April 25, 2023 • 48 mins
🎶 Oh yes, he was the Great Impostor. (Woo-woooo) 🎶
His government name was Fred Demara, but he rarely used that. Unlike most crimers with his particular skillset, Fred used his powers for good — he liked to heal others. For instance, that time he had to perform 19 surgeries because he was pretending to be a doctor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Zaren, I got a question for you, girl, Yes, sir, okay,
So do you know what's ridiculous? I do? All right?
Chair it with the brother the Sharman Bears. Oh yeah,
the one is so toilet paper?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Why is that crass? Because they're white bears and you think.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
About, well, it's like the whole thing is like does
a bear in the woods. Oh yeah, that's the subtext.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh I thought it was because they're so clean, like
they're all the thing is and.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They're holding up toilet paper being like, look, how clean
I am. I don't want to want I don't want
that on my television.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I don't ever think about the actual use of the
toilet paper.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, you don't think about poop all over their hands.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I do not think about poop or on the bears.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well, Zaren, are you ready for the ultrasoft.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Sharman Comfort You pack?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh man, This bear hood is the perfect balance for
lounging at home and a conversation starter when you're out
and about.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Uh oh, I got you so cleen, Oh my god, conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So Sharman at their online shop, which I did.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Not know exist. You don't shop all the time. So
I got my socks.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
It's where all your turlet paper comes from. Well, we
got this from Sarah on Instagram. She sent this to
us and gave me gave me the old heads up.
It's a bear hoodie. And you like hoodies. It's a
it's a white hoodie and on the hood or little
tiny bear ears, which is just the cutest little thing. Sure,
(01:31):
But then on the front there's a bear, a cartoon
bear like as seen in the ads, wiping itself. But
it's not wiping it on your face. It's like arm back,
like really long nails, and you're like, how are you
doing that? Anyway? No, it's the bear is standing there
with his arms crossed and totally rude dude in it
(01:53):
with some sunglasses on. And then next over it in
the words are own the Throne and it's twenty nine
ninety nine. There's a limited quantity. It's called the Bear
Hoodie at Charman dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I feel bad for the throne. It got owned. Yeah
way a bear, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, that's ridiculous.
I know I'm certifying that one.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Wow. Okay, Well, if you got a second, you know,
if you're just like, can you kill your jets? Because
I got one for you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Hold on, yeah, okay, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
All right. Well, just to start off with this one.
You take a deeply religious boy, right and boy, you
have him grow up to become a deeply religious con man.
Oh yeah, right, So this deeply religious con man, he's
so good at faking things. He basically becomes an impostor.
And at one point he finds himself in a predicament
where he's the only air quotes surgeon aboard a destroyer
(02:51):
in wartime, and then the captain calls on him to
operate on nineteen wounded soldiers aboard ship. He's the only
one who can save their lives. And I won't tell
you was successful or not, Elizabeth, Yeah right, but I
will tell you this much, my man Fred, he pulled
off so many outlandish crimes that only an impostor can do.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
That.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
This impostor became so good that the folks in Hollywood
they got the actor Tony Curtis to play him in
the movie No Way and Better. Yet, America wasn't mad
at him for all of his impostoring ways of anything
that people loved him for being the great impostor. This
(03:43):
is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers
heiss and cons. It's always not a nine percent murder
free and on one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Like fuck Orton Leghorner.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I know I was just having fun, Yeah, Elizabeth, did
you play make believe when you're a little girl?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
No, No, of course I did.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Would you like to pretend, like what's your thing?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I like to pretend that somebody loved me.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Other than that, Did you ever have like you play
jobs like a job? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I totally loved like playing jobs Like I like to
pretend that I worked in an office, okay, And I
would like write out paper like forms, paper work, and
then like play with the calculator.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
You had an imaginary organizer.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Little did I know? I was like cursing myself to
medium labor.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, yeah, okay, well me, I always imagined a crazy
adventure fantasy, as you already well know. I would also, though,
I would play make believe my little sister and she
liked to play house. She wasn't as business minded.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
She played office. Yeah, or I played like dog wrangler.
I like to pretend that I had a bunch of dogs.
I mean I did have a bunch.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Of you pretty much just pretended your future pretty much. Yeah, yeah,
you nailed it. Yeah see, yes I did not. I
did things like play house with my sister. Okay, I
you know, I have no children, I own no home.
I didn't really do the stuff, right, So but anyway,
my point was that for me to be able to
play house with my sister was because if I wanted
to play demolition, Derby or whatever with me, I had
(05:20):
to play house. And every time I would play house,
my whole goal is always to be named John. He's like, yeah,
call me John, and it was like, those are my thing.
I don't know why. My fantasy was to have.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
A boring name, fantasy John.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, I just really wanted to be this guy named
John who just did normal things and John.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
He's like, You're like, look, you're eight years old. My
name's John. I got acid reflood.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Exactly my fee. The cotton doctors are creeping up. So
that was my whole fantasy, right. So the guy I
want to tell you about today, he was like the
opposite of my fantasy. Okay, So he always wanted a
new name which is much like me. But he also
wanted a new name so that he could help people,
not just become invisible like me, you know. Yeah. So
(06:03):
in my research on this story, I came across this
really nice passage from the Hammond, Indiana Times newspaper, and
it was all about the childish games of make believe
we play Do you got a second? Okay? Quote? Simply
by donning a cape and mask, little chaps are Superman,
a crown of silver paper and some tired pearls transform
a baby doll into a princess nurse and doctor kits
(06:26):
do medical teams make of youngsters yet unsure of their
life's work? Then that old devil reality begins its gnawing business,
and suddenly we are dull, circumstantial citizens, dreams gone, illusions, delusions,
and all that cloud like vision of greatness melted away
in the stern actuality of life. We are actors no more.
(06:48):
One role has settled upon us, smothering all glimpses of
those enchanting people we might have been.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Nice Right, Yeah, Well, Elizabeth, I want to tell you
about my man Ferdinand de Mayer. Yeah, he preferred if
he called him Fred, but actually know he preferred if
he called him anything but Fred. So really, I'll be honest.
As the ham and Times put it, Fred de Mara
quote was the most successful impostor of our time. He
was not content with such dreaming. His roles were not
the usual guys as of phony Italian counts or Russian
(07:18):
princesses assumed for the all too usual purpose of fleecing
rich ladies. Not old Fred, not my man Fred. He
was called the great impostor because he never really hurt anyone.
In fact, if anything, he was a con artist, just
so that he could help people lessen their suffering, right Fred, Hey,
(07:40):
I'm with that one. Hah. So my man Fred Demara.
What made him so damn special, as I keep basically
pointing out, is he conned others to profit others. I
love that, right, I thought you'd like this guy. Okay.
So he's born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and my family, some
of my family currently lives there, so I've recently been
back there. I was totally able to picture it, and
I was like, I'm imagining those big red brick mill
(08:03):
town buildings. So I was loving this story right now?
Did you? And you know this? In nineteen twelve, there
was the Great Lawrence Textile Strike, otherwise known as the
Bread and Roses Strike.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Oh right, okay, you know that one.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah. So now that phrase bred and roses, it comes
from a poem, and I figure you know this. It
was published one year prior, in nineteen eleven, written by
James Oppenheim, and the verse of the poem said, hearts
starve as well as bodies. Give us bread, but give
us roses, right, And I always love that the bread
and roses phrase. It became the rallying cry of these
textile workers out on strike, give us bread, but give
(08:38):
us roses too. Now, while the Brett and Roses strike
was led by Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
and all these the International Labor Union, the Wobbles, the IWW,
the local leaders were primarily Italian immigrants who'd recently immigrated
to the States. Fred Demara's people, right, so he's of
this crowd. And that strike was so successful that it
(08:58):
led to congressional hearing and the fat cast bosses had
to give up raises and give more hours. And if
you want to know more, the folk singer you Utah Phillips,
he's got a great song all about this. So my
point is, nine years after the Bread and Roses strike,
Fred Demara is born in Lawrence, born into this hotbed
of labor and immigrant pride, and he wants to be
(09:20):
a good American, right so his father's rejectionists. At the
local cinema. Things are good for Fred Senior and the family.
Lawrence has really come along, you know, and his job
pays well, and Fred Junior can go to the movies
and he sees all these stories of life outside of
Lawrence flickering on that screen before him, and he wants
some of that big, wide life. So, just like the
(09:40):
Mermaid Ariel, Fred Demara longed to be a part of
their world. That's for you, Elizabeth. Now all of a sudden,
all this is going along great and boom, the Great
Depression happens, right, you know, that's not a good one.
His father loses his job, the Damaras lose their middle
class status. They got to go and downsize and move
into a cold wa or flat. This is really hard
(10:02):
for young Fred Damara, so he decided, you know what,
I'm gonna go be a part of the world. I
can't like my dad. There's is nothing here for me anymore.
At age sixteen, he runs off to go become a man.
The year is nineteen thirty seven. What's his first stop?
Sixteen year old boy out in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Wait, okay, thirty seven, nineteen.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Thirty seven, where do you go, your sixteen year old boy?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
You join the navy.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
It's a good guess. He joined a monastery.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Oh, okay, an order.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Of Cistercian monks. Now the monastery that he went to
was located in producer Dave's home state of Rhode Island.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Well, you know, it actually makes sense if you're if
it's you know, you're in the depression.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You need to get fed, yeah, totally. You need a
place to stay, you need.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
A bed, Yeah, well I think food. You and I
had a conversation a while back about what would you
do if you were completely destitute and homeless, and how
would you survive on the streets. So I was like,
I would walk to a convent and be like, sign me.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Up, where's the pen, where's the pen?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Give me the habit I'm in, because then you know
you're at least got food, shelter, and people who care
about you.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Oh yeah, totally. And they use some vows to make
sure they keep doing it. Yeah, you know you're good now, Fred,
he finds a new home with the brothers. He takes
your advice of like, just where's the pen? Sign me up? Right, Elizabeth?
How much do you remember about all the Catholic orders
of monks from what we were taught in Catholic school? Oh? Man,
do you remember the different orders of monks and like
how they have their own colors like street gangs.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
I can barely remember my street address. I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Okay, let's play a little game here. I'll name an
order of monks. See if you can remember the color
that's their color?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Oh wow, okay, well, you know, don't forget I went
to a Catholic high school with nuns.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah so, I mean, okay, what so the nuns they,
I know, they don't have the color orders gang colors. Yeah,
they're not like like a boy's gang where they're like, hey,
here's our colors, here's our secret sign language. Right. Well, okay,
let's just go get.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
The like different colored bandanas hanging.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
For real, practically different colored rosaries. But yeah, so the Franciscans,
I don't know, gray and black, think of Padre Pio. Okay,
the Dominicans blue, all white. They're the one with the
rosary hanging on their head. Okay, all right. The Jesuits
trick question. They have no special uniform. Okay, enough of
(12:16):
the guessing. But the other orders, just so we can
get through it. The Carmelites they are brown, the Confusians
are white, the Augustinians are black, and lastly the Benedictines black.
Right now, the Benedictines, they're the wild bunch. They're the
ones we're gonna get into because their motto is prey
and work, and they were serious about that work part. Now,
this is the order that my man Fred decides to
(12:37):
join at age sixteen. Now technically he joined in even
more hardcore order of monks than it branched off from
the bed Edictines. They're called the Cistercians, and they're known
for their pure white robes and for their cloistered silence.
The Cistercians would later become known by a different name
because in the seventeenth century at the French monastery trap Abbey,
there was this reform movement and they start calling themselves
(12:58):
the Trappists and the Trappist brothers. They make the great beer,
right right, you know them, right, they were like the
most severe street gang of all the Catholic brothers, right,
the trap Monks. Right, So the Trap Monks, they're like
straight edge monks because they're like practically vegetarian. They're known
is the toughest order in the church. They even have
their own street like, their own gang signs. Basically, they
(13:20):
have their own sign language because they're cloister because they
don't take vows of silence per se, but they only
speak when spoken to, and they have huge long periods
of silence built into their day. So most most of
the brothers they speak their own form of sign linbuerge
to get through the silent parts of the day. So
they go around like you just see, I'm throwing gang
signs around the abbey at each other. Not really, but
you know, right, So they have a lot of opinions
(13:42):
about language, these guys, Like do you know that for them,
they considered a lot of jokes evil. Oh really, yeah,
because you end up laughing at someone. They think that
laughing at the expense of others is evil.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So anyway, wayward sixteen year old Fred Demara is like
this is for me, So I spend the rest of
high life on earth.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Here he was Ferdinand. Why didn't he go by Ford?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's a good call. I don't know, Ford, We should
go back to him, be like, look, man, you should
have been Ferdy the birdie.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Right, Yeah, Soga.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
He's living with the brothers. And I remember I told
you they're the crazy, hardcore structured ones that they have
a schedule. They wake up every morning at three thirty am. Oh,
they had ten prayers, private prayers from four am for
an hour and a half, and then have breakfast at
five thirty, then Mass at seven thirty every single day
of their lives. Then they after their daily doses of
the adventures of Jesus and his twelve underemployed buddies, they
(14:31):
start the Great Silence, right, and then they work in
silence until lunch, and then then then after that they
take a little siesta, then another lunch period, another work
period after lunch for three hours, then some more prayers
and then you know whatever. They finally around eight o'clock,
after they do you know, three hours of bruin beer
and banging coffin nail because apparently they're really good at
making confidence. They it's off to dinner. Time, more prayers
(14:52):
bed by eight o'clock.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I figured you would. This is a schedule.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I love you. I wouldn't get up at three thirty.
I beg you guys. I pray in my sleep so
I'll see you at se.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I have a very holy sleep. Well Fred to Mary,
He's like, he's like, this life is the life for me.
But it turns out he was wrong because after two years,
the brothers were like the man, you are not kind
of he got kicked out. The head monks like, you
are not a Trappist, my brother. So he's like shipped
off to a different monastery in Montreal, and then it's
back to the States in Massachusetts where he works as
(15:26):
a monk. He's teaching English and to fourth graders. He
loves it. Kids love him.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Wait, how old is he at this point? Eighteen?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, exactly, he's basically a kid, right.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But he once again he gets in a spat with
a superior monk. So he steals the station wagon and
he takes off, leaves his life as a monk.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Behind is a stolen monk station.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
He exactly rolls out the stolen monk wagon.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
He like takes the rosary off the rear view.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So after this, what does he do? What does Fred do?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Elizabeth grows in the bald's body shaved offs good call.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
He joins the army. He shaved it all because it's
nineteen forty one and it's what everyone's doing thing today.
So my man, the religious con man, he's now about
to enter the next phase of his life. And after
this little break, I'll tell you about Fred deamer hit
in the military and the military.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Going ooh oh, okay, Elizabeth, So I talked about my
(16:37):
man Fred Demara aka.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Third He after.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
He's taking his monk wagon. Then he stole and rode
off and said hey, and you know, basically tossed the
keys and somebody said, this is your car. Now, where's
the army recruitment office? And he goes and he joins
the army. He's only in the army for a little while.
He doesn't really like the army life. He's like, I
want to get back with the monks.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Man, what does he do to make these people so irritated?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
No, he's irritated with them.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Well, I know, but the monks kicked him out.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
He has a problem with authority jabber. No, No, he
has a problem with authority. Mostly it seems like he's
very smart, he's a photographic memory. He has a restless mind,
and he doesn't do well with like because I told
you so? Kind of okay, So the army is not
for him either. No, it takes a little while to
figure that out. And once he figures it out, he's like,
hey man, he has this army buddy he's becomes friends with.
(17:24):
He's like, hey man, Anthony Ignolia, I love it. How
do you spoil that name? And he wants He gets
some dispeled, He's like okay, and he takes off. He
goes a wall. He tells everyone he's Anthony Ignolia. So
he becomes Tony Ignolia.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Fred Debara now finally feels like he can beat himself.
Is this guy? So what does he do now? Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
He goes right back to the Trappist monks, this time
in Kentucky, and he's like, hey, I sure would like
to become a monk. What would you? What do you
fellows call yourselves? He acts like he doesn't know anything,
and he tries to go in as a as an officiate. Right,
second go around also fails. Still not cut out to be.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
A moody, so he went in as Tony. It's like,
I don't know anything about this, but then he's thinking,
like I'll show them I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Really exactly still doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
It's like when I was in college, you have to
have like your language acquirement, and I had taken French
all through high school, and I instead of testing out
of it, I just wanted a's yeah, And I actually like,
what is.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
This jem Apple Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And then I'm just like rocking all the tests. It's awesome.
I like that I'm kind of I got a little furred.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
And because I'm some similarities between you two. Well, see
if you can guess what he does once he's the
trap Monk's second round it fails, right, So now what
does Tony Ignolia do.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And he's in Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, I don't know. He goes and tries to become
a monk in Iowa. He's like, I'm gonna keep with this.
That goes nowhere for him.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Aren't really like monk hotspots.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I mean, monks are everywhere. You know, you can find
a monk anywhere.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
It's usually like real humid, quiet.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Places for what I find. But anyway, he returns home
because he's still a young man. He's basically at this
twenty eighteen years old. So his father is surprised to
see his son because last he heard he joined the army.
It's wartime. They don't just let you out of the
army in wartime. So he's like, son, you know you've deserted.
He's like, oh, poppy, all these awol terms people keep
throwing around. His pops is like, son, you can't be
(19:19):
a wall. They'll lock you up. Now, go back to
the army and say you got lost or something. I
don't know. And so Fred's like, okay, Pop, I'll do that,
and he promises he'll go back to the army. So
what does Fred do. He goes and joined the navy.
He got close. He was wrong office right, So he
gets a spot, this time as a hospital corman.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
So he is his neighbor. Did he call himself Tony
once again?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
He's Fred. He's back.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
He's back to Fred.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, because Tony's already in the service. Yeah, Tony. So
they'll catch up doing till he's like Fred again, but
different service. He's like okay, So Fred gets medical training
as a hospital corman. But again he has a problem
with these small minded superiors. So what does Fred do
this time? He does what Fred does best. He borrows
the name of a sailor he knows. This time, instead
of going a walk because that didn't work out for
(20:02):
last time, he fakes his death. He's like, I gotta
go a step further, So he pretends to be somebody else,
fakes his death. He leaves a goodbye note as Fred
puts it by the water's edge and just lets the
military figure it out.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So now boom, he is Robert Linton French and he
goes off. He professes there.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Are two Robert Linton French is in the navy.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Now yeah, well, no, he's doctor French. He just takes
doctor French. Yeah, he's so what does Fred do is
doctor French? Well, you know, he decides, I've done the Navy,
I've done the army. I don't know. I'm gonna go
back to a monastery. This is where I'm probably the best.
So he tries to become a monk again, this time
as doctor French. He's like, maybe they'll respect the doctor
(20:40):
and they won't get me so much. Lip.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yes, at first he's gonna go in like I don't
know anything. Now he's like, no, I I know everything.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
The problem was I was I was too low on
the totem pole. I need some letters in front of
my name. So now he's doctor French. He tries to
be in the in the monastery. This works for a
couple of weeks until he's accused of having faked documents.
They're like these documents are forced. He's like, what how
dare you? And he leaves.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
He's like, I am third French EMPD.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
What name did I tell you? Turn? So he goes
to a brother in Chicago. That doesn't work. Then he
goes to Milwaukee. That doesn't work because in Milwaukee they
tell him's cooking sucks and he's like, yeah, the hell
with you monks, I'm out here. Fred bounces east. He
finds a spot in Erie, Pennsylvania. At this point he's like,
I'm over the whole monks. The monks are jerks. I'm
time dombe with the monks. He's like, I'm gonna go
(21:25):
get a gig teaching. I'm doctor French. So he goes
to Gannon College. He gets he gets he gets the job.
What is he like twenty yeah, pretty much. So he
talks his way into becoming the dean of the School
of Philosophy. So now he's like twenty one years old.
He's the dean of the School of Philosophy in a
tiny college. Yes, and he decides, you know what, that's
not enough, because if I'm the dean, I should probably
(21:46):
be publishing. So he publishes a book.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So he's saying he's a medical doctor, although maybe.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
He's like a psychologist. He's saying the psychology.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Well either way, so he's okay, huh, all right.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So as a doctor French, by the way, he's no
more of a parent than I am, right, But Fred
doesn't let that stop him. So he writes a book
called How to bring Up Your Child.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
No, it is barely out of childhood.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Exactly, baby's wading babies. So the book does reasonably well.
But then again he's accused of this time forging checks.
So Fred's like, hey, what's that over there? He blows
with the wind. He's gone, right, So Fred disappears. He
finds himself on the West coast. He drives all the
way across the continent. He's out in Los Angeles. He's like,
there's a bunch of wackos out here. Nobody will follow me.
He gets a gig at a sanitarium. Literally just like
(22:28):
hanging out in the sanitarium being doctor French. Ok. So
he moves on, moves north to Seattle. He gets a
job at another small college. I liked college life. That
was good for me. And he gets he's working. It's great.
Things are gangbusters up in Seattle, sleepy area, small college.
But then one day the FBI comes calling because they've
been looking for him since he's a deserter. So we've
(22:49):
been after him for a month. So Fred gets arrested
for desertion. They take him back to the Navy. He
gets tossed into the Barracks Disciplinary Barracks in Sampedro, California.
He spends eighteen months behind bar. So he's like, okay, well,
he needs to think about what he's done.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
It's like the longest time he's done anything anytime.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yes, it's pretty much since he's been in his mother's womb.
This is the longest time he has sat still. Right.
So Fred's like, okay, I'm going to think about what
I've done. Hopefully that's what you would want for him.
Maybecome out rehabilitated. Not so much for Fred. He comes out.
He's like, I got a lot of catching up to do.
So he starts a new life. This time he starts
his own university. He's like, I don't want to mess
around with having colleges hire me. I'll hire them. So
(23:29):
Fred he assumes a new fake identity. He becomes a
Catholic monk again because he knows all the rights. Okay,
so this time he's in Maine. He becomes Brother John
Payne of the Christian Brothers of Instruction. Right, so his
brother Payne with a why Brother Payne? He decides to
found his own university. He moves up to the town
called Alfred, Maine, and this small college it becomes official.
He gets a state charter, the whole thing. Oh yeah.
(23:50):
In nineteen fifty one, he decides to leave his new
university after starting at about that a year earlier because
the administration decides not to name him is either the
college is rector or as the chancellor. That that bums
him out. He's like, you, guys, I started his place.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Is the college still in existence?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh yeah? And by the way, he hated the name
of it, so that was another reason he wanted to leave.
He's like, this is the name you guys chose what
La MiNet College? But they've since changed their name and
moved states, so they moved else Muto Island are now
known as Walsh University, and Walsh University still exists, just
not in Maine. And the president and CEO of FedEx,
(24:27):
Ramona Hood, is the alumnus of Walsh University.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Really go cavaliers, there you go?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So anyway, nineteen fifty one is a year America is
once again at war, this time the Korean War. So
Fred Damara, who's with the Christian Brothers before he left,
you know, the university he founded. He meets a man
named Joseph Sire and this guy's nice enough fellow. He's
a Canadian. They get along well, the two men. They
play chess for like a week of each night, hanging out,
they're conversing with each other. Things are going great. The
(24:53):
doctor tells like him his whole life story. Right, he's
just asking him questions. He's just so flattered. This guy
wants to know so much about him. Little you know,
does the doctor ever think of that exchange? Once they
part ways. But meanwhile Fred Demara decides he's now going
to become doctor Joseph Sire. So it's March nineteen fifty
one and the recruitment office for the Canadian Royal Navy.
(25:15):
The door swing open and walks a young man and
says he'd like to join up. Go over here's there's
a war going on. He says he's a doctor and
he thinks he could be of assistance in the war effort.
So Canada had recently joined the fight with the NATO
forces in Korea, and young doctors a welcome sights. So
they're like, soir, oh my good, we'd love to have it.
And he's like, yeah, like do you have some Paperworkan,
of course I got paperwork. Pulls out doctor Joseph Sire's
(25:37):
paperwork which happened to stick to his hand when he
was hanging out with the good doctors, and the medical
diploma too apparently, and his birth certificate. So and now
suddenly doctor Joseph Sire becomes Lieutenant Surgeon Joseph Sire.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
This man has trouble with authority and he just keeps
getting authority exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It'd be like if me somebody's allergic to be is
like I want to become a beekeeper. I'm really into it.
So anyway, the young doctor, he he goes through training
to become a lieutenant surgeon. This training would normally take
about two months. It takes a day because it's wartime,
so they rush him through training. They get him out
on a ship and boom, Sergeant Lieutenant Doctor Joseph Sire
(26:18):
is out to.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Sea and he condenses a two months training into one day.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah. Well, the Canadian Navy does because they're in such
a rush. And he's a doctor. He's got all the paperwork.
What do we need to tell of just you know,
he knows how to die. Shoes get on the boat, sir.
So he's now the only surgeon, the only doctor for
a ship of two hundred and eleven sailors and aid
officers headed to war. It doesn't take long for Fred
to be called into action, so it's the captain of
the ship. Fred stalls as long as he can, but
(26:45):
mostly so he can speed read a medical textbook so
we can know what he's going to do before it
wants in operation. He's I swear to God. So from
the San Francisco Examiner, the March fifth, nineteen sixty one edition,
quote his first assignment was to pull the skipper's tooth
a feet, which he accomplished by staying up all night
studying dentistry. He shot the captain's jaw full of novacane
(27:06):
as a precaution against taking a painful false move.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Oh that sounds easy enough.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Ye, well that becomes Fred's basically his mo. He he
had a heavy hand with the novacane. Yes, and with
the penicillini one jab.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
That's the thing, you know, you just with those two
you can't go wrong. Yeah, if you're pulling a tooth, like,
come on, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He's like, if ten c seas is good, fifty see
seas is way better. Exactly, so the captain's please, he said,
quote it was the nicest tooth pulling job I've ever had,
So apparently Fred does great work.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Meanwhile, Fred, whenever he has a chance, he's speed reading
all the medical literature on the boat, everything he can find.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So, now, of course what he fears will come to
pass comes to pass. There is a medical emergency, a
real medical emergency, not just a tooth pulling. They arrive
in the theater of war and nineteen wounded soldiers are
brought out board the ship and boom, it's Fred de Maritime.
Now all of a sudden, doctor Joseph Siers moment to
shine is here. He is, as I might remind you,
the only doc on board. It's up to him to
(28:01):
save all nineteen lives. And Fred tells the kreman aboard
the ship to prepare his operating room in the captain's quarters,
and then he hides in his office and he starts
speed reading on open chest surgery.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I would be doing that already. If you're going out,
he's probably looking up like ingrown toenails. No, get to
the gory stuff first.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
This is the great impostor's greatest test yet.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Well, i'd say, I mean, if you're going to be
an autodidact, start with what's most important and then work
you with you.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, that's I'm right there with you. Start brain surgery
and get to heart, and then work your way out
exactly so. From the Bridgeport Post newspaper, Sunday, July fifth,
nineteen fifty nine. This is a comes this quote. Three
soldiers of the nineteen were seriously hurt. All of them,
unless they received competent surgery within the next day, would die.
Never before had he felt at the same instance, such
(28:47):
an impostor and such a complete, lonely, isolated fraud. There
was no place to run and no place to dodge,
no assurance that he could find the courage or whatever
ingredient it would take to begin surgery of the three
Koreans who lay on bunks drugged by heavy doses of morphine.
So can he fake it until he makes it? As
a field surgeon, Elizabeth, I'd like to close your eyes and.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Picture it all right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
You're a board the RMS Cayuga as it powers across
the Pacific Ocean somewhere just off the coast of Korea.
You're currently in a makeshift operating room. You are the
coreman responsible for assisting the Lieutenant surgeon, Doctor Joseph Sire
Demara aka Doctor Sire. Anyway, he tells you his plans
for the nineteen operations before you. Just before he begins,
he says, quote, the less cutting you do, the less
(29:31):
patching you have to do afterwards. Hey, and with that
into the surgery you too. Hop Now you nod and
hope that he means everything about not too much cutting,
because you also are not really ready for this. But
you buck up and you're ready for it, so you
have no reason to suspect it. But the doctor's just
as nervous as you. He looks really calm, but inside trembling.
(29:53):
So no strike that you're more nervous than here. I'll
take that back. So anyway, the lives are in both
your hands. And as you begin to operate in the
first wounded soldier, you hear the familiar surgical refrain scalpel,
followed by hemostat, and then he repeats that hemostat. You're
the lookover, and you hand him the scissor style clamps.
He starts clamping off blood vessels and then blood spurt,
and you're like, oh, the doctor Sire is quick amostat.
(30:15):
He's got another clamp, and you're able to stay with him.
He's able to staunch the bleeding once it stops flowing.
He's able to dig into the fresh wound. After a
tense moment of mining for metal in another man's gut,
he pulls out a foreign body a bullet. He sutures
up the gaping wound. It's on to the next one.
Eighteen more to go. The second soldier needs his lung collapsed.
(30:36):
You help the doctor to relieve the pressure. You hold
the patient as he perforates his flesh. With a careful
puncture into the lung tissue, the lung kisses and boom.
Just like that, the patient can now breathe normally. It's
on to Patient seventeen. It's an amputation. It's a messy,
bloody affair. Patients sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen gunshot wounds pretty easily.
Mostly clamps, sutures, some bandaging. Patient thirteen is finally stable
(30:57):
when he's ready for surgery. He has a bullet lodged
in his chest. It's dangerously close to the man's heart.
It's pinched deep into his chest, right next to the
a orda fred aka. Doctor Sire tells you this one
will be a million to one chance, and then he
dives in. He wipes the nervous sweat from his face.
His smock already looks bloodstained. It looks like a Civil
War field surgeon. Doctor Sire pries open the chest of
(31:18):
the soldier. You open up your mouth and gape with
just a shock at the look of the splintered ribs.
Oh God, that's gonna make things dicey. You hear doctor
Syre call out coagulating agent. You hand it over to
the surgeon. He practically pours it all over the open
chest wound. After much delicate handiwork, doctor Sire manages just
delicately pulled the bullet from the soldier's chest. He saves
(31:39):
his life and it's on to patient twelve as the
destroyer continues to pitch and y'aw in the rough seas
watching it all go down right there before you even
you can't believe it, but doctor Sire saves them all.
None of the soldiers die as a result of Fred
Deda Mari's amateur surgeries. All of the wow all nineteen Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
I gotta say it, if I'm really picturing it, I
would have passed out at the first guy. I don't
do blood. I'm sorry, I know you don't.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I try to keep that pretty dry, right, bad other
than the splendid ribs, not like Albert Einstein's brain. Okay,
so let's take a quick break and I'll be back
to tell you what happens that is a result of
him saving nineteen lives. All right, Elizabeth, we're back, yes now.
(32:43):
After his miraculous performance, doctor Joseph Syer aka Fred Damara,
he becomes a hero back home in Canada, I mean,
like a minor celebrity of the war. And he should
be right an incredible feat a board ship performing nineteen
open heart surgery. Come on now, now, also the fact
he's an amateur, but people didn't even know that. It's
even more miraculous than they know. But anyway, he also
(33:06):
becomes a hero, and not just in Canada, but in
the United States, Like, people are really blown away by
this effort, and they're also reading about the Korean War
because of America's very involved, right, But one day there's
this one person up in Canada who was reading the
morning paper and they spit out their Canadian bacon and
they're like, what in the name of Nova Scotia is
going on here? And that person, mind you, was the
(33:26):
mother of doctor Joseph Sire. She didn't send her boy
to actual real medical school just to see some schlamil
take credit for her being a life saving Canadian and
her son's name. So what does she do. She calls
up the local paper and says, that's not my boy.
She gives them the scoop. Oh wow, Now there's a
counterwave to the story that just slept across Canada and
that counterwave sweeps back in the other direction. Eventually that
(33:48):
wave reaches a destroyer way out at sea and the news.
When the news reaches the Cayuga, the Canadian naval destroyer
where Fred Damara has just saved all nineteen soldiers and
everyone's still celebrating. The captain remember his first patient, who's
he's become really close friends with. He comes up to
Fred and he wants to tell him about the cable
he's just received because he doesn't believe it. Yeah, Captain
James Plumer, He's like, head headquarters must have made him
(34:09):
stake here, doctor, I don't know. I mean this must
be of a kind of foul in the paperwork. They're
saying that you aren't you? And he's like, yeah about that.
When do we get to a doc?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I just want to pluggs his nose and jumps out.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
If only he could. Right now, at this point, this
is the thing Fred Deamhra has long feared. He has
nowhere to run, nowhere to go. He is stuck on
a boat with all the people he's disappointed. Yeah, so
it's pretty much a nightmare for him in the middle
of the Pacific. So he tells his friend the captain
the truth, and now Fred Deamara is Fred Namara again
and he's transferred to a British ship man. She's then
(34:43):
headed to Japan, which is then he's given speedy transfer
and sent back to Canada to face charges. So from
The Windsor Star November twentieth, nineteen fifty one quote in
one hundred and fifty word statement, it announced last night
that the man who was acclaimed for a series of
brilliant operations while serving a board the Canadian destoryeror Cayuga,
is being discharged for misconduct. That's all they wanted to
(35:05):
quiet story like that. Oh, by the way, look over
there is that. Milton burrel So. The Windsor Star also
reported and I quote that the hoax was brought to
light a month ago through DeMar's fame. Publication of a
story dealing with his surgery and identifying him as doctor
Joseph Sire of Edmondston, New Brunswick led to a wave
of inquiries in New Brunswick. Subsequently, it was found that
(35:25):
the authentic doctor Sire is now practicing at Grand Falls,
New Brunswick. He reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
his certification documents had disappeared mysteriously. So no matter what
any of all the reporters and like you know, newspaper
men and women say doctor sire. Everyone who they go
and speak to, they have only glowing remarks for the
fake doctor sire, they say. And I quote, all the
(35:46):
medical authorities in the United Nations forces in the Far
East with whom Demer came in contact of testified as
to the extensiveness of his knowledge of medicine and surgery.
And nothing has occurred to indicate, either to the Royal
Canadian Navy or to the authorities of other forces America
serving in Korea that he did not possess the competence
of a fully qualified medical man. So no one's willing
to back down on this, right, So it wasn't just
(36:09):
but you know, apparently it wasn't just his speed reading.
Before he's surgery. He had actually compiled an extensive medical knowledge,
or so people claim.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
He also was giving talks like he at the Canadian
Naval headquarters. He gave seminars to other doctors about internal
medicine like he was.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
You're kidding, Oh yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The newspaper man and newspaper women they eventually tracked down
his father, and they get some great quotes from him
about his son, the great impostor, and his father, Fred
Damer Senior said of his Boyfred that quote, he was
bright to the point of genius. Things came easily to him,
and he read constantly. There was nothing bad in him.
He always wanted to help others, especially those who were suffering.
I have no doubt this attitude led him to the
(36:48):
trouble he is in humhm right, which is obviously very true.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah so.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
And also his father points out that Fred was quote
always a deeply religious boy until he was sixteen. From
then on he traveled the world in a world of
his and he would confide in no one. Huh, A
little sad, right, yeah. So on the Canadian shores. Now
Fred has to face a Naval Board of inquiry, and
that's not good. So the panel of uniformed officers ways
service record and his scope of crimes in the year
(37:14):
that he was in the navy, and they have to
decide on his punishment. So what do you think they're
gonna do with this life saving hero Fred de Merra.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I don't know. I hope they like give him an
actual education and let him do his thing.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I don't know, that's pretty good. I like it. You
have a good heart. Well, I'll tell you this much.
In nineteen sixty one, the Hollywood makes a movie about
him called The Great Impostor, and its stars Tony Curtis
as Fred dea Mera. Right towards the end of the movie,
they you know, they dramatize this scene and Tony Curtis
faces off against the Naval inquiry board, and Tony as
Fred gives this impassioned speech on his own behalf. But
(37:48):
the rousing speech is also the opposite of the sort
of appeal that someone like me would make. Like if
I was guilty, I'd be talking about it in much
different terms. Yea. He he centers his guilt and innocence
on It's very Fred. So Tony Curtis, person in the
room right, and the naval officer are all around this
big oak table, and he says, I think I have
a possible solution to this situation right in the naval
(38:10):
brass They agree to hear them out. They seal the door.
So Tony Curtis says, and I quote, gentlemen, there sometimes
exists a real conflict between the letter and the spirit.
Of the law. It is the letter of the law
that the guilty should be punished, but it is also
the spirit of the law that the innocent should be protected. Unfortunately,
some innocent people are involved in this case, good people
(38:33):
whose only fault was that they accepted and believed in me.
I've heard them one in particular enough. Now a prolonged
trial would only cause them and the Navy further embarrassment. Sir,
I beg you drop the case against Fred W. Demera.
So he asked them to drop the case for others
to protect themselves.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
And that I don't want you guys to embarrass yourselves.
You better stop.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, he ended up with He's like, let me walk
out that door, and I promise you within an hour,
I will be on a train and out of Canada
for good. And I one d percent believe him on that.
Oh yeah, he'll steal a station wagon if he has.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Oh yeah, he'll blow down when it comes to it.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So that's basically what I like to think went down.
Because inside this closed door military meeting room, which we
do not have record of, all we know is that
Fred Demara goes in, is doctor Joseph Sire comes as
Fred Demara and he's granted an honorable discharge as doctor
Joseph sire to get him out of the Navy. He's
then sent back to America with a few hundred bucks
that they call backpay. And once he's back in the States,
Fred de Merra becomes a minor celebrity as the Great Impostor.
(39:26):
Everyone hears this story so as a touch of accuracy
for the Korean War, the TV show mash would later
have an episode called Dear Dad Again. It was about
Captain Adam Casey, who was this fake doctor who did
real surgery in Korea. Oh cool, right, Fred?
Speaker 3 (39:41):
I wonder did the real doctor? Did he get to
like collect benefits and stuff?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
That's interesting? I don't think so, I don't. I don't think.
I mean, well, what was Fred? Demara's back in the
US and he's once again Fred. He now has to
make a new life for himself. But the problem is
is everyone's onto him now. They've seen his face. His
face is everywhere on the new So what does he
do if he can't run away?
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Just goes right into the spotlight.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
He decides to sell his life. Yes, so he sells
his life story too appropriately enough? Life magazine perfect. So
the magazine does this big glossy feature on him. They
bill him as public Rascal, Number one, Public Rascal. I'm
in a hype sheet for the new issue of Life.
They had a description what was inside, and they said, quote,
if you act like you belong somewhere, even people who
know you don't belong are hesitant to call you on it.
(40:25):
People are so insecure deep in their souls they feel
they don't belong either. This shrewd appraisal of human weakness
helped make Ferdinand Waldo Demera Junior the most successful and
most daring impost of our day. Although he never graduated
from high school, Deamarra has brilliantly lived many roles, including
those of a college dean of philosophy, assistant warden of
a large prison, a Benedictine teacher, and the surgeon of
(40:48):
the Royal Canadian Navy. Reperform major operations with the aid
of a surgery handbook.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Act like you know exactly I knew you would love.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
That it is so. Once again, capitalizing on this rollicking
and fit nature of fame, Demera gives the press a
few memorable quotes. One of my favorites was quote where
about in America could a man do all I've done.
That's what I call freedom, Yes, rubbing it in the
face of the Constitution. So around the same time, he
starts an episode of the TV quiz show You Bet
(41:16):
Your Life with Groucho Marks. Oh right, okay, and Groucho
Marks is old, but he's still ever quick. So the
two of them are go battering back and forth and
having a good time. And Fred de Merra, he's an
amiable guest and he shows flashes of why he is
Fred Dama. If you watch it, you go like, oh,
I can think guy's charming. Right. He makes a thousand
bucks on the game show. He tells Groucho that the
money's going to his favorite charity. It would be donated
to the Quote Feed and Clothe Fred Demea fund. So now,
(41:39):
the funny as it was, there was a lot of
truth to that statement, because, as I said, what does
an impostor do once they've been caught? Now they're on
TV and in magazine, there's nowhere for Fred to run,
so no one he can become. So Luckily for Fred,
he'd cross paths with this writer, the one who wrote
about the Life magazine article. He'd come to him and
basically given him that story because the guy once looked
after Fred when he was down and out and look,
(42:00):
I'm gonna do you a solid. Here's my life story.
Totally works for him. Yeah, he not only gets the
Life magazine, he's able to spin it into a book.
Of course. Exactly. So this writer, Robert Crichton, he hangs
out with Demea a bunch for the magazine story. They
get along well, and it's such as epic series of
hangs and chill sessions that Crichton ends up writing two
(42:20):
books about Fred.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Oh really yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
The first was the biography The Great Imposter, which would
become the movie and a New York Times bestseller. And
then the second book was called The Rascal on the
Road and it documented their eight week cross country road
trip as they revisited a lot of Fred Demara's past
like haunts, like they're like, yeah, this is the prison
where I was a pretend Ward.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Travels with third exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Apparently it was a phenomenal trip. Life magazine called it
a quote hilarious eight week cross country tour. Oh yeah,
it was like like you know, some Hunter s Thompson
level road trip and energy. So during his two month
long trek with Fred Demara, he learns a great deal
about Fred, and he also learns what made the mystery
want to be monk tick right. So he has a
couple of things I thought i'd tell you one, he said,
(43:03):
quote Damara had come to two beliefs. One was that
in any organization there was always a lot of loose,
unused power lying about, which can be picked up without
alienating anyone. The second rule is, if you want power
and want to expand, never encroach on anyone else's domain,
open up new ones. Now that's really key idea. Yeah,
for any group dynamic, whether it's work or school, or
(43:24):
friends or even family, it's always true and Damera basically
is He further elaborates on this idea. The way you
expand your power and is like finding the vacuum or
in the absence of others as Fred might put it,
and he says, quote, if you come into a new situation,
don't join some other professor's committee and try to make
your mark by moving up in that committee. You'll one
have a long haul and two make an enemy. Instead,
(43:47):
Fred says, you either want to find or make your
own committee. Remember this is a man who started his
own university. You know what he's talking about. So, as
Deamera continued, quote that way, there's no competition, no past
standards to measure you by. How can anyone tell you
aren't a top outfit? And then there's also no pass
laws or rules or precedents to hold you down or
limit you make your own rules and interpretations. Nothing like it. Remember,
(44:09):
expand into the power vacuum. So there you go. Now,
however you like it, said, he would prefer that you
not fully imitate him as an impostor. That part he
still thinks is just for him. So as he found
it hurt a lot more people than he intended, and
he really came to regret that. As Damara said, quote,
in this little game I was playing, there was always
(44:29):
comes a time when you find yourself getting in too deep.
You made good friends who believe in you, and you
don't want them to get hurt and delusion. You begin
to worry about what they'll think if somebody exposes you
as a phony. Now, after his moment the spotlight faded,
Fred became a drinker. He moved to Texas, He got
a job in prison working as a pastor, but then
an old copy of Life magazine bubbled up to the
surface in the prison library. Someone recognized him as Fred
(44:51):
to Mara because he wasn't using that name at the time.
He lose his job, he moves on, he goes to
southern California. Eventually he ends up giving last rights to
one of my heroes. What I swear to God, Elizabeth,
can you guess which of my heroes I'm talking about.
I'll I'll narrow down. He's a Hollywood actor and he
died in nineteen eighty. Steve McQueen. Fred Demara gave Steve
McQueen his last rights on Earth. They became tight friends,
(45:14):
and he went down with him when he went to
get like a canter treatment in Mexico. So in November
nineteen eighty, Steve McQueen passes away. Fred de Mera is
there at his bedside. He's with the family down in Mexico,
his wife, children, the whole bit, all right, Now, Tony Curtis,
he played a bunch of amazing roles, right. I really
love Tony Curtis. I loved him in the Billy Wilder
movie something like one of my favorite parts him is
Josephine or Joe. But if you ask Tony, his favorite
(45:36):
party ever played was Fred Demara and the great impostor. Yeah.
In my research, I found one last thing that I
wanted to tell you about that Fred said. It was
particularly heartbreaking. It was something i'd kind of suspect Hien
I was reading through his stuff, he said, And this
because from the July fifth, nineteen fifty nine issue of
the Bridgeport Post Sun quote what I hated most was
being Demera. Again, who was Demera? Anyway you looked at it,
(45:57):
Doctor French? Was somebody good or bad? Good or bad Demea?
That guy was a bum. Right. So here was this
guy trying desperately not to be himself. And it was
all due to what I imagine was some economic shame
from the Depression era when his father lost status and
that's when all his life gets broken up, right, And
from that point on, Fred just longed to help people
(46:18):
and to cure people, and to soothe people, and to like,
you know, care for strangers, and to do it he
broke all kinds of laws, you know, but he was
basically the Robin Hood of imposters.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
It sounds it was like Fred de mera crime to.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Give back to the unfortunate. Yeah, you know, so, what's
our ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Elizabeth, I think it again? Act like you know right,
it's your rule. Always act like.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
He's the best example.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
I could find it, perfect example.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
And he did like you did it. He did it
for others. He didn't do like I do, which is
for the ziksters, for Dizzy exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Well.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
You can always, always always find his online ridiculous crime
on Twitter and Instagram. Uh, you know, do it? Go
over there, do it? Do it the talkback app on
the talk bag do that too, Huh. And you can
email us if you want a ridiculous crime at gmail
dot com. Do it now. Thanks for listening. We always
enjoy having your company. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
(47:16):
Dutton and Zaraburnette, produced and edited by our brother superior
Dave Kustin. Researches by Marissa Sure you can call me
Doctor Brown and Andrea I too am a doctor. Song
sharpened t hear heart theme song is by our onboard
surgeon Thomas Lee and our visiting thoracic specialist Travis Dutton.
Executive producers are Ben founder of Bolan University Bolan and
(47:37):
College of the Noel brown Red, Why say It one
more time?
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Crime?
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Zaren, I got a question for you, girl, Yes, sir, okay,
So do you know what's ridiculous? I do? All right?
Chair it with the brother the Sharman Bears. Oh yeah,
the one is so toilet paper?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Why is that crass? Because they're white bears and you think.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
About, well, it's like the whole thing is like does
a bear in the woods. Oh yeah, that's the subtext.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh I thought it was because they're so clean, like
they're all the thing is and.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They're holding up toilet paper being like, look, how clean
I am. I don't want to want I don't want
that on my television.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I don't ever think about the actual use of the
toilet paper.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, you don't think about poop all over their hands.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I do not think about poop or on the bears.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well, Zaren, are you ready for the ultrasoft.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Sharman Comfort You pack?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh man, This bear hood is the perfect balance for
lounging at home and a conversation starter when you're out
and about.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Uh oh, I got you so cleen, Oh my god, conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So Sharman at their online shop, which I did.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Not know exist. You don't shop all the time. So
I got my socks.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
It's where all your turlet paper comes from. Well, we
got this from Sarah on Instagram. She sent this to
us and gave me gave me the old heads up.
It's a bear hoodie. And you like hoodies. It's a
it's a white hoodie and on the hood or little
tiny bear ears, which is just the cutest little thing. Sure,
(01:31):
But then on the front there's a bear, a cartoon
bear like as seen in the ads, wiping itself. But
it's not wiping it on your face. It's like arm back,
like really long nails, and you're like, how are you
doing that? Anyway? No, it's the bear is standing there
with his arms crossed and totally rude dude in it
(01:53):
with some sunglasses on. And then next over it in
the words are own the Throne and it's twenty nine
ninety nine. There's a limited quantity. It's called the Bear
Hoodie at Charman dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I feel bad for the throne. It got owned. Yeah
way a bear, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, that's ridiculous.
I know I'm certifying that one.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Wow. Okay, Well, if you got a second, you know,
if you're just like, can you kill your jets? Because
I got one for you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Hold on, yeah, okay, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
All right. Well, just to start off with this one.
You take a deeply religious boy, right and boy, you
have him grow up to become a deeply religious con man.
Oh yeah, right, So this deeply religious con man, he's
so good at faking things. He basically becomes an impostor.
And at one point he finds himself in a predicament
where he's the only air quotes surgeon aboard a destroyer
(02:51):
in wartime, and then the captain calls on him to
operate on nineteen wounded soldiers aboard ship. He's the only
one who can save their lives. And I won't tell
you was successful or not, Elizabeth, Yeah right, but I
will tell you this much, my man Fred, he pulled
off so many outlandish crimes that only an impostor can do.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
That.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
This impostor became so good that the folks in Hollywood
they got the actor Tony Curtis to play him in
the movie No Way and Better. Yet, America wasn't mad
at him for all of his impostoring ways of anything
that people loved him for being the great impostor. This
(03:43):
is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers
heiss and cons. It's always not a nine percent murder
free and on one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Like fuck Orton Leghorner.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I know I was just having fun, Yeah, Elizabeth, did
you play make believe when you're a little girl?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
No, No, of course I did.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Would you like to pretend, like what's your thing?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I like to pretend that somebody loved me.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Other than that, Did you ever have like you play
jobs like a job? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I totally loved like playing jobs Like I like to
pretend that I worked in an office, okay, And I
would like write out paper like forms, paper work, and
then like play with the calculator.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
You had an imaginary organizer.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Little did I know? I was like cursing myself to
medium labor.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, yeah, okay, well me, I always imagined a crazy
adventure fantasy, as you already well know. I would also, though,
I would play make believe my little sister and she
liked to play house. She wasn't as business minded.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
She played office. Yeah, or I played like dog wrangler.
I like to pretend that I had a bunch of dogs.
I mean I did have a bunch.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Of you pretty much just pretended your future pretty much. Yeah, yeah,
you nailed it. Yeah see, yes I did not. I
did things like play house with my sister. Okay, I
you know, I have no children, I own no home.
I didn't really do the stuff, right, So but anyway,
my point was that for me to be able to
play house with my sister was because if I wanted
to play demolition, Derby or whatever with me, I had
(05:20):
to play house. And every time I would play house,
my whole goal is always to be named John. He's like, yeah,
call me John, and it was like, those are my thing.
I don't know why. My fantasy was to have.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
A boring name, fantasy John.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, I just really wanted to be this guy named
John who just did normal things and John.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
He's like, You're like, look, you're eight years old. My
name's John. I got acid reflood.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Exactly my fee. The cotton doctors are creeping up. So
that was my whole fantasy, right. So the guy I
want to tell you about today, he was like the
opposite of my fantasy. Okay, So he always wanted a
new name which is much like me. But he also
wanted a new name so that he could help people,
not just become invisible like me, you know. Yeah. So
(06:03):
in my research on this story, I came across this
really nice passage from the Hammond, Indiana Times newspaper, and
it was all about the childish games of make believe
we play Do you got a second? Okay? Quote? Simply
by donning a cape and mask, little chaps are Superman,
a crown of silver paper and some tired pearls transform
a baby doll into a princess nurse and doctor kits
(06:26):
do medical teams make of youngsters yet unsure of their
life's work? Then that old devil reality begins its gnawing business,
and suddenly we are dull, circumstantial citizens, dreams gone, illusions, delusions,
and all that cloud like vision of greatness melted away
in the stern actuality of life. We are actors no more.
(06:48):
One role has settled upon us, smothering all glimpses of
those enchanting people we might have been.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Nice Right, Yeah, Well, Elizabeth, I want to tell you
about my man Ferdinand de Mayer. Yeah, he preferred if
he called him Fred, but actually know he preferred if
he called him anything but Fred. So really, I'll be honest.
As the ham and Times put it, Fred de Mara
quote was the most successful impostor of our time. He
was not content with such dreaming. His roles were not
the usual guys as of phony Italian counts or Russian
(07:18):
princesses assumed for the all too usual purpose of fleecing
rich ladies. Not old Fred, not my man Fred. He
was called the great impostor because he never really hurt anyone.
In fact, if anything, he was a con artist, just
so that he could help people lessen their suffering, right Fred, Hey,
(07:40):
I'm with that one. Hah. So my man Fred Demara.
What made him so damn special, as I keep basically
pointing out, is he conned others to profit others. I
love that, right, I thought you'd like this guy. Okay.
So he's born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and my family, some
of my family currently lives there, so I've recently been
back there. I was totally able to picture it, and
I was like, I'm imagining those big red brick mill
(08:03):
town buildings. So I was loving this story right now?
Did you? And you know this? In nineteen twelve, there
was the Great Lawrence Textile Strike, otherwise known as the
Bread and Roses Strike.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Oh right, okay, you know that one.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah. So now that phrase bred and roses, it comes
from a poem, and I figure you know this. It
was published one year prior, in nineteen eleven, written by
James Oppenheim, and the verse of the poem said, hearts
starve as well as bodies. Give us bread, but give
us roses, right, And I always love that the bread
and roses phrase. It became the rallying cry of these
textile workers out on strike, give us bread, but give
(08:38):
us roses too. Now, while the Brett and Roses strike
was led by Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
and all these the International Labor Union, the Wobbles, the IWW,
the local leaders were primarily Italian immigrants who'd recently immigrated
to the States. Fred Demara's people, right, so he's of
this crowd. And that strike was so successful that it
(08:58):
led to congressional hearing and the fat cast bosses had
to give up raises and give more hours. And if
you want to know more, the folk singer you Utah Phillips,
he's got a great song all about this. So my
point is, nine years after the Bread and Roses strike,
Fred Demara is born in Lawrence, born into this hotbed
of labor and immigrant pride, and he wants to be
(09:20):
a good American, right so his father's rejectionists. At the
local cinema. Things are good for Fred Senior and the family.
Lawrence has really come along, you know, and his job
pays well, and Fred Junior can go to the movies
and he sees all these stories of life outside of
Lawrence flickering on that screen before him, and he wants
some of that big, wide life. So, just like the
(09:40):
Mermaid Ariel, Fred Demara longed to be a part of
their world. That's for you, Elizabeth. Now all of a sudden,
all this is going along great and boom, the Great
Depression happens, right, you know, that's not a good one.
His father loses his job, the Damaras lose their middle
class status. They got to go and downsize and move
into a cold wa or flat. This is really hard
(10:02):
for young Fred Damara, so he decided, you know what,
I'm gonna go be a part of the world. I
can't like my dad. There's is nothing here for me anymore.
At age sixteen, he runs off to go become a man.
The year is nineteen thirty seven. What's his first stop?
Sixteen year old boy out in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Wait, okay, thirty seven, nineteen.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Thirty seven, where do you go, your sixteen year old boy?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
You join the navy.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
It's a good guess. He joined a monastery.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Oh, okay, an order.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Of Cistercian monks. Now the monastery that he went to
was located in producer Dave's home state of Rhode Island.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Well, you know, it actually makes sense if you're if
it's you know, you're in the depression.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You need to get fed, yeah, totally. You need a
place to stay, you need.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
A bed, Yeah, well I think food. You and I
had a conversation a while back about what would you
do if you were completely destitute and homeless, and how
would you survive on the streets. So I was like,
I would walk to a convent and be like, sign me.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Up, where's the pen, where's the pen?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Give me the habit I'm in, because then you know
you're at least got food, shelter, and people who care
about you.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Oh yeah, totally. And they use some vows to make
sure they keep doing it. Yeah, you know you're good now, Fred,
he finds a new home with the brothers. He takes
your advice of like, just where's the pen? Sign me up? Right, Elizabeth?
How much do you remember about all the Catholic orders
of monks from what we were taught in Catholic school? Oh? Man,
do you remember the different orders of monks and like
how they have their own colors like street gangs.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
I can barely remember my street address. I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Okay, let's play a little game here. I'll name an
order of monks. See if you can remember the color
that's their color?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Oh wow, okay, well, you know, don't forget I went
to a Catholic high school with nuns.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah so, I mean, okay, what so the nuns they,
I know, they don't have the color orders gang colors. Yeah,
they're not like like a boy's gang where they're like, hey,
here's our colors, here's our secret sign language. Right. Well, okay,
let's just go get.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
The like different colored bandanas hanging.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
For real, practically different colored rosaries. But yeah, so the Franciscans,
I don't know, gray and black, think of Padre Pio. Okay,
the Dominicans blue, all white. They're the one with the
rosary hanging on their head. Okay, all right. The Jesuits
trick question. They have no special uniform. Okay, enough of
(12:16):
the guessing. But the other orders, just so we can
get through it. The Carmelites they are brown, the Confusians
are white, the Augustinians are black, and lastly the Benedictines black.
Right now, the Benedictines, they're the wild bunch. They're the
ones we're gonna get into because their motto is prey
and work, and they were serious about that work part. Now,
this is the order that my man Fred decides to
(12:37):
join at age sixteen. Now technically he joined in even
more hardcore order of monks than it branched off from
the bed Edictines. They're called the Cistercians, and they're known
for their pure white robes and for their cloistered silence.
The Cistercians would later become known by a different name
because in the seventeenth century at the French monastery trap Abbey,
there was this reform movement and they start calling themselves
(12:58):
the Trappists and the Trappist brothers. They make the great beer,
right right, you know them, right, they were like the
most severe street gang of all the Catholic brothers, right,
the trap Monks. Right, So the Trap Monks, they're like
straight edge monks because they're like practically vegetarian. They're known
is the toughest order in the church. They even have
their own street like, their own gang signs. Basically, they
(13:20):
have their own sign language because they're cloister because they
don't take vows of silence per se, but they only
speak when spoken to, and they have huge long periods
of silence built into their day. So most most of
the brothers they speak their own form of sign linbuerge
to get through the silent parts of the day. So
they go around like you just see, I'm throwing gang
signs around the abbey at each other. Not really, but
you know, right, So they have a lot of opinions
(13:42):
about language, these guys, Like do you know that for them,
they considered a lot of jokes evil. Oh really, yeah,
because you end up laughing at someone. They think that
laughing at the expense of others is evil.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So anyway, wayward sixteen year old Fred Demara is like
this is for me, So I spend the rest of
high life on earth.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Here he was Ferdinand. Why didn't he go by Ford?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's a good call. I don't know, Ford, We should
go back to him, be like, look, man, you should
have been Ferdy the birdie.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Right, Yeah, Soga.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
He's living with the brothers. And I remember I told
you they're the crazy, hardcore structured ones that they have
a schedule. They wake up every morning at three thirty am. Oh,
they had ten prayers, private prayers from four am for
an hour and a half, and then have breakfast at
five thirty, then Mass at seven thirty every single day
of their lives. Then they after their daily doses of
the adventures of Jesus and his twelve underemployed buddies, they
(14:31):
start the Great Silence, right, and then they work in
silence until lunch, and then then then after that they
take a little siesta, then another lunch period, another work
period after lunch for three hours, then some more prayers
and then you know whatever. They finally around eight o'clock,
after they do you know, three hours of bruin beer
and banging coffin nail because apparently they're really good at
making confidence. They it's off to dinner. Time, more prayers
(14:52):
bed by eight o'clock.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I figured you would. This is a schedule.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I love you. I wouldn't get up at three thirty.
I beg you guys. I pray in my sleep so
I'll see you at se.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I have a very holy sleep. Well Fred to Mary,
He's like, he's like, this life is the life for me.
But it turns out he was wrong because after two years,
the brothers were like the man, you are not kind
of he got kicked out. The head monks like, you
are not a Trappist, my brother. So he's like shipped
off to a different monastery in Montreal, and then it's
back to the States in Massachusetts where he works as
(15:26):
a monk. He's teaching English and to fourth graders. He
loves it. Kids love him.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Wait, how old is he at this point? Eighteen?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, exactly, he's basically a kid, right.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But he once again he gets in a spat with
a superior monk. So he steals the station wagon and
he takes off, leaves his life as a monk.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Behind is a stolen monk station.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
He exactly rolls out the stolen monk wagon.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
He like takes the rosary off the rear view.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So after this, what does he do? What does Fred do?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Elizabeth grows in the bald's body shaved offs good call.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
He joins the army. He shaved it all because it's
nineteen forty one and it's what everyone's doing thing today.
So my man, the religious con man, he's now about
to enter the next phase of his life. And after
this little break, I'll tell you about Fred deamer hit
in the military and the military.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Going ooh oh, okay, Elizabeth, So I talked about my
(16:37):
man Fred Demara aka.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Third He after.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
He's taking his monk wagon. Then he stole and rode
off and said hey, and you know, basically tossed the
keys and somebody said, this is your car. Now, where's
the army recruitment office? And he goes and he joins
the army. He's only in the army for a little while.
He doesn't really like the army life. He's like, I
want to get back with the monks.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Man, what does he do to make these people so irritated?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
No, he's irritated with them.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Well, I know, but the monks kicked him out.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
He has a problem with authority jabber. No, No, he
has a problem with authority. Mostly it seems like he's
very smart, he's a photographic memory. He has a restless mind,
and he doesn't do well with like because I told
you so? Kind of okay, So the army is not
for him either. No, it takes a little while to
figure that out. And once he figures it out, he's like,
hey man, he has this army buddy he's becomes friends with.
(17:24):
He's like, hey man, Anthony Ignolia, I love it. How
do you spoil that name? And he wants He gets
some dispeled, He's like okay, and he takes off. He
goes a wall. He tells everyone he's Anthony Ignolia. So
he becomes Tony Ignolia.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Fred Debara now finally feels like he can beat himself.
Is this guy? So what does he do now? Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
He goes right back to the Trappist monks, this time
in Kentucky, and he's like, hey, I sure would like
to become a monk. What would you? What do you
fellows call yourselves? He acts like he doesn't know anything,
and he tries to go in as a as an officiate. Right,
second go around also fails. Still not cut out to be.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
A moody, so he went in as Tony. It's like,
I don't know anything about this, but then he's thinking,
like I'll show them I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Really exactly still doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
It's like when I was in college, you have to
have like your language acquirement, and I had taken French
all through high school, and I instead of testing out
of it, I just wanted a's yeah, And I actually like,
what is.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
This jem Apple Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And then I'm just like rocking all the tests. It's awesome.
I like that I'm kind of I got a little furred.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
And because I'm some similarities between you two. Well, see
if you can guess what he does once he's the
trap Monk's second round it fails, right, So now what
does Tony Ignolia do.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And he's in Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, I don't know. He goes and tries to become
a monk in Iowa. He's like, I'm gonna keep with this.
That goes nowhere for him.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Aren't really like monk hotspots.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I mean, monks are everywhere. You know, you can find
a monk anywhere.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
It's usually like real humid, quiet.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Places for what I find. But anyway, he returns home
because he's still a young man. He's basically at this
twenty eighteen years old. So his father is surprised to
see his son because last he heard he joined the army.
It's wartime. They don't just let you out of the
army in wartime. So he's like, son, you know you've deserted.
He's like, oh, poppy, all these awol terms people keep
throwing around. His pops is like, son, you can't be
(19:19):
a wall. They'll lock you up. Now, go back to
the army and say you got lost or something. I
don't know. And so Fred's like, okay, Pop, I'll do that,
and he promises he'll go back to the army. So
what does Fred do. He goes and joined the navy.
He got close. He was wrong office right, So he
gets a spot, this time as a hospital corman.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
So he is his neighbor. Did he call himself Tony
once again?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
He's Fred. He's back.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
He's back to Fred.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, because Tony's already in the service. Yeah, Tony. So
they'll catch up doing till he's like Fred again, but
different service. He's like okay, So Fred gets medical training
as a hospital corman. But again he has a problem
with these small minded superiors. So what does Fred do
this time? He does what Fred does best. He borrows
the name of a sailor he knows. This time, instead
of going a walk because that didn't work out for
(20:02):
last time, he fakes his death. He's like, I gotta
go a step further, So he pretends to be somebody else,
fakes his death. He leaves a goodbye note as Fred
puts it by the water's edge and just lets the
military figure it out.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So now boom, he is Robert Linton French and he
goes off. He professes there.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Are two Robert Linton French is in the navy.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Now yeah, well, no, he's doctor French. He just takes
doctor French. Yeah, he's so what does Fred do is
doctor French? Well, you know, he decides, I've done the Navy,
I've done the army. I don't know. I'm gonna go
back to a monastery. This is where I'm probably the best.
So he tries to become a monk again, this time
as doctor French. He's like, maybe they'll respect the doctor
(20:40):
and they won't get me so much. Lip.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yes, at first he's gonna go in like I don't
know anything. Now he's like, no, I I know everything.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
The problem was I was I was too low on
the totem pole. I need some letters in front of
my name. So now he's doctor French. He tries to
be in the in the monastery. This works for a
couple of weeks until he's accused of having faked documents.
They're like these documents are forced. He's like, what how
dare you? And he leaves.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
He's like, I am third French EMPD.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
What name did I tell you? Turn? So he goes
to a brother in Chicago. That doesn't work. Then he
goes to Milwaukee. That doesn't work because in Milwaukee they
tell him's cooking sucks and he's like, yeah, the hell
with you monks, I'm out here. Fred bounces east. He
finds a spot in Erie, Pennsylvania. At this point he's like,
I'm over the whole monks. The monks are jerks. I'm
time dombe with the monks. He's like, I'm gonna go
(21:25):
get a gig teaching. I'm doctor French. So he goes
to Gannon College. He gets he gets he gets the job.
What is he like twenty yeah, pretty much. So he
talks his way into becoming the dean of the School
of Philosophy. So now he's like twenty one years old.
He's the dean of the School of Philosophy in a
tiny college. Yes, and he decides, you know what, that's
not enough, because if I'm the dean, I should probably
(21:46):
be publishing. So he publishes a book.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So he's saying he's a medical doctor, although maybe.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
He's like a psychologist. He's saying the psychology.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Well either way, so he's okay, huh, all right.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So as a doctor French, by the way, he's no
more of a parent than I am, right, But Fred
doesn't let that stop him. So he writes a book
called How to bring Up Your Child.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
No, it is barely out of childhood.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Exactly, baby's wading babies. So the book does reasonably well.
But then again he's accused of this time forging checks.
So Fred's like, hey, what's that over there? He blows
with the wind. He's gone, right, So Fred disappears. He
finds himself on the West coast. He drives all the
way across the continent. He's out in Los Angeles. He's like,
there's a bunch of wackos out here. Nobody will follow me.
He gets a gig at a sanitarium. Literally just like
(22:28):
hanging out in the sanitarium being doctor French. Ok. So
he moves on, moves north to Seattle. He gets a
job at another small college. I liked college life. That
was good for me. And he gets he's working. It's great.
Things are gangbusters up in Seattle, sleepy area, small college.
But then one day the FBI comes calling because they've
been looking for him since he's a deserter. So we've
(22:49):
been after him for a month. So Fred gets arrested
for desertion. They take him back to the Navy. He
gets tossed into the Barracks Disciplinary Barracks in Sampedro, California.
He spends eighteen months behind bar. So he's like, okay, well,
he needs to think about what he's done.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
It's like the longest time he's done anything anytime.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yes, it's pretty much since he's been in his mother's womb.
This is the longest time he has sat still. Right.
So Fred's like, okay, I'm going to think about what
I've done. Hopefully that's what you would want for him.
Maybecome out rehabilitated. Not so much for Fred. He comes out.
He's like, I got a lot of catching up to do.
So he starts a new life. This time he starts
his own university. He's like, I don't want to mess
around with having colleges hire me. I'll hire them. So
(23:29):
Fred he assumes a new fake identity. He becomes a
Catholic monk again because he knows all the rights. Okay,
so this time he's in Maine. He becomes Brother John
Payne of the Christian Brothers of Instruction. Right, so his
brother Payne with a why Brother Payne? He decides to
found his own university. He moves up to the town
called Alfred, Maine, and this small college it becomes official.
He gets a state charter, the whole thing. Oh yeah.
(23:50):
In nineteen fifty one, he decides to leave his new
university after starting at about that a year earlier because
the administration decides not to name him is either the
college is rector or as the chancellor. That that bums
him out. He's like, you, guys, I started his place.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Is the college still in existence?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh yeah? And by the way, he hated the name
of it, so that was another reason he wanted to leave.
He's like, this is the name you guys chose what
La MiNet College? But they've since changed their name and
moved states, so they moved else Muto Island are now
known as Walsh University, and Walsh University still exists, just
not in Maine. And the president and CEO of FedEx,
(24:27):
Ramona Hood, is the alumnus of Walsh University.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Really go cavaliers, there you go?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So anyway, nineteen fifty one is a year America is
once again at war, this time the Korean War. So
Fred Damara, who's with the Christian Brothers before he left,
you know, the university he founded. He meets a man
named Joseph Sire and this guy's nice enough fellow. He's
a Canadian. They get along well, the two men. They
play chess for like a week of each night, hanging out,
they're conversing with each other. Things are going great. The
(24:53):
doctor tells like him his whole life story. Right, he's
just asking him questions. He's just so flattered. This guy
wants to know so much about him. Little you know,
does the doctor ever think of that exchange? Once they
part ways. But meanwhile Fred Demara decides he's now going
to become doctor Joseph Sire. So it's March nineteen fifty
one and the recruitment office for the Canadian Royal Navy.
(25:15):
The door swing open and walks a young man and
says he'd like to join up. Go over here's there's
a war going on. He says he's a doctor and
he thinks he could be of assistance in the war effort.
So Canada had recently joined the fight with the NATO
forces in Korea, and young doctors a welcome sights. So
they're like, soir, oh my good, we'd love to have it.
And he's like, yeah, like do you have some Paperworkan,
of course I got paperwork. Pulls out doctor Joseph Sire's
(25:37):
paperwork which happened to stick to his hand when he
was hanging out with the good doctors, and the medical
diploma too apparently, and his birth certificate. So and now
suddenly doctor Joseph Sire becomes Lieutenant Surgeon Joseph Sire.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
This man has trouble with authority and he just keeps
getting authority exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It'd be like if me somebody's allergic to be is
like I want to become a beekeeper. I'm really into it.
So anyway, the young doctor, he he goes through training
to become a lieutenant surgeon. This training would normally take
about two months. It takes a day because it's wartime,
so they rush him through training. They get him out
on a ship and boom, Sergeant Lieutenant Doctor Joseph Sire
(26:18):
is out to.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Sea and he condenses a two months training into one day.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah. Well, the Canadian Navy does because they're in such
a rush. And he's a doctor. He's got all the paperwork.
What do we need to tell of just you know,
he knows how to die. Shoes get on the boat, sir.
So he's now the only surgeon, the only doctor for
a ship of two hundred and eleven sailors and aid
officers headed to war. It doesn't take long for Fred
to be called into action, so it's the captain of
the ship. Fred stalls as long as he can, but
(26:45):
mostly so he can speed read a medical textbook so
we can know what he's going to do before it
wants in operation. He's I swear to God. So from
the San Francisco Examiner, the March fifth, nineteen sixty one edition,
quote his first assignment was to pull the skipper's tooth
a feet, which he accomplished by staying up all night
studying dentistry. He shot the captain's jaw full of novacane
(27:06):
as a precaution against taking a painful false move.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Oh that sounds easy enough.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Ye, well that becomes Fred's basically his mo. He he
had a heavy hand with the novacane. Yes, and with
the penicillini one jab.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
That's the thing, you know, you just with those two
you can't go wrong. Yeah, if you're pulling a tooth, like,
come on, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He's like, if ten c seas is good, fifty see
seas is way better. Exactly, so the captain's please, he said,
quote it was the nicest tooth pulling job I've ever had,
So apparently Fred does great work.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Meanwhile, Fred, whenever he has a chance, he's speed reading
all the medical literature on the boat, everything he can find.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So, now, of course what he fears will come to
pass comes to pass. There is a medical emergency, a
real medical emergency, not just a tooth pulling. They arrive
in the theater of war and nineteen wounded soldiers are
brought out board the ship and boom, it's Fred de Maritime.
Now all of a sudden, doctor Joseph Siers moment to
shine is here. He is, as I might remind you,
the only doc on board. It's up to him to
(28:01):
save all nineteen lives. And Fred tells the kreman aboard
the ship to prepare his operating room in the captain's quarters,
and then he hides in his office and he starts
speed reading on open chest surgery.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I would be doing that already. If you're going out,
he's probably looking up like ingrown toenails. No, get to
the gory stuff first.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
This is the great impostor's greatest test yet.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Well, i'd say, I mean, if you're going to be
an autodidact, start with what's most important and then work
you with you.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, that's I'm right there with you. Start brain surgery
and get to heart, and then work your way out
exactly so. From the Bridgeport Post newspaper, Sunday, July fifth,
nineteen fifty nine. This is a comes this quote. Three
soldiers of the nineteen were seriously hurt. All of them,
unless they received competent surgery within the next day, would die.
Never before had he felt at the same instance, such
(28:47):
an impostor and such a complete, lonely, isolated fraud. There
was no place to run and no place to dodge,
no assurance that he could find the courage or whatever
ingredient it would take to begin surgery of the three
Koreans who lay on bunks drugged by heavy doses of morphine.
So can he fake it until he makes it? As
a field surgeon, Elizabeth, I'd like to close your eyes and.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Picture it all right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
You're a board the RMS Cayuga as it powers across
the Pacific Ocean somewhere just off the coast of Korea.
You're currently in a makeshift operating room. You are the
coreman responsible for assisting the Lieutenant surgeon, Doctor Joseph Sire
Demara aka Doctor Sire. Anyway, he tells you his plans
for the nineteen operations before you. Just before he begins,
he says, quote, the less cutting you do, the less
(29:31):
patching you have to do afterwards. Hey, and with that
into the surgery you too. Hop Now you nod and
hope that he means everything about not too much cutting,
because you also are not really ready for this. But
you buck up and you're ready for it, so you
have no reason to suspect it. But the doctor's just
as nervous as you. He looks really calm, but inside trembling.
(29:53):
So no strike that you're more nervous than here. I'll
take that back. So anyway, the lives are in both
your hands. And as you begin to operate in the
first wounded soldier, you hear the familiar surgical refrain scalpel,
followed by hemostat, and then he repeats that hemostat. You're
the lookover, and you hand him the scissor style clamps.
He starts clamping off blood vessels and then blood spurt,
and you're like, oh, the doctor Sire is quick amostat.
(30:15):
He's got another clamp, and you're able to stay with him.
He's able to staunch the bleeding once it stops flowing.
He's able to dig into the fresh wound. After a
tense moment of mining for metal in another man's gut,
he pulls out a foreign body a bullet. He sutures
up the gaping wound. It's on to the next one.
Eighteen more to go. The second soldier needs his lung collapsed.
(30:36):
You help the doctor to relieve the pressure. You hold
the patient as he perforates his flesh. With a careful
puncture into the lung tissue, the lung kisses and boom.
Just like that, the patient can now breathe normally. It's
on to Patient seventeen. It's an amputation. It's a messy,
bloody affair. Patients sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen gunshot wounds pretty easily.
Mostly clamps, sutures, some bandaging. Patient thirteen is finally stable
(30:57):
when he's ready for surgery. He has a bullet lodged
in his chest. It's dangerously close to the man's heart.
It's pinched deep into his chest, right next to the
a orda fred aka. Doctor Sire tells you this one
will be a million to one chance, and then he
dives in. He wipes the nervous sweat from his face.
His smock already looks bloodstained. It looks like a Civil
War field surgeon. Doctor Sire pries open the chest of
(31:18):
the soldier. You open up your mouth and gape with
just a shock at the look of the splintered ribs.
Oh God, that's gonna make things dicey. You hear doctor
Syre call out coagulating agent. You hand it over to
the surgeon. He practically pours it all over the open
chest wound. After much delicate handiwork, doctor Sire manages just
delicately pulled the bullet from the soldier's chest. He saves
(31:39):
his life and it's on to patient twelve as the
destroyer continues to pitch and y'aw in the rough seas
watching it all go down right there before you even
you can't believe it, but doctor Sire saves them all.
None of the soldiers die as a result of Fred
Deda Mari's amateur surgeries. All of the wow all nineteen Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
I gotta say it, if I'm really picturing it, I
would have passed out at the first guy. I don't
do blood. I'm sorry, I know you don't.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I try to keep that pretty dry, right, bad other
than the splendid ribs, not like Albert Einstein's brain. Okay,
so let's take a quick break and I'll be back
to tell you what happens that is a result of
him saving nineteen lives. All right, Elizabeth, we're back, yes now.
(32:43):
After his miraculous performance, doctor Joseph Syer aka Fred Damara,
he becomes a hero back home in Canada, I mean,
like a minor celebrity of the war. And he should
be right an incredible feat a board ship performing nineteen
open heart surgery. Come on now, now, also the fact
he's an amateur, but people didn't even know that. It's
even more miraculous than they know. But anyway, he also
(33:06):
becomes a hero, and not just in Canada, but in
the United States, Like, people are really blown away by
this effort, and they're also reading about the Korean War
because of America's very involved, right, But one day there's
this one person up in Canada who was reading the
morning paper and they spit out their Canadian bacon and
they're like, what in the name of Nova Scotia is
going on here? And that person, mind you, was the
(33:26):
mother of doctor Joseph Sire. She didn't send her boy
to actual real medical school just to see some schlamil
take credit for her being a life saving Canadian and
her son's name. So what does she do. She calls
up the local paper and says, that's not my boy.
She gives them the scoop. Oh wow, Now there's a
counterwave to the story that just slept across Canada and
that counterwave sweeps back in the other direction. Eventually that
(33:48):
wave reaches a destroyer way out at sea and the news.
When the news reaches the Cayuga, the Canadian naval destroyer
where Fred Damara has just saved all nineteen soldiers and
everyone's still celebrating. The captain remember his first patient, who's
he's become really close friends with. He comes up to
Fred and he wants to tell him about the cable
he's just received because he doesn't believe it. Yeah, Captain
James Plumer, He's like, head headquarters must have made him
(34:09):
stake here, doctor, I don't know. I mean this must
be of a kind of foul in the paperwork. They're
saying that you aren't you? And he's like, yeah about that.
When do we get to a doc?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I just want to pluggs his nose and jumps out.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
If only he could. Right now, at this point, this
is the thing Fred Deamhra has long feared. He has
nowhere to run, nowhere to go. He is stuck on
a boat with all the people he's disappointed. Yeah, so
it's pretty much a nightmare for him in the middle
of the Pacific. So he tells his friend the captain
the truth, and now Fred Deamara is Fred Namara again
and he's transferred to a British ship man. She's then
(34:43):
headed to Japan, which is then he's given speedy transfer
and sent back to Canada to face charges. So from
The Windsor Star November twentieth, nineteen fifty one quote in
one hundred and fifty word statement, it announced last night
that the man who was acclaimed for a series of
brilliant operations while serving a board the Canadian destoryeror Cayuga,
is being discharged for misconduct. That's all they wanted to
(35:05):
quiet story like that. Oh, by the way, look over
there is that. Milton burrel So. The Windsor Star also
reported and I quote that the hoax was brought to
light a month ago through DeMar's fame. Publication of a
story dealing with his surgery and identifying him as doctor
Joseph Sire of Edmondston, New Brunswick led to a wave
of inquiries in New Brunswick. Subsequently, it was found that
(35:25):
the authentic doctor Sire is now practicing at Grand Falls,
New Brunswick. He reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
his certification documents had disappeared mysteriously. So no matter what
any of all the reporters and like you know, newspaper
men and women say doctor sire. Everyone who they go
and speak to, they have only glowing remarks for the
fake doctor sire, they say. And I quote, all the
(35:46):
medical authorities in the United Nations forces in the Far
East with whom Demer came in contact of testified as
to the extensiveness of his knowledge of medicine and surgery.
And nothing has occurred to indicate, either to the Royal
Canadian Navy or to the authorities of other forces America
serving in Korea that he did not possess the competence
of a fully qualified medical man. So no one's willing
to back down on this, right, So it wasn't just
(36:09):
but you know, apparently it wasn't just his speed reading.
Before he's surgery. He had actually compiled an extensive medical knowledge,
or so people claim.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
He also was giving talks like he at the Canadian
Naval headquarters. He gave seminars to other doctors about internal
medicine like he was.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
You're kidding, Oh yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The newspaper man and newspaper women they eventually tracked down
his father, and they get some great quotes from him
about his son, the great impostor, and his father, Fred
Damer Senior said of his Boyfred that quote, he was
bright to the point of genius. Things came easily to him,
and he read constantly. There was nothing bad in him.
He always wanted to help others, especially those who were suffering.
I have no doubt this attitude led him to the
(36:48):
trouble he is in humhm right, which is obviously very true.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah so.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
And also his father points out that Fred was quote
always a deeply religious boy until he was sixteen. From
then on he traveled the world in a world of
his and he would confide in no one. Huh, A
little sad, right, yeah. So on the Canadian shores. Now
Fred has to face a Naval Board of inquiry, and
that's not good. So the panel of uniformed officers ways
service record and his scope of crimes in the year
(37:14):
that he was in the navy, and they have to
decide on his punishment. So what do you think they're
gonna do with this life saving hero Fred de Merra.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I don't know. I hope they like give him an
actual education and let him do his thing.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I don't know, that's pretty good. I like it. You
have a good heart. Well, I'll tell you this much.
In nineteen sixty one, the Hollywood makes a movie about
him called The Great Impostor, and its stars Tony Curtis
as Fred dea Mera. Right towards the end of the movie,
they you know, they dramatize this scene and Tony Curtis
faces off against the Naval inquiry board, and Tony as
Fred gives this impassioned speech on his own behalf. But
(37:48):
the rousing speech is also the opposite of the sort
of appeal that someone like me would make. Like if
I was guilty, I'd be talking about it in much
different terms. Yea. He he centers his guilt and innocence
on It's very Fred. So Tony Curtis, person in the
room right, and the naval officer are all around this
big oak table, and he says, I think I have
a possible solution to this situation right in the naval
(38:10):
brass They agree to hear them out. They seal the door.
So Tony Curtis says, and I quote, gentlemen, there sometimes
exists a real conflict between the letter and the spirit.
Of the law. It is the letter of the law
that the guilty should be punished, but it is also
the spirit of the law that the innocent should be protected. Unfortunately,
some innocent people are involved in this case, good people
(38:33):
whose only fault was that they accepted and believed in me.
I've heard them one in particular enough. Now a prolonged
trial would only cause them and the Navy further embarrassment. Sir,
I beg you drop the case against Fred W. Demera.
So he asked them to drop the case for others
to protect themselves.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
And that I don't want you guys to embarrass yourselves.
You better stop.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, he ended up with He's like, let me walk
out that door, and I promise you within an hour,
I will be on a train and out of Canada
for good. And I one d percent believe him on that.
Oh yeah, he'll steal a station wagon if he has.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Oh yeah, he'll blow down when it comes to it.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So that's basically what I like to think went down.
Because inside this closed door military meeting room, which we
do not have record of, all we know is that
Fred Demara goes in, is doctor Joseph Sire comes as
Fred Demara and he's granted an honorable discharge as doctor
Joseph sire to get him out of the Navy. He's
then sent back to America with a few hundred bucks
that they call backpay. And once he's back in the States,
Fred de Merra becomes a minor celebrity as the Great Impostor.
(39:26):
Everyone hears this story so as a touch of accuracy
for the Korean War, the TV show mash would later
have an episode called Dear Dad Again. It was about
Captain Adam Casey, who was this fake doctor who did
real surgery in Korea. Oh cool, right, Fred?
Speaker 3 (39:41):
I wonder did the real doctor? Did he get to
like collect benefits and stuff?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
That's interesting? I don't think so, I don't. I don't think.
I mean, well, what was Fred? Demara's back in the
US and he's once again Fred. He now has to
make a new life for himself. But the problem is
is everyone's onto him now. They've seen his face. His
face is everywhere on the new So what does he
do if he can't run away?
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Just goes right into the spotlight.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
He decides to sell his life. Yes, so he sells
his life story too appropriately enough? Life magazine perfect. So
the magazine does this big glossy feature on him. They
bill him as public Rascal, Number one, Public Rascal. I'm
in a hype sheet for the new issue of Life.
They had a description what was inside, and they said, quote,
if you act like you belong somewhere, even people who
know you don't belong are hesitant to call you on it.
(40:25):
People are so insecure deep in their souls they feel
they don't belong either. This shrewd appraisal of human weakness
helped make Ferdinand Waldo Demera Junior the most successful and
most daring impost of our day. Although he never graduated
from high school, Deamarra has brilliantly lived many roles, including
those of a college dean of philosophy, assistant warden of
a large prison, a Benedictine teacher, and the surgeon of
(40:48):
the Royal Canadian Navy. Reperform major operations with the aid
of a surgery handbook.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Act like you know exactly I knew you would love.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
That it is so. Once again, capitalizing on this rollicking
and fit nature of fame, Demera gives the press a
few memorable quotes. One of my favorites was quote where
about in America could a man do all I've done.
That's what I call freedom, Yes, rubbing it in the
face of the Constitution. So around the same time, he
starts an episode of the TV quiz show You Bet
(41:16):
Your Life with Groucho Marks. Oh right, okay, and Groucho
Marks is old, but he's still ever quick. So the
two of them are go battering back and forth and
having a good time. And Fred de Merra, he's an
amiable guest and he shows flashes of why he is
Fred Dama. If you watch it, you go like, oh,
I can think guy's charming. Right. He makes a thousand
bucks on the game show. He tells Groucho that the
money's going to his favorite charity. It would be donated
to the Quote Feed and Clothe Fred Demea fund. So now,
(41:39):
the funny as it was, there was a lot of
truth to that statement, because, as I said, what does
an impostor do once they've been caught? Now they're on
TV and in magazine, there's nowhere for Fred to run,
so no one he can become. So Luckily for Fred,
he'd cross paths with this writer, the one who wrote
about the Life magazine article. He'd come to him and
basically given him that story because the guy once looked
after Fred when he was down and out and look,
(42:00):
I'm gonna do you a solid. Here's my life story.
Totally works for him. Yeah, he not only gets the
Life magazine, he's able to spin it into a book.
Of course. Exactly. So this writer, Robert Crichton, he hangs
out with Demea a bunch for the magazine story. They
get along well, and it's such as epic series of
hangs and chill sessions that Crichton ends up writing two
(42:20):
books about Fred.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Oh really yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
The first was the biography The Great Imposter, which would
become the movie and a New York Times bestseller. And
then the second book was called The Rascal on the
Road and it documented their eight week cross country road
trip as they revisited a lot of Fred Demara's past
like haunts, like they're like, yeah, this is the prison
where I was a pretend Ward.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Travels with third exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Apparently it was a phenomenal trip. Life magazine called it
a quote hilarious eight week cross country tour. Oh yeah,
it was like like you know, some Hunter s Thompson
level road trip and energy. So during his two month
long trek with Fred Demara, he learns a great deal
about Fred, and he also learns what made the mystery
want to be monk tick right. So he has a
couple of things I thought i'd tell you one, he said,
(43:03):
quote Damara had come to two beliefs. One was that
in any organization there was always a lot of loose,
unused power lying about, which can be picked up without
alienating anyone. The second rule is, if you want power
and want to expand, never encroach on anyone else's domain,
open up new ones. Now that's really key idea. Yeah,
for any group dynamic, whether it's work or school, or
(43:24):
friends or even family, it's always true and Damera basically
is He further elaborates on this idea. The way you
expand your power and is like finding the vacuum or
in the absence of others as Fred might put it,
and he says, quote, if you come into a new situation,
don't join some other professor's committee and try to make
your mark by moving up in that committee. You'll one
have a long haul and two make an enemy. Instead,
(43:47):
Fred says, you either want to find or make your
own committee. Remember this is a man who started his
own university. You know what he's talking about. So, as
Deamera continued, quote that way, there's no competition, no past
standards to measure you by. How can anyone tell you
aren't a top outfit? And then there's also no pass
laws or rules or precedents to hold you down or
limit you make your own rules and interpretations. Nothing like it. Remember,
(44:09):
expand into the power vacuum. So there you go. Now,
however you like it, said, he would prefer that you
not fully imitate him as an impostor. That part he
still thinks is just for him. So as he found
it hurt a lot more people than he intended, and
he really came to regret that. As Damara said, quote,
in this little game I was playing, there was always
(44:29):
comes a time when you find yourself getting in too deep.
You made good friends who believe in you, and you
don't want them to get hurt and delusion. You begin
to worry about what they'll think if somebody exposes you
as a phony. Now, after his moment the spotlight faded,
Fred became a drinker. He moved to Texas, He got
a job in prison working as a pastor, but then
an old copy of Life magazine bubbled up to the
surface in the prison library. Someone recognized him as Fred
(44:51):
to Mara because he wasn't using that name at the time.
He lose his job, he moves on, he goes to
southern California. Eventually he ends up giving last rights to
one of my heroes. What I swear to God, Elizabeth,
can you guess which of my heroes I'm talking about.
I'll I'll narrow down. He's a Hollywood actor and he
died in nineteen eighty. Steve McQueen. Fred Demara gave Steve
McQueen his last rights on Earth. They became tight friends,
(45:14):
and he went down with him when he went to
get like a canter treatment in Mexico. So in November
nineteen eighty, Steve McQueen passes away. Fred de Mera is
there at his bedside. He's with the family down in Mexico,
his wife, children, the whole bit, all right, Now, Tony Curtis,
he played a bunch of amazing roles, right. I really
love Tony Curtis. I loved him in the Billy Wilder
movie something like one of my favorite parts him is
Josephine or Joe. But if you ask Tony, his favorite
(45:36):
party ever played was Fred Demara and the great impostor. Yeah.
In my research, I found one last thing that I
wanted to tell you about that Fred said. It was
particularly heartbreaking. It was something i'd kind of suspect Hien
I was reading through his stuff, he said, And this
because from the July fifth, nineteen fifty nine issue of
the Bridgeport Post Sun quote what I hated most was
being Demera. Again, who was Demera? Anyway you looked at it,
(45:57):
Doctor French? Was somebody good or bad? Good or bad Demea?
That guy was a bum. Right. So here was this
guy trying desperately not to be himself. And it was
all due to what I imagine was some economic shame
from the Depression era when his father lost status and
that's when all his life gets broken up, right, And
from that point on, Fred just longed to help people
(46:18):
and to cure people, and to soothe people, and to like,
you know, care for strangers, and to do it he
broke all kinds of laws, you know, but he was
basically the Robin Hood of imposters.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
It sounds it was like Fred de mera crime to.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Give back to the unfortunate. Yeah, you know, so, what's
our ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Elizabeth, I think it again? Act like you know right,
it's your rule. Always act like.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
He's the best example.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
I could find it, perfect example.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
And he did like you did it. He did it
for others. He didn't do like I do, which is
for the ziksters, for Dizzy exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Well.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
You can always, always always find his online ridiculous crime
on Twitter and Instagram. Uh, you know, do it? Go
over there, do it? Do it the talkback app on
the talk bag do that too, Huh. And you can
email us if you want a ridiculous crime at gmail
dot com. Do it now. Thanks for listening. We always
enjoy having your company. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
(47:16):
Dutton and Zaraburnette, produced and edited by our brother superior
Dave Kustin. Researches by Marissa Sure you can call me
Doctor Brown and Andrea I too am a doctor. Song
sharpened t hear heart theme song is by our onboard
surgeon Thomas Lee and our visiting thoracic specialist Travis Dutton.
Executive producers are Ben founder of Bolan University Bolan and
(47:37):
College of the Noel brown Red, Why say It one
more time?
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Crime?
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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