Bruno Mars is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. Most people know him from the radio and from award shows.
But long before his first hit, a tiny boy in Hawaii was already on stage every night doing his best Elvis Presley.
That boy was Bruno.
He grew up in a musical family. His father, Pete Hernandez, went by “Dr. Doo-Wop” and led the Love Notes, a doo-wop revival group with a show in Waikiki. Bruno’s uncle was an Elvis impersonator, and he’s the one who encouraged 3-year-old Bruno to try singing Elvis songs.
It stuck. By age 4, Bruno was performing with the family band five days a week. The Love Notes billed him as “the world’s youngest Elvis,” and his early nickname was “Little Elvis.”
“From that night, he worked every night at age 4,” his mother, Bernie Hernandez, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 2011.
So why Elvis? His parents said the little boy simply loved him. His mother told the paper he even figured out how to work the VCR so he could fast-forward to the Elvis numbers. His dad told the same paper, “If there was a particular scene in an Elvis movie or an Elvis concert, he would watch it over and over.” And he added, “He could never get enough practice time.”
Even his name has a story. His dad called him “Bruno” because he thought the little boy looked like pro wrestler Bruno Sammartino.
Word about Little Elvis got around. When he was about 4, he was interviewed by Pauly Shore, who was a young MTV host back then, and Bruno met him in full Elvis mode. Watch it to see just how seriously a 4-year-old can take the job of being Elvis.
Pauly Shore meets 4-year-old Bruno Mars as Little Elvis
Back home, the local Hawaii paper MidWeek featured him as “Little Elvis” in 1990. And there was a longer TV interview from those early years too. This fan upload is billed as the full interview, so you get a lot more time with little Bruno than the short clips allow.
Little Bruno’s full TV interview as the world’s youngest Elvis
Then came the big break. When Bruno was 6, his Elvis act carried him all the way to Hollywood.
The movie was “Honeymoon in Vegas,” a 1992 comedy starring Nicolas Cage. Bruno played a little Elvis impersonator, right there in a real Hollywood movie. Here’s the “Little Elvis” scene from the film, so you can see 6-year-old Bruno on the big screen for yourself.
Six-year-old Bruno as “Little Elvis” in “Honeymoon in Vegas”
Bruno grew up and became a hitmaker in his own right. But Elvis never really left him.
He’s been quoted saying, “I’m a big fan of 1950s Elvis when he would go on stage and scare people because he was a force.” That’s a grown-up way of putting what the little boy in Waikiki already knew.
And in 2025, Bruno produced a cover of Elvis’s “Burning Love” for Disney’s new “Lilo & Stitch.” The kid who once wore out the Elvis scenes on a home VCR ended up putting an Elvis song into a Disney movie for a whole new crowd of kids.
Not bad for the boy his dad said could never get enough practice time.