BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – Tudaracatos is fighting discrimination against the people of Rome, one Elvis Presley song at a time.
It is decorated with a rhinestone shirt and oversized sunglassesas his dark hair smoothed back into the 1950s style Quiff, Lacatos spins his hips and gets hits of his own version, like his own singular version of “Blue Suede Shoes.” Romania.
But don’t call him an Elvis impersonation. Lacatos likes to say he is “channeling” the global appeal of the king of rock and roll, in order to break down stereotypes about Roma and provide a positive role model for Roman children.
“I didn’t want to go on stage, I didn’t think about it,” said the 58-year-old Lacatos after a recent gig at a restaurant in Bucharest, the capital. “I wanted to make friends with Romanians and stop being called Gypsy,” he added.
The customer will record the video as Tudor Lacatos, passing through the stage name of Elvis Romano, perform at the Terrasa Floriroll Restaurant, and perform on Friday with Stephen Marin of the Tarafur Furunzellerband in 2025.
Rome is an ethnic group that traces its roots to South Asia, which has been persecuted in Eastern Europe for centuries and is still linked to the proportion of poverty, unemployment and crime. They account for around 7% of Romania’s population, who say the fifth person has faced discrimination over the past year, according to a recent survey by the European Union.
The quest for Lacatos’ change began in the early 1980s when he was an art student and Romania was ruled by the Hardline Communist regime of Nikolae Seauszk.
When anti-Romantic discrimination was mainstream, Lacatos discovered that singing Elvis songs was a way of connecting with Romanian students, and that rock music was a symbol of rebellion against oppressive governments.
Forty years later, he added a new audience.
Tudor Lacatos, who passes through the stage name Elvis Romano, posed outside a restaurant in Terrasa Florirolle before his performance in Bucharest, Romania on Friday, June 20, 2025.
A school teacher for the past 25 years, Lacatos demonstrates his students that he can use his music to aim for more than a cart driven into dirt roads and horses in villages in northwestern Romania.
“The adjective gypsy is used everywhere as an alternative to insult,” Lacatos said. “Our older people have gotten used to it. We swallowed it and grew up using it. I’ve said it many times.
However, Lacatos is still crossing the country to perform in venues large and small.
On a hot summer evening, the trip took Lacatos to Terrasa Florillol in Bucharest. This is a neighborhood joint that prides itself on offering live music by local artists performing on stages made from wooden beams painted in vibrant colors.
The customer dancing as a Tudor Lacatos on stage under the stage name Elvis Romano will perform at the Terrasa Floriroll Restaurant on Friday, June 20, 2025 with the Tarafuru Furunzeller Band in Bucharest, Romania.
The audience included people who came for the show and were attracted to sausages, pork roasts and Moldavian meatballs on the menu. Some dances, others took selfies as they enjoyed the Lacatos trademark “Rock and Rom” show, a mix of Elvis songs delivered in Romanian and English, which is Romanian.
The eclectic combination of languages can be a surprise as Elvis’ literal translation of American English from the 1950s is not always there.
For example, “Don’t step on my blue suede shoes” doesn’t make sense to many of the children he teaches, as he is so poor.
In his version, the famous lyrics Elvis simply goes, “Don’t step on my bare feet.”
That’s the message that Elvis, born in a two-room home in Tupelo, Mississippi, during the Great Repression, probably understood.
