Ferdinand Waldo Demara

Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr. (December 21, 1921 [This date is uncertain. Some sources say 12 December 1921, 12 December 1922 or 21 December 1922.] - June 7, 1982), known as "the Great Impostor", masqueraded as many people from monks to surgeons to prison wardens.

Biography

Early life and adulthood

Demara, known locally as "Fred", was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1921, at 40 Texas Avenue in the lower southwest Tower Hill Neighborhood. His father, Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Sr. was born in Rhode Island and worked in Lawrence's old Theatre District as a motion picture operator. Although his uncle, Napoleon Louis Demara, Sr. owned those theatres, Fred's father, Ferdinand, Sr. was an active union member.

A Roman Catholic, Ferdinand, Jr. tried unsuccessfully to enter a Trappist monastery in 1935. Two attempts later it seemed that the cloistered life did not agree with him and he joined the U.S. Army in 1941.

The following year Demara began his new lives by borrowing the name of Anthony Ignolia, an army buddy, and went AWOL. After two more tries in monasteries he joined the Navy. He did not reach the position he wanted, faked his suicide and borrowed another name, Robert Linton French, and became a religiously oriented psychologist. Both Navy and Army caught him eventually and he served 18 months in prison. A string of pseudo-academic careers followed.

Vocations

During Demara's "careers", he was, among other things, 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, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher. One teaching job led to six months in prison. He never seemed to get much monetary gain in what he was doing - just temporary respectability.

Many of Demara's unsuspecting employers, under other circumstances, would have been satisfied with Demara as an employee. Demara 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".

His most famous exploit was to masquerade as surgeon Joseph Cyr aboard HMCS Cayuga, a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer, during the Korean War. He managed to improvise successful major surgeries and fend off infection with generous amounts of penicillin. His most notable surgical practices were performed on some 16 Korean combat casualties who were loaded onto the Cayuga. As the only "Surgeon" on board all eyes turned to Demara as it became obvious that several of the casualties would require major surgery or certainly die. After ordering personnel to transport these variously injured patients into the ship's operating room and prep them for surgery, Demara disappeared to his room with a textbook on general surgery and proceeded to speed-read the various surgeries he was now forced to perform, including major chest surgery. None of the casualties died as a result of Demara's surgeries. Apparent removal of a bullet from a wounded man ended up in Canadian newspapers. One person reading the reports was the mother of the real Dr. Joseph Cyr; her son at the time of 'his' service in Korea was actually practicing medicine in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. When news of the impostor reached the "Cayuga," still on duty off Korea, Captain James Plomer at first refused to believe Demara was not a doctor (and not Joseph Cyr). The Canadian Navy chose to not press charges, and Demara returned to the United States.

Minor fame

After this episode he sold his tale to "Life" magazine and worked in short-time jobs, since he was now widely known. He resorted to drinking. Only after he continued to use his old tricks and got fake credentials could he get another job at a prison in Huntsville, Texas. According to his biographer, Demara's past became known and his position untenable when an inmate found a copy of "Life" with an article about the impostor.

He continued to use new aliases but as a result of his self-generated publicity, this task was harder to accomplish than before. In 1960, as a publicity stunt, Demara was given a small acting role in the horror film "The Hypnotic Eye". He appears briefly in the film as a (genuine) hospital surgeon. Ironically, the impostor who fooled so many people in real life reveals a total lack of acting ability in this brief role. By this point, Demara's girth was so notable that he could not avoid attracting attention. Demara had already been considerably overweight during his impersonation of Cyr.

Later life

In 1967 Demara received a Graduate Certificate in Bible from Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Oregon.

Demara had various friendships with a wide variety of notable people during his colorful life. This included a close relationship with actor Steve McQueen, to whom Demara delivered last rites.

Demara died on June 8 1982 due to heart failure and complications from his diabetic condition which required both of his legs to be amputated. According to his obituary in the New York Times, he had been living in Orange County, California, for eight years. During that time he had worked as a Baptist minister, then as a visiting counselor at Good Samaritan Hospital (where he also lived) in Anaheim until illness forced him to stop, in 1980. When Damara's past exploits and infamy were discovered by hospital personnel and management in the late 1970's he was almost dismissed from the hospital. Dr. Philip S. Cifarelli, Chief of Staff, who had developed a close personal friendship with Demara, personally vouched for him and Demara was allowed to remain as the hospital Chaplain and continued to live in the hospital. Demara was a very active and appreciated minister, serving a variety of patients in the hospital. Few of those with whom he interacted at the hospital knew of his colorful past. Due to limited financial resources and his friendship with Cifarelli and Dr. Jerry Nielson, Demara was allowed to continue to live in the Hospital until his death.

In media

Demara's story was recounted in the 1960 book, "The Great Impostor," written by Robert Crichton and published by Random House; the book was a New York Times bestseller and adapted into a 1961 film by the same name starring Tony Curtis as Demara. A second book by Crichton, "The Rascal and the Road", recounted Demara and Crichton's experiences together as Crichton conducted research for "The Great Impostor."

Books

* Robert Crichton, "The Great Impostor" (Random House 1959), ISBN 0-394-42714-9.
* Robert Crichton, "The Rascal and the Road" (Simon & Schuster 1961), ISBN 1199399906 OCLC|1372850

Films

* "The Great Impostor" (1960), a fictionalised version of his life starring Tony Curtis as Demara.
* Jarod, the protagonist in the TV series "The Pretender" is inspired by (but not based on) Demara.

Trivia

* In one episode of the TV comedy "M*A*S*H" {#18 Season 1}, Hawkeye Pierce discovers a visiting surgeon is an imposter and gives him an hour to leave before calling the MPs. The imposter later turns up as a chaplain. This was an extremely fictionalized version of Demara’s “service” in Korea; for example changing the location from the Canadian Navy ship to a U.S. Army MASH hospital. And when Hawkeye meets him as a chaplain, he addresses the imposter as "Casey" (the character's name); "Casey" says "'Schwartz' [Tony Curtis' real name] , actually."
* The rock group "The Band" recorded a song called "Ferdinand the Impostor" in which they describe Ferdinand's skills, implying they are friends.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.kvacanada.com/stories_lpimposter.htm Korean Veterans Association of Canada: The Case of the Spurious Sawbones]
* [http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/chars/Demara.html CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum article on Demara]
* [http://www.jproc.ca/cayuga/history.html HMCS Cayuga history page]