Double Star

Double Star is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It was published in 1956 and received a Hugo Award the same year.

It is about a down and out ham actor. A brilliant mimic and pantomimist, Larry Smythe ("The Great Lorenzo") might have been another Chaplin had not his poisonous self-centerdness kept his socially isolated. Reduced to sleeping in a coin-operated cubicl., he is down to his last imperial when a spaceman hires him to double for a public figure. It is only when he is reviewing the tapes for his impersonation that he realizes how deeply he was hoodwinked.

Lorenzo grows tremendously as a person during the story, for the person he's doubling for is none other than Joseph Bonforte, literally a good and strong political leader. When the role he assumes becomes permanent on the death of Bonforte (who had been kidnapped and drugged into insensibility by political opponents), Smythe puts on more and more of Bonforte's persona.

Finally, Penny (Bonforte's adoring secretary) says, "I never loved anyone else." Smythe has tranformed from self-centeredness to nobility.