Ferdinand Waldo Demara
American imposter
Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr. (December 1921 – June 7, 1982) was an American impostor.2
From Wikipedia’s article on Ferdinand Waldo Demara (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Born Dec 21, 1922, died Jun 7, 1982.1
About
He was the subject of both a book and a movie, loosely based on his exploits: The Great Impostor, in which he was played by Tony Curtis.
Demara's impersonations included a civil engineer, a sheriff's deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, a naval surgeon, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher. One teaching job led to six months in prison.
Not many facts have been proven about Demara's life, in spite of the articles, book, and big screen movie made about him during his lifetime. He was said to possess a true photographic memory and was widely reputed to have an extraordinary IQ. He was apparently able to memorize necessary techniques from textbooks and worked on two cardinal rules: "the burden of proof is on the accuser" and "when in danger, attack." He described his own motivation as "Rascality, pure rascality".
From Wikipedia’s article on Ferdinand Waldo Demara, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2
Companies
- Walsh UniversityFounder10
Early life and education
- Date not recordedMultnomah University3
Demara, known locally as 'Fred', was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1921. His father, Ferdinand Waldo Demara Sr., was born in Rhode Island and worked in Lawrence's old Theatre District as a motion picture operator. Demara Sr. had been financially well-off, and the family lived in an upper-class neighborhood on Jackson St. in Lawrence. Demara Sr.'s brother, Napoleon, owned many of the theatres in Lawrence, in which Demara Sr. was an active union member. Early in the Great Depression, Fred's father became financially destitute, forcing the family to move from the Tower Hill neighborhood to the poorer section in the city, at 40 Texas Avenue in the lower southwest Tower Hill neighborhood.
During this financially troubled time, Demara Jr. ran away from home at age 16 to join the Trappist monks in Rhode Island. After two years, he was told he wasn't suited to being a Trappist and was sent instead to a Brothers of Charity home near Montreal, Canada. He was then transferred to a Brothers of Charity boys home in West Newbury, Massachusetts, where he taught fourth grade. After running away from the Brothers of Charity after an argument with his superior, he joined the United States Army in 1941.
Founded a college
During Demara's impersonation as Brother John Payne of the Christian Brothers of Instruction (also known as Brothers of Christian Instruction), Demara decided to make the religious teaching order more prominent by founding a college in Alfred, Maine. Demara proceeded on his own and got the college chartered by the state. He then promptly left the religious order in 1951, when the Christian Brothers of Instruction offended him by not naming him as rector or chancellor of the new college and chose what Demara considered a terrible name for the college. The college Demara founded, LaMennais College in Alfred, Maine eventually became, in 1960, Walsh College (now Walsh University).
From Wikipedia’s article on Ferdinand Waldo Demara (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Career
Occupation: impostor.5
- Date not recordedFounded Walsh University4
Personal life
Links
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1
- 2WikipediaFerdinand Waldo Demara on Wikipedia
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10WikidataWalsh University, Founder
- 11