Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr. experience for 60 years , and spent most of them pretending to be someone else . Or someones else , really ; the man who came to be known as “ the Great Imposter ” take in at least 10 identities , including a yr - long stint as a ( ego - taught ! ) trauma operating surgeon during the Korean War .
In an obituary published June 9 , 1982 , the New York Timessummed up his accomplishments :
At times in his life sentence , Mr. Demara lived as a Trappist monk , a Dr. of psychological science , a James Byron Dean of philosophy at a small-scale college in Pennsylvania , a law educatee , a zoology graduate , a career research worker , a instructor at a junior college in Maine , a surgeon in the Royal Canadian Navy , an assistant warden at a Texas prison and a instructor in a Maine village . He often borrow the names and credentials of living people .
His feat lead to charges against him for impostor , forgery , theft , embezzlement , resisting catch , vagrancy and public drunkenness .
How did he pull it off ? He supposedly hada mellow IQ and a photographic memory(which begs the obvious dubiousness : why did n’t he just apply those skills to follow a legitimate vocation ? ) At the end of generator Robert Crichton’sThe Great Imposter , an inept phone call between source and depicted object let out everything and nothing , when Demara first claims to be a saint , then blames “ Rascality , pure rascality ! ” for his actions .
The physically imposing Demara appear in this episode of You Bet Your aliveness with Groucho Marx ( “ It ’s always a pleasure to meet somebody who ’s as crooked as I am ! ” ) at around the 7:00 Deutsche Mark ; at around 13:00 he talks about his Erolia minutilla as a phony doctor who performed real surgeries :
And here ’s the prevue for The Great Imposter , base onCrichton ’s bookand starring a discombobulate - looking Tony Curtis . ( The existent Demaradisavowedboth the book and film . )
Top image : Ferdinand Waldo Demara , Jr. , center , is question by Det . Millard Nickerson , left , and Kennebec County attorney Robert A. Marden February 14 , 1957 . Credit : AP Photo .
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