about him. The actor also recruits new Lincoln impersonators, including three in Nashville alone. They're not competition as far as Boggs is concerned: For him and the thousands of Lincoln impersonators around the country — 160 of which he claims as friends — there are never enough Honest Abes to go around.
"I don't know that I'll ever be remembered for anything that Dennis personally did. ... But that's OK," he says. "It's well enough that people remember Lincoln and that time period. And it's very important that we remember what it took to keep this country together."
More From the 2016 People Issue
The Celebrity Chef: Maneet Chauhan / The Gold Medalist: Scott Hamilton / The Perception Changer: Kent Wallace / The Blogger: Melissa Watkins / The Biker Chaplain: Allen Tanner / The Man: Charles Kaster / The Islamic Leader: Rashed Fakhruddin / The Tubatroll: Joe Hunter / The Dog: Doug the Pug / The Emancipator Impersonator: Dennis Boggs / The Booker: Kathryn Edwards / The Right Brain/Left Brain: Coke Sams and Clarke Gallivan / The Professional Ass-Kicker: Eric Young / The Watcher: Debbie Field
