McAvoy Layne keeps spirit of Mark Twain alive
By Allen Pierleoni, Sacramento Bee
See that man over there, the one with curly, grayish-white hair? Is that Mark Twain of Hannibal, Mo., or McAvoy Layne of Incline Village? It’s hard to tell them apart – and that’s the point.
For 24 years, Layne has transformed himself into the famous humorist as the “Ghost of Mark Twain” to deliver more than 2,000 performances to fascinated audiences in venues worldwide.
Closer to home, he stars in the year-round “An Evening With Mark Twain for Adults” at the Mark Twain Cultural Center in Incline Village. The venue is a cross between a theater, a music hall and a living-history museum co-owned and curated by Layne and his wife, Rebecca (www. marktwainculturalcenter.org, www.ghostoftwain.org and www.spiritoftwain.org).
Layne’s popular “Mark Twain’s Tales of Tahoe” summer cruises take place aboard the two sternwheelers that ply Lake Tahoe – the Tahoe Queen and the M.S. Dixie II.
Layne played the ghost of Samuel Clemens in A&E’s Twain biography and in the Discovery Channel’s award-winning documentary “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Layne as Twain will have his say Thursday at The Big Read/Bee Book Club event, where he will remind us that the reports of his death “are greatly exaggerated.”