Many people have heard of Frank W. Abagnale, Jr., the check forger turned FBI consultant whose life was described in the popular movie Catch Me If You Can. Abagnale cashed more than $ 1 million in bogus bank checks during a crime spree five years before his 21st birthday. He also posed as an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and a university professor before being captured in France.
Before Frank William Abagnale, Jr., however, there was Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr. Like Abagnale, Demara was a serial copycat, but much more prolific. Their costumes included a civil engineer, deputy sheriff, assistant prison director, doctor of applied psychology, hospital ordinance, lawyer, child care expert, monk, editor, cancer researcher, and teacher. Demara became known as the great impostor.
Ferdinand Demara, Jr. was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on December 21, 1921. As a Catholic, he dropped out of Catholic high school and entered a monastery. Although he soon abandoned the monastic life, he reportedly later looked back as the best of his life. Although he was an American by birth, he joined the Canadian Navy in March 1951. Appearing at the recruiting office in Saint John, New Brunswick, he offered his services as a physician, using the name Joseph Cyr. Canada at that time was involved in a war in Korea, and doctors were in high demand. His credentials were not rigorously checked, and “Dr. Cyr” was quickly commissioned as a surgeon-lieutenant and assigned to the medical ship Cayuga, which was serving in the war zone.
Like Abagnale, Demara was extremely intelligent and a quick learner. Although Abagnale worked for about a year as a physician, in his role he did not personally treat patients. Demara, however, performed numerous minor operations and once treated the Cayuga’s commander’s infected tooth. He acquired the necessary skills by reading textbooks, with the help of his assistant and the generous use of anesthetics and antibiotics.
After a raid off the west coast of Korea, three seriously wounded South Korean commandos were brought aboard the Cayuga. Demara ordered the injured to prepare for surgery, while he disappeared into his cabin with a surgery textbook. When he got out, Demara saved the lives of all three men and even performed major surgery on one to remove a bullet from his chest.
The news of Demara’s exploits caught the attention of the media. One of those who read the newspaper reports was the mother of the real Dr. Joseph Cyr, who was then practicing in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. Dr. Cyr realized that he had previously struck up a brief friendship with Demara, posing as a monk, and Demara had stolen his medical credentials before joining the Canadian Navy. The Royal Canadian Navy, embarrassed by the entire incident, refused to press charges against Demara. Instead, they honorably discharged him with late payment and then returned him to the United States.
Demara’s newfound fame made it more difficult for him to continue his life as an impostor. He sold his story to Life magazine and worked a series of short-term jobs. He once used false credentials to land a job as a prison guard in Huntsville, Texas; however, he was forced to resign after an inmate found an article in Life magazine about him. He later returned to his religious education, worked as a counselor on a mission in downtown Los Angeles, and received a certificate from a Bible college in Portland, Oregon. During her life, Demara became friends with several famous people, including actor Steve McQueen.
The story of Demara’s life was told in the 1960 book, The Great Imposter, which became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a 1961 film of the same name starring Tony Curtis as Demara. However, unlike Abagnale, Demara did not achieve fame and fortune. In the last years of his life, he worked as a Baptist minister and later as a counselor at a hospital in Anaheim, California. When his past was discovered, he was almost fired from the hospital. However, the hospital’s chief of staff, who had become a close friend of Demara, personally vouched for him and he was allowed to stay. He was a very active counselor, serving a wide range of patients. Due to limited financial resources, Demara lived in the hospital until the end of her life. He died of heart failure in 1982.
