1 00:00:02,794 --> 00:00:05,130 with no medical training. 2 00:00:05,214 --> 00:00:08,133 A Hollywood producer whose most outrageous story 3 00:00:08,217 --> 00:00:11,637 turned out to be the one about himself. 4 00:00:11,678 --> 00:00:15,098 And a jazz musician whose greatest performance 5 00:00:15,182 --> 00:00:19,436 was the one that was given offstage. 6 00:00:21,522 --> 00:00:25,025 What makes a person want to become someone else? 7 00:00:25,108 --> 00:00:28,153 Is it to escape their life? 8 00:00:28,237 --> 00:00:31,406 Or is it to fool someone? 9 00:00:31,490 --> 00:00:35,035 Or is there an even more profound reason? 10 00:00:35,118 --> 00:00:40,499 Well, that is what we'll try and find out. 11 00:00:40,582 --> 00:00:42,501 ♪ ♪ 12 00:00:53,178 --> 00:00:55,973 ♪ ♪ 13 00:01:00,018 --> 00:01:02,437 SHATNER: As the Korean War rages around it, 14 00:01:02,521 --> 00:01:07,985 the Royal Canadian destroyer HMCS Cayuga brings aboard 15 00:01:08,068 --> 00:01:11,113 19 badly wounded South Korean soldiers 16 00:01:11,196 --> 00:01:13,657 requiring immediate surgery. 17 00:01:13,740 --> 00:01:17,578 Dr. Joseph Cyr, the ship's newly arrived physician, 18 00:01:17,661 --> 00:01:21,123 is called upon to perform a series of procedures 19 00:01:21,206 --> 00:01:23,083 to save the men's lives. 20 00:01:23,166 --> 00:01:25,210 There's quite a few wounded men. 21 00:01:25,294 --> 00:01:28,589 They're taken on board, and the ship captain tells Dr. Cyr, 22 00:01:28,672 --> 00:01:31,300 "You have to operate. You have to save these guys." 23 00:01:31,341 --> 00:01:33,552 So, according to all accounts, 24 00:01:33,635 --> 00:01:36,972 Dr. Cyr takes this relatively calmly 25 00:01:37,014 --> 00:01:39,182 and goes to it. 26 00:01:40,601 --> 00:01:43,145 SHATNER: While the patients are prepped for surgery, 27 00:01:43,186 --> 00:01:45,564 Dr. Cyr reviews a medical textbook 28 00:01:45,647 --> 00:01:48,609 in his private quarters to prepare himself 29 00:01:48,692 --> 00:01:50,986 for what would be the defining moment 30 00:01:51,069 --> 00:01:55,115 of not only his career, but his entire life. 31 00:01:55,198 --> 00:01:58,410 NATE HENDLEY: He performs a number of operations 32 00:01:58,493 --> 00:02:00,912 on these wounded South Korean soldiers, 33 00:02:00,996 --> 00:02:03,874 removing bullets, doing chest surgery. 34 00:02:03,957 --> 00:02:06,627 And by all accounts, he was successful. 35 00:02:07,753 --> 00:02:11,131 SHATNER: The story of Dr. Cyr's valiant performance 36 00:02:11,214 --> 00:02:14,718 hit Canadian newspapers and spread like wildfire. 37 00:02:14,801 --> 00:02:18,055 Across the country, people read about the naval doctor's 38 00:02:18,138 --> 00:02:20,307 heroic efforts to save the lives 39 00:02:20,390 --> 00:02:22,309 of the Korean soldiers. 40 00:02:22,392 --> 00:02:25,354 But there was at least one woman who was stunned 41 00:02:25,437 --> 00:02:29,399 by the news that Dr. Joseph Cyr had become a national hero. 42 00:02:29,483 --> 00:02:32,152 And as it turned out, she had a very good reason 43 00:02:32,194 --> 00:02:33,987 to be surprised. 44 00:02:34,071 --> 00:02:38,825 HENDLEY: The mother of Dr. Joseph Cyr was reading the newspaper, 45 00:02:38,909 --> 00:02:41,870 and reads this account of her son. 46 00:02:41,953 --> 00:02:44,790 So she phones her son up, and her son is sort of like, 47 00:02:44,873 --> 00:02:48,126 "Uh, no, I'm still posted in New Brunswick. 48 00:02:48,168 --> 00:02:50,462 I'm not on a ship. What are you talking about?" 49 00:02:50,545 --> 00:02:53,382 And it becomes obvious very quickly 50 00:02:53,465 --> 00:02:57,344 that the guy on board the destroyer is an imposter. 51 00:02:57,427 --> 00:03:00,347 The mother of the real doctor contacts the RCMP, 52 00:03:00,430 --> 00:03:03,308 Canada's equivalent of the FBI, 53 00:03:03,350 --> 00:03:05,977 and the shipboard captain on the destroyer is told, 54 00:03:06,019 --> 00:03:08,438 "Uh, well, your surgeon is an imposter. 55 00:03:08,522 --> 00:03:10,774 Uh, we've, uh, got to take him into custody." 56 00:03:10,857 --> 00:03:14,486 He's taken back to Canada, he's put before a court 57 00:03:14,528 --> 00:03:17,989 that would reveal that he's Ferdinand Demara, 58 00:03:18,031 --> 00:03:19,991 of Lawrence, Massachusetts. 59 00:03:20,033 --> 00:03:23,620 SHATNER: An American from Massachusetts 60 00:03:23,704 --> 00:03:26,581 masquerading as a Canadian naval doctor 61 00:03:26,665 --> 00:03:29,292 in the Sea of Japan? 62 00:03:29,376 --> 00:03:30,877 But how? 63 00:03:30,961 --> 00:03:32,254 And why? 64 00:03:32,337 --> 00:03:34,131 HARVEY ROSENSTOCK: Ferdinand Demara 65 00:03:34,172 --> 00:03:35,799 is a very fascinating man. 66 00:03:35,841 --> 00:03:39,511 First of all, he came from a middle‐class family. 67 00:03:39,594 --> 00:03:41,138 Very comfortable. 68 00:03:41,221 --> 00:03:44,975 But then they suffered the Great Depression, 69 00:03:45,016 --> 00:03:46,184 They had to move. 70 00:03:46,268 --> 00:03:49,062 They had to downgrade, as it were. 71 00:03:49,146 --> 00:03:50,522 They get to a poor neighborhood, 72 00:03:50,605 --> 00:03:55,318 less of the affluent or semi‐affluent amenities. 73 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:58,363 So he went from a lot to less, 74 00:03:58,447 --> 00:04:01,158 but it seemed to bother him more than his parents, 75 00:04:01,241 --> 00:04:03,285 the best that we can tell. 76 00:04:03,368 --> 00:04:07,372 And therefore, he had to fill in the difference. 77 00:04:07,456 --> 00:04:10,917 HENDLEY: By all accounts, he's a very smart kid. 78 00:04:10,959 --> 00:04:13,003 You know, does well at school. 79 00:04:13,086 --> 00:04:14,629 But he drops out of high school, 80 00:04:14,671 --> 00:04:18,341 and he starts this weird sort of moving around 81 00:04:18,425 --> 00:04:21,219 and trying on new personas. 82 00:04:21,303 --> 00:04:24,973 ROSENSTOCK: It turns out that he has the ability 83 00:04:25,056 --> 00:04:26,975 to memorize very quickly. 84 00:04:27,017 --> 00:04:30,645 He even claimed that he had a photographic memory. 85 00:04:30,687 --> 00:04:33,398 So that he could look at something, 86 00:04:33,482 --> 00:04:35,942 say, "That really belongs to me," 87 00:04:36,026 --> 00:04:40,906 and with a very good intellect, he could carry this off. 88 00:04:40,989 --> 00:04:42,449 And he found 89 00:04:42,532 --> 00:04:46,328 he could "borrow" any kind of credential 90 00:04:46,369 --> 00:04:51,333 and become that person represented by that credential. 91 00:04:52,334 --> 00:04:54,628 HENDLEY: He starts that from a very early age, 92 00:04:54,711 --> 00:04:57,339 and he joins the military, goes AWOL, 93 00:04:57,422 --> 00:05:00,467 joins other branches of the military. 94 00:05:00,509 --> 00:05:03,094 In one of his very early impersonations, 95 00:05:03,178 --> 00:05:06,181 he pretends to be a Trappist monk 96 00:05:06,264 --> 00:05:08,308 and joins a monastery. 97 00:05:08,391 --> 00:05:12,270 At the time he was pretending to be a Christian monk, 98 00:05:12,354 --> 00:05:16,358 he made friends with a Canadian doctor named Joseph Cyr, 99 00:05:16,441 --> 00:05:20,028 and he then goes to enlist in the Canadian Navy 100 00:05:20,111 --> 00:05:22,572 and announces that he's Dr. Joseph Cyr 101 00:05:22,656 --> 00:05:25,784 and uses the same credentials that the real doctor had. 102 00:05:25,867 --> 00:05:29,162 There's a war going on at the time in Korea, 103 00:05:29,246 --> 00:05:31,206 so they don't ask too many questions. 104 00:05:31,289 --> 00:05:33,333 They're just delighted to get a surgeon. 105 00:05:33,416 --> 00:05:35,627 SHATNER: In addition to posing 106 00:05:35,669 --> 00:05:38,129 as a military surgeon and a monk, 107 00:05:38,171 --> 00:05:40,423 Demara tried his hand at impersonating 108 00:05:40,507 --> 00:05:43,301 a number of other professions, including 109 00:05:43,385 --> 00:05:45,637 civil engineer, zoologist, 110 00:05:45,720 --> 00:05:48,390 psychologist, philosophy professor 111 00:05:48,473 --> 00:05:52,143 and lawyer, among many others. 112 00:05:52,185 --> 00:05:54,938 Demara became so adept at impersonation 113 00:05:55,021 --> 00:06:00,068 that he eventually became known by his most famous alias of all: 114 00:06:00,151 --> 00:06:02,863 The Great Imposter. 115 00:06:02,946 --> 00:06:05,615 Ironically, Demara's life went full circle. 116 00:06:05,699 --> 00:06:08,410 After pretending to be all these different identities 117 00:06:08,493 --> 00:06:12,664 his whole life, in the end he became famous for who he was. 118 00:06:12,706 --> 00:06:14,666 Oh, I've been a surgeon lieutenant 119 00:06:14,708 --> 00:06:16,543 in the Royal Canadian Navy. 120 00:06:16,626 --> 00:06:18,295 ‐You operated on people? ‐Mm‐hmm. 121 00:06:18,378 --> 00:06:20,130 (audience gasping, chuckling) 122 00:06:20,213 --> 00:06:22,173 Isn't that rather dangerous? 123 00:06:22,257 --> 00:06:24,259 ‐You might say that. ‐Uh‐huh. 124 00:06:24,342 --> 00:06:26,344 Where did you steal your new credentials? 125 00:06:26,428 --> 00:06:28,471 ‐I acquire these things. ‐Oh. 126 00:06:28,513 --> 00:06:29,973 I know. You keep telling me that. 127 00:06:30,056 --> 00:06:33,184 I hate to bring the word "steal" into this conversation. 128 00:06:33,268 --> 00:06:36,438 HENDLEY: He appeared on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx, 129 00:06:36,521 --> 00:06:38,315 and he makes it clear 130 00:06:38,398 --> 00:06:41,318 that he, "acquired credentials," 131 00:06:41,359 --> 00:06:44,321 and that he's going to use his prize money 132 00:06:44,404 --> 00:06:46,740 to buy more credentials. 133 00:06:46,823 --> 00:06:49,075 Were you in jail in... in, uh, Canada? 134 00:06:49,159 --> 00:06:51,578 ‐No, no. ‐In the United States, have you ever been in jail? 135 00:06:51,661 --> 00:06:53,997 Yes, I have been in jail. I spent a year 136 00:06:54,039 --> 00:06:55,749 in the Texas State Penitentiary. 137 00:06:55,832 --> 00:06:57,834 ‐Well, it's about time, I... ‐(laughter) 138 00:06:57,918 --> 00:06:58,960 that somebody nails you. 139 00:06:59,044 --> 00:07:00,629 What were you in there for? 140 00:07:00,670 --> 00:07:03,298 Uh, I was in there as deputy warden. 141 00:07:03,340 --> 00:07:05,050 (laughter) 142 00:07:05,133 --> 00:07:06,927 ROSENSTOCK: As a result of that, 143 00:07:07,010 --> 00:07:08,345 everybody wants to meet him, 144 00:07:08,428 --> 00:07:10,764 wants to talk about him, wants to hear about him. 145 00:07:10,847 --> 00:07:12,766 ‐Are you Martin Goddard? ‐Yes, I am. 146 00:07:12,849 --> 00:07:15,644 And your real name is Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr.? 147 00:07:15,685 --> 00:07:17,646 ROSENSTOCK: And then when Tony Curtis acted 148 00:07:17,729 --> 00:07:20,482 in The Great Imposter, he became famous 149 00:07:20,565 --> 00:07:22,901 because he could fool the world. 150 00:07:24,194 --> 00:07:26,112 ALEXANDER STEIN: In many respects, 151 00:07:26,196 --> 00:07:27,989 to be an imposter is... 152 00:07:28,031 --> 00:07:32,243 fairly normal, although we think of them as... 153 00:07:32,327 --> 00:07:34,079 somehow pathological. 154 00:07:34,162 --> 00:07:37,749 In fact, there are many people who do it for work. 155 00:07:37,832 --> 00:07:40,502 Actors are a form of imposters. 156 00:07:40,585 --> 00:07:43,046 There are people who put on a costume or a uniform 157 00:07:43,129 --> 00:07:46,883 to transform themselves in some way that gives them 158 00:07:46,967 --> 00:07:49,970 some measure of authority in their work. 159 00:07:50,053 --> 00:07:52,806 SHATNER: Let's face it: at one time or another, 160 00:07:52,889 --> 00:07:55,809 most of us have fantasized about trying on a new identity. 161 00:07:55,850 --> 00:07:59,521 Like when we engage in role‐playing games 162 00:07:59,604 --> 00:08:01,982 or wear costumes on Halloween. 163 00:08:02,065 --> 00:08:03,984 For most of us, of course, 164 00:08:04,067 --> 00:08:07,362 the fantasy remains simply that: a fantasy. 165 00:08:07,445 --> 00:08:10,156 But in the case of Ferdinand Demara, 166 00:08:10,198 --> 00:08:11,408 The Great Imposter, 167 00:08:11,491 --> 00:08:13,535 by pretending to be a surgeon, 168 00:08:13,618 --> 00:08:17,038 is it possible that‐‐ in his mind, at least‐‐ 169 00:08:17,122 --> 00:08:20,000 he actually became one? 170 00:08:20,041 --> 00:08:22,544 Ferdinand Demara impersonated a surgeon. 171 00:08:22,627 --> 00:08:24,963 He wasn't a surgeon, but during the Korean War 172 00:08:25,005 --> 00:08:27,549 while he was on a ship, he saved lives. 173 00:08:27,632 --> 00:08:29,759 His ability to adapt from impersonation 174 00:08:29,843 --> 00:08:32,303 might have given him the ability to adapt 175 00:08:32,345 --> 00:08:34,139 under a stressful situation. 176 00:08:34,180 --> 00:08:37,517 "Con man," of course, "con" is a kind of a nickname. 177 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:41,980 The origin of that word is "confidence." 178 00:08:42,063 --> 00:08:46,609 In the case of someone like Ferdinand Demara, 179 00:08:46,693 --> 00:08:48,903 because of his success 180 00:08:48,987 --> 00:08:54,284 in being able to truly believe every one of his fantasies 181 00:08:54,367 --> 00:08:56,828 as one new piece of reality, 182 00:08:56,870 --> 00:09:00,165 he can act it out in such a real way 183 00:09:00,248 --> 00:09:02,584 for a limited period of time. 184 00:09:03,835 --> 00:09:05,754 SHATNER: By the time of his death, 185 00:09:05,837 --> 00:09:09,049 from a heart attack on June 7, 1982, 186 00:09:09,132 --> 00:09:12,343 Ferdinand Demara had spent the last several years of his life 187 00:09:12,427 --> 00:09:13,928 as a Baptist minister 188 00:09:14,012 --> 00:09:17,557 and later a counselor at Good Samaritan Hospital 189 00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:19,809 in Anaheim, California. 190 00:09:19,851 --> 00:09:24,355 In his obituary, Demara's lawyer and good friend, Melvin Belli, 191 00:09:24,439 --> 00:09:26,733 is quoted as saying... 192 00:09:30,278 --> 00:09:31,988 And why should there be? 193 00:09:32,072 --> 00:09:36,576 After all, most of us can only live one life at a time. 194 00:09:36,659 --> 00:09:40,955 Ferdinand Demara was able to live several. 195 00:09:49,839 --> 00:09:51,591 PETER LANPHOTOGRAPHER: Chris! Chris, Chris! 196 00:09:51,674 --> 00:09:53,718 SHATNER: French movie producer Christopher Reyes 197 00:09:53,802 --> 00:09:56,012 is the talk of Tinseltown. 198 00:09:56,096 --> 00:09:57,931 PHOTOGRAPHER: Where's the girls tonight? 199 00:09:59,682 --> 00:10:00,892 SHATNER: Between a movie deal 200 00:10:00,975 --> 00:10:03,812 with action star Jean‐Claude Van Damme, 201 00:10:03,895 --> 00:10:07,524 co‐ownership of two chic Beverly Hills boutiques, 202 00:10:07,607 --> 00:10:10,819 a perfume line endorsed by singer Michael Jackson 203 00:10:10,902 --> 00:10:14,656 and a Playboy Playmate wife, 204 00:10:14,697 --> 00:10:18,535 it appears Reyes's burgeoning reputation 205 00:10:18,618 --> 00:10:20,453 as a Hollywood player is secure. 206 00:10:20,537 --> 00:10:21,871 PHOTOGRAPHER: Thanks, Chris. 207 00:10:21,955 --> 00:10:23,248 ‐Good to see you. ‐All right. 208 00:10:24,916 --> 00:10:27,794 He would mix with some of the movers and shakers in L. A. 209 00:10:27,877 --> 00:10:30,964 Uh, so he'd throw kind of glamorous dinner parties. 210 00:10:31,005 --> 00:10:33,967 He'd invite all of his friends that he'd met, 211 00:10:34,008 --> 00:10:36,302 and he'd make sure that they saw that he was being generous 212 00:10:36,386 --> 00:10:37,637 during these parties. 213 00:10:37,679 --> 00:10:39,722 He said he was a venture capitalist. 214 00:10:39,806 --> 00:10:42,559 He was in L. A. and he was mixing with the kind of people 215 00:10:42,642 --> 00:10:44,144 who are also millionaires. 216 00:10:44,227 --> 00:10:48,481 He would talk of how he was Sophia Loren's son, 217 00:10:48,523 --> 00:10:51,484 he was Oscar de la Renta's nephew, and there was no reason 218 00:10:51,568 --> 00:10:52,819 for people to disbelieve him. 219 00:10:52,902 --> 00:10:54,779 He would maybe say, "Do you want to invest? 220 00:10:54,863 --> 00:10:57,115 He'd give them an opportunity, and they would think 221 00:10:57,198 --> 00:10:59,826 that they were gonna get something from him. 222 00:10:59,909 --> 00:11:01,494 PHOTOGRAPHER: Chris! Let's go. 223 00:11:01,578 --> 00:11:04,789 SHATNER: To everyone he meets, it seems Christopher Reyes 224 00:11:04,873 --> 00:11:07,876 has perfected the recipe for Hollywood success. 225 00:11:07,959 --> 00:11:11,838 Except there's one key ingredient missing. 226 00:11:11,921 --> 00:11:14,883 Because, as it turns out, the man claiming 227 00:11:14,966 --> 00:11:18,303 to be Christopher Reyes is a bigger fiction 228 00:11:18,344 --> 00:11:21,806 than any conceived by a Hollywood screenwriter. 229 00:11:21,848 --> 00:11:24,684 He is actually a notorious French con artist 230 00:11:24,767 --> 00:11:28,396 named Christophe Rocancourt. 231 00:11:28,479 --> 00:11:32,066 Well, Rocancourt was the world's coolest con man, in essence. 232 00:11:32,150 --> 00:11:36,154 Um, you know, he was smooth, he was charismatic. 233 00:11:36,196 --> 00:11:37,989 He was ambitious. 234 00:11:38,072 --> 00:11:40,783 So, he had all the traits of a classic con man. 235 00:11:40,867 --> 00:11:42,785 HENDLEY: By all accounts, 236 00:11:42,869 --> 00:11:46,831 Christophe's approach was very simple, but direct. 237 00:11:46,873 --> 00:11:49,209 He would tell people, you know "If you invest 238 00:11:49,292 --> 00:11:51,961 in my various enterprises," 239 00:11:52,045 --> 00:11:54,631 you know, "I can vastly increase your money." 240 00:11:54,672 --> 00:11:57,800 So his methods were not terribly, 241 00:11:57,884 --> 00:12:00,637 you know, sophisticated, but they worked, 242 00:12:00,678 --> 00:12:03,932 and he pulled in a lot of money from people. 243 00:12:07,352 --> 00:12:10,480 IANTORNO: In Paris, he'd set up this alias for himself, 244 00:12:10,521 --> 00:12:12,106 a wealthy Russian nobleman. 245 00:12:12,190 --> 00:12:15,401 From just sheer confidence and imagination, 246 00:12:15,485 --> 00:12:19,322 he was able to pull off a few scams. Uh, most notably, 247 00:12:19,405 --> 00:12:22,742 when he managed to forge the deeds to a building in Paris 248 00:12:22,825 --> 00:12:24,994 and sell it for over a million dollars. 249 00:12:25,078 --> 00:12:27,205 SHATNER: As he scammed his way across Europe, 250 00:12:27,288 --> 00:12:30,625 Christophe Rocancourt defrauded dozens of victims 251 00:12:30,708 --> 00:12:32,794 under numerous aliases. 252 00:12:32,877 --> 00:12:34,963 But while authorities had a mountain of lies 253 00:12:35,046 --> 00:12:37,966 and fake identities to sort through, 254 00:12:38,007 --> 00:12:41,678 they were missing one elusive truth: 255 00:12:41,761 --> 00:12:43,763 who actually was 256 00:12:43,846 --> 00:12:46,349 Christophe Rocancourt? 257 00:12:49,394 --> 00:12:51,688 IANTORNO: Rocancourt grew up, um, in a small town 258 00:12:51,771 --> 00:12:53,439 on the Normandy coast, 259 00:12:53,523 --> 00:12:55,984 uh, just where the‐the River Seine meets the English Channel. 260 00:12:56,025 --> 00:12:58,611 Uh, it's a lovely place, um, 261 00:12:58,695 --> 00:13:00,863 but he didn't have the best childhood. 262 00:13:01,698 --> 00:13:04,158 His father was an alcoholic 263 00:13:04,200 --> 00:13:07,787 and his mother had to resort to prostitution. 264 00:13:07,870 --> 00:13:12,000 HARVEY ROSENSTOCK: Here is a young person who is in 265 00:13:12,083 --> 00:13:16,379 a desperate survival mode from the earliest stages. 266 00:13:16,462 --> 00:13:21,384 This kind of person really has no reason to trust the world. 267 00:13:21,467 --> 00:13:24,304 And so he found out 268 00:13:24,387 --> 00:13:29,559 that he can acquire wealth by deceptive means. 269 00:13:29,642 --> 00:13:31,602 There's no reason for him to feel sorry 270 00:13:31,686 --> 00:13:34,063 about the next person, 'cause in his mind, 271 00:13:34,147 --> 00:13:37,025 presumably, no one felt sorry for him. 272 00:13:38,484 --> 00:13:40,987 JONATHAN YOUNG: I think the game had its own reward. 273 00:13:41,070 --> 00:13:42,655 This is a very hostile game, 274 00:13:42,697 --> 00:13:44,991 and this is a wounded, aggressive person. 275 00:13:45,033 --> 00:13:48,161 He wanted to hurt people. He wanted to take their money. 276 00:13:48,202 --> 00:13:51,873 It was a coldhearted transaction. 277 00:13:53,207 --> 00:13:55,918 SHATNER: For most people, the notion of scamming 278 00:13:56,002 --> 00:13:59,213 and conniving their way to wealth and happiness 279 00:13:59,297 --> 00:14:00,506 is unthinkable. 280 00:14:00,590 --> 00:14:04,802 So, what drives serial impostors 281 00:14:04,886 --> 00:14:07,805 like Christophe Rocancourt to use impersonation 282 00:14:07,847 --> 00:14:10,808 to not merely pretend to be someone else, 283 00:14:10,850 --> 00:14:13,436 but to actually inflict harm? 284 00:14:13,519 --> 00:14:19,108 And not just once or twice, but over and over again? 285 00:14:19,192 --> 00:14:21,152 ROBBINS: For a lot of impostors that grow up 286 00:14:21,235 --> 00:14:23,321 in a damaged childhood where they're facing abuse 287 00:14:23,363 --> 00:14:25,990 or traumatic events, they have to develop 288 00:14:26,074 --> 00:14:28,159 these sort of coping mechanisms. 289 00:14:28,242 --> 00:14:31,371 One, they start to see themselves on the outside 290 00:14:31,454 --> 00:14:34,040 of the normal reality that everyone else does. 291 00:14:34,123 --> 00:14:35,917 The society as a norm is here, 292 00:14:35,958 --> 00:14:37,543 and they're on the outskirts of that. 293 00:14:37,627 --> 00:14:40,671 So, then they start to categorize people as others. 294 00:14:40,755 --> 00:14:42,465 The second is that they have to be able 295 00:14:42,507 --> 00:14:44,842 to anticipate the actions of their abuser. 296 00:14:44,926 --> 00:14:46,969 So, this starts to form an unusual kind 297 00:14:47,011 --> 00:14:50,473 of predictive empathy in order for them to survive. 298 00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:58,314 SHATNER: No matter the reason for their duplicity, 299 00:14:58,356 --> 00:15:00,650 once discovered, most impostors' lives 300 00:15:00,733 --> 00:15:02,944 are shattered beyond repair. 301 00:15:03,027 --> 00:15:04,904 But while you might think someone 302 00:15:04,987 --> 00:15:07,698 as internationally notorious as Christophe Rocancourt 303 00:15:07,782 --> 00:15:09,075 would stop his antics 304 00:15:09,158 --> 00:15:14,330 after being so thoroughly exposed, well, 305 00:15:14,372 --> 00:15:16,249 you'd be wrong. 306 00:15:16,332 --> 00:15:18,876 Eventually things came tumbling down when people 307 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:20,837 started suspecting that he was a fraud. 308 00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:24,215 So when he moved from L. A. to New York, 309 00:15:24,298 --> 00:15:25,967 Rocancourt was running the same scams 310 00:15:26,050 --> 00:15:27,301 as he always had done. 311 00:15:27,343 --> 00:15:29,303 He was having lavish dinner parties, 312 00:15:29,345 --> 00:15:31,514 he was inviting exclusive guests. 313 00:15:31,597 --> 00:15:33,808 He was getting them to invest large sums of money, 314 00:15:33,891 --> 00:15:36,477 $50,000 or a $100,000 at a time. 315 00:15:36,561 --> 00:15:39,480 I think people started suspecting Rocancourt 316 00:15:39,522 --> 00:15:42,942 when a few things just stopped adding up. 317 00:15:43,025 --> 00:15:46,070 He was driving a Mazda rather than the kind of car 318 00:15:46,154 --> 00:15:48,239 that you'd expect a millionaire to be driving. 319 00:15:48,322 --> 00:15:50,074 He tasted some wine that was cheap wine, 320 00:15:50,158 --> 00:15:52,326 and he thought it was expensive wine. 321 00:15:52,410 --> 00:15:54,412 Maybe he was just getting sloppy. 322 00:15:54,495 --> 00:15:57,123 And it was an unpaid hotel bill in the end 323 00:15:57,206 --> 00:16:00,460 that was the thing that got him caught. 324 00:16:00,501 --> 00:16:04,797 SHATNER: In 2003, Christophe Rocancourt plead guilty 325 00:16:04,839 --> 00:16:09,093 to charges of bribery, theft and fraud. 326 00:16:09,177 --> 00:16:13,139 He was ordered to pay $1.2 million to his victims 327 00:16:13,222 --> 00:16:16,934 and sentenced to 46 months in federal prison. 328 00:16:17,018 --> 00:16:20,563 After his release in October 2005, 329 00:16:20,646 --> 00:16:22,231 Rocancourt returned to Europe 330 00:16:22,315 --> 00:16:25,109 where his notoriety as a smooth‐talking con man 331 00:16:25,193 --> 00:16:28,070 continued to make headlines. 332 00:16:28,154 --> 00:16:31,949 But Rocancourt's deceptions appear almost benign 333 00:16:32,033 --> 00:16:35,161 when compared to those of another famous impostor, 334 00:16:35,203 --> 00:16:38,498 one who became so desperate to hide his true identity 335 00:16:38,539 --> 00:16:41,834 that it not only cost people their fortunes, 336 00:16:41,876 --> 00:16:51,802 it also cost them their lives. 337 00:16:54,805 --> 00:16:58,226 SHATNER: Sandra Boss, a recent Harvard Business School graduate, 338 00:16:58,309 --> 00:17:02,104 marries Clark Rockefeller, a man who is known to her 339 00:17:02,188 --> 00:17:04,815 as a member of one of the wealthiest 340 00:17:04,899 --> 00:17:07,109 and most powerful families in America. 341 00:17:08,945 --> 00:17:10,655 After the couple's fairy‐tale wedding, 342 00:17:10,738 --> 00:17:12,114 Sandra went to work 343 00:17:12,198 --> 00:17:14,408 for a prestigious consulting firm in Boston 344 00:17:14,534 --> 00:17:18,496 while Clark resumed working on international poverty relief. 345 00:17:18,538 --> 00:17:21,415 But the fairy tale didn't last long. 346 00:17:21,499 --> 00:17:24,335 MARK SEAL: He claimed he was working on so many high‐level things, 347 00:17:24,418 --> 00:17:27,171 but he wasn't contributing to the marriage financially. 348 00:17:27,255 --> 00:17:29,924 And he said, "Well, to charge these struggling countries 349 00:17:30,007 --> 00:17:32,343 a fee would be, you know, unconscionable." 350 00:17:32,426 --> 00:17:36,138 He didn't seem to want to go out and get a regular job. 351 00:17:36,180 --> 00:17:39,600 And so she was beginning to get tired of this. 352 00:17:42,687 --> 00:17:44,480 SHATNER: After more than ten years of marriage, 353 00:17:44,564 --> 00:17:47,817 Sandra Boss finally had enough and filed for divorce. 354 00:17:47,942 --> 00:17:51,404 It was a decision that would not only unravel her marriage, 355 00:17:51,487 --> 00:17:56,867 but also unravel the strange truth about her husband. 356 00:17:56,951 --> 00:17:58,578 SEAL: Clark Rockefeller had 357 00:17:58,703 --> 00:18:02,164 no passport, no credit cards, no birth certificate 358 00:18:02,290 --> 00:18:04,292 that she could find. 359 00:18:04,375 --> 00:18:06,294 HENDLEY: She can't come up with any documentation. 360 00:18:06,419 --> 00:18:09,297 So she really has the whip hand during the divorce, 361 00:18:09,422 --> 00:18:13,509 and she ends up winning custody of their daughter, Snooks. 362 00:18:13,593 --> 00:18:17,305 He's absolutely gobsmacked by this, and he's miserable, 363 00:18:17,388 --> 00:18:20,016 because he is actually devoted to his daughter. 364 00:18:20,099 --> 00:18:21,976 So he comes up with this harebrained plan 365 00:18:22,059 --> 00:18:24,854 and he kidnaps his daughter. 366 00:18:24,937 --> 00:18:26,856 SHATNER: The FBI immediately launched 367 00:18:26,939 --> 00:18:28,441 a nationwide manhunt, 368 00:18:28,524 --> 00:18:32,194 but Clark Rockefeller had vanished into thin air. 369 00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:35,031 And the reason the authorities had such a hard time 370 00:18:35,114 --> 00:18:37,033 tracking down Clark Rockefeller 371 00:18:37,116 --> 00:18:38,909 was because 372 00:18:38,993 --> 00:18:42,496 there was no Clark Rockefeller. 373 00:18:42,580 --> 00:18:45,207 So, I'm at home. My brother calls me. 374 00:18:45,291 --> 00:18:48,878 He goes, "Turn on CNN right now." 375 00:18:48,961 --> 00:18:52,882 I turn on the TV, and I look, and I go, 376 00:18:52,965 --> 00:18:55,801 "That's Christian Gerhartsreiter." 377 00:18:55,885 --> 00:18:58,471 And it says right across the top, "Clark Rockefeller." 378 00:18:58,512 --> 00:19:01,057 So we called the FBI and said, 379 00:19:01,140 --> 00:19:02,600 "This is Christian Gerhartsreiter." 380 00:19:02,683 --> 00:19:05,519 He was a German exchange student that came to our house. 381 00:19:05,603 --> 00:19:07,813 I was 15 at the time, 382 00:19:07,855 --> 00:19:11,317 and he was 17. 383 00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,736 But the FBI, like, they didn't even know his name. 384 00:19:14,987 --> 00:19:17,323 SEAL: It was covered in all the media, on television, 385 00:19:17,406 --> 00:19:22,078 and when the AMBER Alert was issued, he was apprehended. 386 00:19:22,161 --> 00:19:25,623 He was returned to Boston to face charges. 387 00:19:25,706 --> 00:19:28,459 And that's when his incredible life 388 00:19:28,542 --> 00:19:32,755 of all these different personas unspooled. 389 00:19:32,838 --> 00:19:35,633 SHATNER: At trial, Sandra watched as her husband, the man 390 00:19:35,758 --> 00:19:39,261 she had believed to be a member of the Rockefeller family, 391 00:19:39,345 --> 00:19:41,972 was sentenced to four to five years in prison 392 00:19:42,014 --> 00:19:44,642 for custodial kidnapping. 393 00:19:44,684 --> 00:19:48,145 But what was it that compelled Christian 394 00:19:48,187 --> 00:19:50,189 to lie to his friends, family 395 00:19:50,272 --> 00:19:53,192 and associates for so long? 396 00:19:54,985 --> 00:19:57,988 ROBBINS: The phenomenon of an impostor is an interesting dichotomy 397 00:19:58,030 --> 00:19:59,407 that somebody has to live with. 398 00:19:59,532 --> 00:20:02,368 They have two stories constantly colliding. 399 00:20:02,451 --> 00:20:04,995 And often, if you're going to perpetuate that consistently, 400 00:20:05,037 --> 00:20:07,456 you have to almost have a form of delusion, 401 00:20:07,540 --> 00:20:09,500 to be able to compartmentalize one of those realities 402 00:20:09,583 --> 00:20:11,210 so that you can live your life 403 00:20:11,293 --> 00:20:14,255 without having this other one on the back burner. 404 00:20:14,338 --> 00:20:17,925 SHATNER: Are impostors who carry out elaborate deceptions 405 00:20:18,008 --> 00:20:21,679 acting out a kind of wish fantasy? 406 00:20:23,097 --> 00:20:25,141 And if so, how does this fantasy 407 00:20:25,182 --> 00:20:27,268 first take hold in their mind? 408 00:20:27,351 --> 00:20:31,147 For the answer, perhaps it's best to look all the way back 409 00:20:31,230 --> 00:20:33,190 into Christian's past. 410 00:20:35,025 --> 00:20:36,861 Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter 411 00:20:36,944 --> 00:20:38,946 grew up in West Germany. 412 00:20:39,029 --> 00:20:41,657 By all accounts, he was kind of a bit of an oddball, 413 00:20:41,741 --> 00:20:43,826 prone to fantasy, a little on the nerdy side, 414 00:20:43,868 --> 00:20:48,164 and really wanted to get out of West Germany. 415 00:20:48,247 --> 00:20:52,418 So in 1978, he travels to the United States 416 00:20:52,501 --> 00:20:55,963 and shows up on the doorstep of this family in Connecticut 417 00:20:56,046 --> 00:20:57,590 called the Savios, 418 00:20:57,673 --> 00:20:59,842 and just sort of went into high school, 419 00:20:59,925 --> 00:21:02,595 said he was an exchange student, and things got 420 00:21:02,678 --> 00:21:05,306 progressively stranger from there. 421 00:21:05,389 --> 00:21:08,809 SAVIO: He told me that his father created parts 422 00:21:08,851 --> 00:21:10,311 for Mercedes‐Benz. 423 00:21:10,352 --> 00:21:12,313 And, of course, you know, they had money. 424 00:21:12,354 --> 00:21:14,315 You know, servants. 425 00:21:14,398 --> 00:21:15,983 We all knew it was ridiculous. 426 00:21:16,025 --> 00:21:18,444 We laughed at it at the time. 427 00:21:19,612 --> 00:21:22,198 SHATNER: By 1985, Christian had taken up residence 428 00:21:22,281 --> 00:21:23,908 on the West Coast. 429 00:21:23,991 --> 00:21:26,744 He had also taken a new name. 430 00:21:26,827 --> 00:21:29,163 He moved to San Marino, which is a rich community 431 00:21:29,246 --> 00:21:30,498 in Southern California, 432 00:21:30,581 --> 00:21:33,459 and assumed the name Christopher Chichester, 433 00:21:33,542 --> 00:21:36,796 and announced that he was part of the British royal family. 434 00:21:36,879 --> 00:21:40,382 He would go get free lunches at social clubs 435 00:21:40,466 --> 00:21:41,842 and private members clubs. 436 00:21:41,926 --> 00:21:45,387 He'd start schmoozing up all the rich ladies in town, 437 00:21:45,513 --> 00:21:47,932 attends a very fancy church. 438 00:21:48,015 --> 00:21:50,226 Ends up living in the guesthouse 439 00:21:50,309 --> 00:21:54,146 of a local woman named Ruth Sohus. 440 00:21:54,230 --> 00:21:56,065 He lives there rent‐free, 441 00:21:56,148 --> 00:21:58,734 and all is well for a while, but then 442 00:21:58,818 --> 00:22:03,489 Ruth's son, John, shows up with his wife Linda. 443 00:22:03,572 --> 00:22:05,199 And John, apparently, 444 00:22:05,282 --> 00:22:08,577 was a bit suspicious of this 445 00:22:08,702 --> 00:22:11,121 strange guy living in Mom's guesthouse. 446 00:22:11,205 --> 00:22:15,042 And then, all of a sudden, Linda and her husband disappear. 447 00:22:15,125 --> 00:22:18,379 SHATNER: Soon after Linda and John Sohus disappeared, 448 00:22:18,462 --> 00:22:20,798 so did Christopher Chichester. 449 00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:24,677 And Christian the imposter moved back to the East Coast, 450 00:22:24,802 --> 00:22:28,848 where he would eventually live under his most infamous alias: 451 00:22:28,931 --> 00:22:30,516 Clark Rockefeller. 452 00:22:30,599 --> 00:22:34,270 The rest, as they say, is history. 453 00:22:34,353 --> 00:22:36,063 But not before this bizarre story 454 00:22:36,188 --> 00:22:39,650 took yet another unexpected twist. 455 00:22:39,775 --> 00:22:42,069 In March of 2011, 456 00:22:42,152 --> 00:22:45,531 after Christian was convicted of kidnapping his daughter, 457 00:22:45,614 --> 00:22:48,409 authorities in California gathered enough evidence 458 00:22:48,492 --> 00:22:50,744 to charge him with a more serious crime 459 00:22:50,828 --> 00:22:54,707 than any he had been charged with before: 460 00:22:54,832 --> 00:22:57,042 the 1985 murder 461 00:22:57,167 --> 00:22:59,295 of John Sohus. 462 00:23:01,213 --> 00:23:04,174 MARK SEAL: Ruth Sohus had passed away, 463 00:23:04,258 --> 00:23:06,594 and another couple had bought her home 464 00:23:06,677 --> 00:23:08,846 and were installing a swimming pool. 465 00:23:08,971 --> 00:23:11,599 HENDLEY: Where Christian lived in San Marino, 466 00:23:11,682 --> 00:23:15,519 they dug up the backyard and discovered human remains. 467 00:23:15,603 --> 00:23:18,856 And the body was cut up into pieces, 468 00:23:18,939 --> 00:23:21,108 but it was wearing the same kind of clothes 469 00:23:21,191 --> 00:23:23,485 that John Sohus typically wore: 470 00:23:23,527 --> 00:23:25,487 jeans and a flannel shirt. 471 00:23:25,529 --> 00:23:29,325 And apparently, parts were in bags from schools 472 00:23:29,366 --> 00:23:32,536 that Christian Gerhartsreiter had attended. 473 00:23:32,620 --> 00:23:36,790 So then he was put on trial for murdering John Sohus. 474 00:23:36,874 --> 00:23:39,335 He was found guilty, and he is now an inmate 475 00:23:39,418 --> 00:23:41,629 in San Quentin Prison in California. 476 00:23:41,754 --> 00:23:44,131 The police detective that I interviewed 477 00:23:44,214 --> 00:23:45,966 said that the motive was money. 478 00:23:46,050 --> 00:23:48,677 He was to inherit a sizable amount of money 479 00:23:48,761 --> 00:23:52,473 from Ruth Sohus, and that's what they believed. 480 00:23:52,556 --> 00:23:55,476 And Linda Sohus had disappeared 481 00:23:55,559 --> 00:23:57,227 off the face of the earth. 482 00:23:57,311 --> 00:23:58,646 What happened to Linda? 483 00:23:58,687 --> 00:24:01,607 That's still an enduring mystery of this case. 484 00:24:01,690 --> 00:24:03,525 SHATNER: Imposters like Christian, 485 00:24:03,651 --> 00:24:04,985 who are willing to lie‐‐ 486 00:24:05,027 --> 00:24:09,156 or even kill‐‐ for the sake of protecting an illusion, 487 00:24:09,239 --> 00:24:11,325 would certainly seem to be troubled, 488 00:24:11,408 --> 00:24:13,577 misguided individuals. 489 00:24:13,661 --> 00:24:17,164 But if that's true, then why do so many of us 490 00:24:17,206 --> 00:24:19,416 fall for their deceptions? 491 00:24:20,584 --> 00:24:22,461 YOUNG: Part of the magic story 492 00:24:22,544 --> 00:24:24,964 is using a name like Rockefeller. 493 00:24:25,047 --> 00:24:28,008 It has a mana, a glitter to it. 494 00:24:28,092 --> 00:24:29,635 It draws people. 495 00:24:29,718 --> 00:24:32,554 And there is an element of collusion. 496 00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,057 So the inability to catch the warning signs 497 00:24:35,182 --> 00:24:39,061 has to do with the intentional blindness of the victim. 498 00:24:39,144 --> 00:24:42,606 They want something, and they want this story to be true, 499 00:24:42,690 --> 00:24:45,359 so they're participating. 500 00:24:45,442 --> 00:24:47,528 ROBBINS: That's really the secret to a con. 501 00:24:47,611 --> 00:24:49,822 It's not about manufacturing a whole fake reality. 502 00:24:49,863 --> 00:24:51,448 Instead, it's finding the story 503 00:24:51,532 --> 00:24:53,367 that people are telling themselves 504 00:24:53,450 --> 00:24:54,827 and just elaborating on it. 505 00:24:54,910 --> 00:24:56,745 They're able to compartmentalize this reality, 506 00:24:56,870 --> 00:24:59,164 because they're not worried about somebody else. 507 00:24:59,248 --> 00:25:01,041 These, together, present opportunity 508 00:25:01,125 --> 00:25:03,002 for somebody to be very evil. 509 00:25:04,336 --> 00:25:07,589 SHATNER: Today, instead of going by the name Clark Rockefeller, 510 00:25:07,673 --> 00:25:12,136 Christian is known as inmate number AR3108 511 00:25:12,177 --> 00:25:14,847 at San Quentin State Prison. 512 00:25:14,972 --> 00:25:18,017 Hopefully, his days of adopting false identities 513 00:25:18,100 --> 00:25:20,060 have been ended forever. 514 00:25:20,185 --> 00:25:22,980 Unlike another imposter, 515 00:25:23,022 --> 00:25:26,066 whose assumption of a new identity was so credible 516 00:25:26,150 --> 00:25:27,818 and so enduring 517 00:25:27,860 --> 00:25:31,321 that many remain convinced that her deception was true, 518 00:25:31,363 --> 00:25:34,867 even decades after her death. 519 00:25:40,039 --> 00:25:44,543 HENDLEY: In the case of impostors who have a damaged past, 520 00:25:44,626 --> 00:25:47,588 does the assumption of a new identity help them 521 00:25:47,671 --> 00:25:50,466 to recover the details of a forgotten life? 522 00:25:52,051 --> 00:25:55,679 Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the case of a woman 523 00:25:55,763 --> 00:25:58,849 who many called an imposter, 524 00:25:58,932 --> 00:26:02,061 but who, until the day she died, 525 00:26:02,144 --> 00:26:04,188 insisted she was really 526 00:26:04,271 --> 00:26:08,150 a long‐lost Russian princess: 527 00:26:08,192 --> 00:26:12,654 the Grand Duchess, Anastasia. 528 00:26:19,703 --> 00:26:22,539 In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, 529 00:26:22,664 --> 00:26:25,751 the exiled emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, 530 00:26:25,834 --> 00:26:29,004 his wife Alexandra, and their five children 531 00:26:29,088 --> 00:26:32,633 are awakened in the night by their captors. 532 00:26:32,716 --> 00:26:35,177 Frightened and confused, 533 00:26:35,302 --> 00:26:38,347 they are herded along with four of their loyal servants 534 00:26:38,430 --> 00:26:41,975 into the basement of the Ipatiev House. 535 00:26:42,017 --> 00:26:44,812 There, while waiting for further instructions, 536 00:26:44,937 --> 00:26:47,397 a group of Soviet secret police 537 00:26:47,481 --> 00:26:50,776 enter and raise their pistols. 538 00:26:50,859 --> 00:26:54,404 The last thing the confused family hears. 539 00:26:54,488 --> 00:26:56,323 is the sound of gunfire. 540 00:26:56,365 --> 00:26:59,701 (gunshots echoing) 541 00:27:00,994 --> 00:27:04,123 After the execution, the bodies of the Romanov family 542 00:27:04,206 --> 00:27:07,668 were burned and then buried in a mass grave. 543 00:27:11,004 --> 00:27:14,633 But in the wake of the killing, rumors emerged 544 00:27:14,716 --> 00:27:17,803 that the youngest daughter, Anastasia, 545 00:27:17,845 --> 00:27:20,889 had survived the slaughter. 546 00:27:23,433 --> 00:27:27,980 I think the idea that An‐Anastasia might have escaped, 547 00:27:28,021 --> 00:27:32,818 it seems to be because of the chaos and the time it took 548 00:27:32,860 --> 00:27:37,614 for the true events that night to come out. 549 00:27:37,698 --> 00:27:39,825 It was said that the gunmen were drunk, 550 00:27:39,908 --> 00:27:43,829 and the cellar was full of smoke. 551 00:27:44,705 --> 00:27:46,915 The story, such as it is, 552 00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,585 is that she somehow survived the shooting 553 00:27:49,668 --> 00:27:52,045 and that one of the Bolshevik guards 554 00:27:52,129 --> 00:27:53,589 noticed she was alive 555 00:27:53,672 --> 00:27:56,675 and had this residual sympathy for the royal family, 556 00:27:56,758 --> 00:27:58,677 and sneaked her out of the death house 557 00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:00,846 and put her on a horse cart 558 00:28:00,929 --> 00:28:03,265 and rode her to Romania. 559 00:28:17,029 --> 00:28:19,364 SHATNER: The limp body of a young woman 560 00:28:19,448 --> 00:28:21,241 is pulled from a canal 561 00:28:21,325 --> 00:28:23,911 after a failed suicide attempt. 562 00:28:23,994 --> 00:28:28,665 Suffering from traumatic amnesia and severe depression, 563 00:28:28,707 --> 00:28:31,251 she is admitted into a mental hospital. 564 00:28:31,335 --> 00:28:35,464 The doctors, unable to verify the woman's identity, 565 00:28:35,505 --> 00:28:38,383 refer to her as Fraulein Unbekannt: 566 00:28:38,467 --> 00:28:41,178 Miss Unknown. 567 00:28:41,261 --> 00:28:43,764 WELCH: She became known as Miss Unknown, 568 00:28:43,847 --> 00:28:45,641 which lasted for months. 569 00:28:45,724 --> 00:28:48,894 And she was ripe for having an identity 570 00:28:48,977 --> 00:28:50,437 sort of thrust on her. 571 00:28:51,855 --> 00:28:54,483 ROSENSTOCK: Most likely, she has a primary diagnosis 572 00:28:54,566 --> 00:28:56,652 of post‐traumatic stress disorder. 573 00:28:56,693 --> 00:28:59,154 Therefore, we have some deficits 574 00:28:59,196 --> 00:29:00,739 in cognition, 575 00:29:00,864 --> 00:29:03,158 we have some bizarre emotionality, 576 00:29:03,242 --> 00:29:06,078 and we have someone who's in a state 577 00:29:06,161 --> 00:29:11,124 of confusion, which comes and goes in different gradations. 578 00:29:12,501 --> 00:29:14,378 Over the course of about a year or so, 579 00:29:14,503 --> 00:29:17,464 another patient sort of notices she looks a bit like 580 00:29:17,506 --> 00:29:20,926 one of the Romanov daughters, and so these rumors emerge 581 00:29:21,009 --> 00:29:23,679 that she's connected to the royal family. 582 00:29:25,055 --> 00:29:28,308 WELCH: Once they've latched on to some evidence 583 00:29:28,433 --> 00:29:30,644 that she might be Anastasia, 584 00:29:30,727 --> 00:29:34,481 it's all sort of a case of confirmation bias. 585 00:29:34,523 --> 00:29:36,483 Everybody looks for the things. 586 00:29:36,566 --> 00:29:38,277 And I think, in a general way, 587 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,697 people wanted hope out of a terrible tragedy. 588 00:29:41,780 --> 00:29:43,699 It's a human instinct. 589 00:29:43,782 --> 00:29:47,160 And the survival of Anastasia represented hope. 590 00:29:47,244 --> 00:29:49,454 SHATNER: In 1922, 591 00:29:49,538 --> 00:29:50,831 the mysterious woman, 592 00:29:50,914 --> 00:29:53,583 who had also gone by the name Anna Anderson, 593 00:29:53,667 --> 00:29:55,210 was released from the hospital 594 00:29:55,294 --> 00:29:58,755 and soon began calling herself Anastasia. 595 00:29:58,839 --> 00:30:01,758 And it wasn't long before her haunting story 596 00:30:01,842 --> 00:30:03,885 made worldwide headlines, 597 00:30:04,011 --> 00:30:05,971 prompting many to ask, 598 00:30:06,013 --> 00:30:09,349 "Was the woman in Berlin an imposter 599 00:30:09,474 --> 00:30:11,893 or the Russian grand duchess?" 600 00:30:13,228 --> 00:30:16,315 STEIN: She went viral, in a sense, at that time, 601 00:30:16,356 --> 00:30:20,986 because the world was hungry for that kind of scandal. 602 00:30:21,069 --> 00:30:23,989 Because she wasn't out there 603 00:30:24,031 --> 00:30:28,035 energetically trying to perpetrate frauds 604 00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:29,786 under the guise of being this person. 605 00:30:29,870 --> 00:30:32,289 In a sense, she was just put into a role. 606 00:30:34,374 --> 00:30:36,293 ROBBINS: She was somebody who was desperately 607 00:30:36,376 --> 00:30:37,753 searching for a reality, 608 00:30:37,836 --> 00:30:41,048 and she danced through multiple realities. 609 00:30:41,173 --> 00:30:43,800 The question of whether she was intentionally impersonating 610 00:30:43,884 --> 00:30:46,470 someone else or whether that was the truth 611 00:30:46,511 --> 00:30:49,306 is still left up to history. 612 00:30:51,183 --> 00:30:54,269 There were quite a few Anastasia imposters, 613 00:30:54,353 --> 00:30:57,814 but she benefitted from having this sort of definite transition 614 00:30:57,856 --> 00:31:00,484 where she was pulled from the canal. 615 00:31:00,525 --> 00:31:05,489 And the reason for her success was because she was supported 616 00:31:05,572 --> 00:31:08,325 by members of the Romanov family. 617 00:31:08,408 --> 00:31:12,579 Unfortunately, she was also not supported by a lot of them. 618 00:31:12,704 --> 00:31:14,706 She had supporters and detractors. 619 00:31:14,790 --> 00:31:16,792 But I think once you have a grand duke 620 00:31:16,875 --> 00:31:18,668 or a prince on your side, 621 00:31:18,794 --> 00:31:20,921 then people will flock around. 622 00:31:21,004 --> 00:31:24,508 HENDLEY: There's these rumors that the Romanovs banked 623 00:31:24,633 --> 00:31:27,969 outside of Russia, that they had millions of rubles 624 00:31:28,011 --> 00:31:30,430 in a British bank and all this. 625 00:31:30,514 --> 00:31:32,557 So the real Anastasia 626 00:31:32,641 --> 00:31:34,351 could be in for a fortune. 627 00:31:34,434 --> 00:31:38,105 So for a period of time was really living it up. 628 00:31:38,188 --> 00:31:42,234 She, at one point, was staying with European royals. 629 00:31:42,317 --> 00:31:45,112 WELCH: Two of her big supporters 630 00:31:45,195 --> 00:31:46,822 in Germany were aristocrats, 631 00:31:46,947 --> 00:31:49,866 who supported Anastasia, believed in her cause, 632 00:31:49,991 --> 00:31:51,827 even though she was very difficult to handle. 633 00:31:51,910 --> 00:31:54,746 But these people were so sure 634 00:31:54,871 --> 00:31:57,374 that she was Anastasia, they put up with a lot. 635 00:31:58,792 --> 00:32:00,043 SHATNER: Given that she possessed 636 00:32:00,127 --> 00:32:02,671 what was thought to be a Russian accent, 637 00:32:02,754 --> 00:32:04,714 had scarring across much of her body, 638 00:32:04,798 --> 00:32:07,801 which seemed consistent with bayonet wounds, 639 00:32:07,843 --> 00:32:10,011 and cornflower‐blue eyes, 640 00:32:10,137 --> 00:32:13,515 which matched those of the missing Grand Duchess, 641 00:32:13,598 --> 00:32:15,892 there was enough compelling evidence to suggest 642 00:32:16,017 --> 00:32:18,770 that the young woman pulled from the German canal 643 00:32:18,854 --> 00:32:21,273 might really be Anastasia. 644 00:32:21,356 --> 00:32:24,317 But given the nature of the tsar's family's 645 00:32:24,401 --> 00:32:25,777 bloody execution, 646 00:32:25,861 --> 00:32:28,363 how could anyone survive? 647 00:32:40,208 --> 00:32:43,753 ROSHATNER:: The young woman claiming to be the Grand Duchess, Anastasia 648 00:32:43,837 --> 00:32:46,131 has taken up residence at Castle Seeon 649 00:32:46,256 --> 00:32:48,967 as a guest of Duke George of Leuchtenberg, 650 00:32:49,050 --> 00:32:52,012 a distant relative of Tsar Nicholas II. 651 00:32:52,137 --> 00:32:54,139 But the aristocrats and European royalty, 652 00:32:54,264 --> 00:32:57,434 who had been hosting the strangely eccentric woman 653 00:32:57,517 --> 00:33:00,270 are beginning to suspect that there is no way 654 00:33:00,353 --> 00:33:03,565 she could actually be the long‐lost Russian princess. 655 00:33:03,690 --> 00:33:07,486 Especially after it is reported that Anna Anderson 656 00:33:07,611 --> 00:33:11,156 actually had yet another name. 657 00:33:11,239 --> 00:33:13,992 HENDLEY: What happened was in 1927, 658 00:33:14,075 --> 00:33:15,952 a detective looked into her background, 659 00:33:16,036 --> 00:33:19,331 and the detective says, "This is not Anastasia." 660 00:33:19,372 --> 00:33:23,293 This is a Polish peasant girl named Franziska. 661 00:33:23,376 --> 00:33:26,213 And Franziska moved from Poland to Berlin 662 00:33:26,296 --> 00:33:29,799 during the first World War and suffered a severe head injury 663 00:33:29,883 --> 00:33:31,635 while working in a munitions plant. 664 00:33:31,676 --> 00:33:36,306 There was an explosion, so she had brain damage, 665 00:33:36,389 --> 00:33:39,184 went into mental homes after that, 666 00:33:39,267 --> 00:33:42,395 and then all of a sudden jumps into a canal in 1920. 667 00:33:42,479 --> 00:33:45,315 And this triggers this decades‐long argument. 668 00:33:45,398 --> 00:33:47,901 You know, is this really Franziska 669 00:33:47,984 --> 00:33:50,320 or is this Anastasia? 670 00:33:50,362 --> 00:33:53,490 SHATNER: In 1938, as the controversy 671 00:33:53,532 --> 00:33:57,452 regarding Anna Anderson's identity reached a fever pitch, 672 00:33:57,536 --> 00:34:00,330 the woman who had by now firmly convinced herself 673 00:34:00,372 --> 00:34:03,083 that she was the real Anastasia 674 00:34:03,166 --> 00:34:05,794 petitioned a German court to try her case 675 00:34:05,835 --> 00:34:08,088 and restore her birthright. 676 00:34:08,171 --> 00:34:11,466 It marked the beginning of the longest‐running lawsuit 677 00:34:11,550 --> 00:34:12,801 in German history. 678 00:34:12,884 --> 00:34:15,929 For decades, evidence was presented 679 00:34:16,012 --> 00:34:18,431 both for and against Anna's claim, 680 00:34:18,515 --> 00:34:21,726 including comparisons of handwriting samples 681 00:34:21,810 --> 00:34:27,315 and photographic comparisons of Anna and Anastasia's ears. 682 00:34:27,357 --> 00:34:31,236 Officially, Anna's court case ended in 1970, 683 00:34:31,319 --> 00:34:34,656 with neither side able to conclusively establish 684 00:34:34,739 --> 00:34:37,158 the would‐be monarch's identity. 685 00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,412 But that was by no means the end of the story. 686 00:34:40,495 --> 00:34:44,791 In 1991, seven years after Anna's death, 687 00:34:44,874 --> 00:34:48,128 the mangled remains of the Romanov family were found 688 00:34:48,169 --> 00:34:50,839 buried in a mass grave just a short distance 689 00:34:50,964 --> 00:34:52,632 from where they were executed. 690 00:34:55,260 --> 00:34:58,305 And the investigators were shocked to find 691 00:34:58,388 --> 00:35:01,975 that the remains of the tsar's son Alexei 692 00:35:02,017 --> 00:35:04,519 and one of the Romanov's four daughters 693 00:35:04,603 --> 00:35:07,397 were missing. 694 00:35:07,522 --> 00:35:09,566 WELCH: In 1978, 695 00:35:09,691 --> 00:35:11,568 one of the killers of the Romanov family 696 00:35:11,651 --> 00:35:14,487 made a confession, and as a result of that, 697 00:35:14,571 --> 00:35:17,324 bodies were found under some railway sidings. 698 00:35:17,365 --> 00:35:20,577 HENDLEY: The guy who found the remains 699 00:35:20,702 --> 00:35:23,163 kept this a secret, though, for two decades 700 00:35:23,246 --> 00:35:24,914 because the communists were still in power 701 00:35:24,998 --> 00:35:28,335 and he kind of sensed this might be a bad idea to tell everybody. 702 00:35:28,418 --> 00:35:31,463 WELCH: This was in the '90s and Anastasia, 703 00:35:31,546 --> 00:35:34,299 Anna Anderson, had already died, unfortunately. 704 00:35:34,341 --> 00:35:37,344 But it was discovered that two of the bodies were missing. 705 00:35:39,012 --> 00:35:41,306 SHATNER: Two of the bodies missing? 706 00:35:41,431 --> 00:35:45,060 Could it be that Anna Anderson was not an impostor 707 00:35:45,185 --> 00:35:48,063 after all, but the real Anastasia? 708 00:35:48,188 --> 00:35:50,357 WELCH: When the news came through 709 00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,568 that two bodies were missing, everybody was rather excited 710 00:35:53,652 --> 00:35:57,697 and thought, "Well, this proves that Ana‐Anastasia lived." 711 00:35:57,781 --> 00:36:02,077 However, the bodies were then tested for DNA. 712 00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:05,664 HENDLEY: They compared samples of Anna 713 00:36:05,747 --> 00:36:08,958 and find that she doesn't match the Romanovs at all. 714 00:36:09,042 --> 00:36:11,336 But there is a match between 715 00:36:11,461 --> 00:36:14,381 Anna and her relatives of Franziska. 716 00:36:14,506 --> 00:36:19,177 Later on, a second plot of bodies was found, 717 00:36:19,260 --> 00:36:22,847 and the body of Anastasia is 718 00:36:22,931 --> 00:36:24,641 actually found and DNA‐tested. 719 00:36:24,724 --> 00:36:27,477 For a second time, DNA testing is brought in 720 00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:30,105 and said, "No, no, no, Anastasia was buried 721 00:36:30,188 --> 00:36:31,815 along with the rest of her family." 722 00:36:31,940 --> 00:36:34,901 And Franziska was totally deluded. 723 00:36:34,984 --> 00:36:39,322 But even today, there's people who insist that the DNA tests 724 00:36:39,406 --> 00:36:41,991 were all fake and that this really was Anastasia, 725 00:36:42,075 --> 00:36:44,494 and someone really did survive 726 00:36:44,536 --> 00:36:46,746 this brutal slaughter of the royal family. 727 00:36:48,039 --> 00:36:50,125 YOUNG: Strangely, Anna Anderson did 728 00:36:50,208 --> 00:36:51,960 become something larger than life. 729 00:36:52,043 --> 00:36:53,670 She became a legend. 730 00:36:53,753 --> 00:36:56,965 There have been many books. 731 00:36:57,006 --> 00:36:59,008 There have been movies, a musical. 732 00:36:59,092 --> 00:37:01,136 We still love the story, 733 00:37:01,219 --> 00:37:04,431 and when it is retold in the fictionalized versions, 734 00:37:04,514 --> 00:37:07,392 she is always really the princess. 735 00:37:07,475 --> 00:37:11,771 STEIN: She was just a puppet of forces 736 00:37:11,855 --> 00:37:13,606 that were beyond her. 737 00:37:13,690 --> 00:37:15,817 And she was clearly quite malleable 738 00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:19,112 and was willing to become 739 00:37:19,195 --> 00:37:21,698 the persona that had been assigned to her. 740 00:37:21,781 --> 00:37:24,367 Her capacity to be 741 00:37:24,451 --> 00:37:28,163 delusional clearly played a part in the formation 742 00:37:28,288 --> 00:37:31,458 of this false identity, 743 00:37:31,541 --> 00:37:36,296 which she seemed to live as if it were actual. 744 00:37:38,506 --> 00:37:40,967 SHATNER: Whether Anna Anderson truly believed 745 00:37:41,050 --> 00:37:46,181 or simply wanted to believe that she was Anastasia Romanov, 746 00:37:46,264 --> 00:37:49,309 she never wavered from her claim 747 00:37:49,350 --> 00:37:51,895 even until the day she died. 748 00:37:51,978 --> 00:37:54,731 But what drives someone 749 00:37:54,814 --> 00:37:57,567 to stick to their story, no matter what? 750 00:37:57,650 --> 00:38:00,403 For some, as it turns out, it is not merely 751 00:38:00,487 --> 00:38:03,323 a choice, a con or a delusion. 752 00:38:03,448 --> 00:38:13,416 Some people are simply born to be someone else. 753 00:38:13,541 --> 00:38:17,045 jazz musician and band leaderpr 754 00:38:17,128 --> 00:38:22,008 during the 1940s and 50s, dies at the age of 74 in his home. 755 00:38:22,091 --> 00:38:26,304 But when the paramedics arrive, they make a shocking discovery. 756 00:38:26,387 --> 00:38:29,724 Billy Tipton was, in fact... 757 00:38:29,808 --> 00:38:31,309 a woman. 758 00:38:31,392 --> 00:38:34,479 Here's someone who was gifted, a great pianist, 759 00:38:34,562 --> 00:38:40,068 a great saxophone player, someone who had dramatic talent. 760 00:38:40,151 --> 00:38:43,321 But every time Dorothy Lucille Tipton 761 00:38:43,404 --> 00:38:45,907 went for a musical audition, 762 00:38:45,990 --> 00:38:49,285 she was turned down regardless of obvious talent. 763 00:38:49,369 --> 00:38:52,539 YOUNG: One day here she is, Dorothy Lucille Tipton 764 00:38:52,622 --> 00:38:54,666 changes her name to Billy Tipton, 765 00:38:54,749 --> 00:38:58,586 cuts her hair short, puts on a suit, goes in, gets the job. 766 00:38:58,670 --> 00:39:01,130 She's got the chops, she's got the talent, 767 00:39:01,214 --> 00:39:02,799 and now she has the work. 768 00:39:02,924 --> 00:39:04,801 And she has a successful career, 769 00:39:04,884 --> 00:39:08,012 decades as a successful jazz pianist. 770 00:39:09,848 --> 00:39:12,517 The Billy Tipton Trio were quite popular. 771 00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:14,143 They played all over the place. 772 00:39:14,185 --> 00:39:16,312 And by all accounts, 773 00:39:16,354 --> 00:39:19,148 they were a well‐regarded jazz trio 774 00:39:19,232 --> 00:39:21,818 back in this era, in the '50s, '60s. 775 00:39:21,943 --> 00:39:26,114 STEIN: Billy Tipton was looking to do something 776 00:39:26,197 --> 00:39:30,201 that was critically important to her life‐‐ to make music 777 00:39:30,326 --> 00:39:33,037 and to be accepted into a society 778 00:39:33,121 --> 00:39:35,415 that would not have her as herself. 779 00:39:35,540 --> 00:39:38,626 She wasn't gonna let something like gender 780 00:39:38,668 --> 00:39:41,713 or prejudice get in her way. 781 00:39:44,090 --> 00:39:48,553 SHATNER: Eventually, Billy became so committed to living as a man 782 00:39:48,636 --> 00:39:51,431 that even his wives, of which he had five 783 00:39:51,514 --> 00:39:52,849 over the course of his life, 784 00:39:52,932 --> 00:39:56,060 claimed to never know the truth about Billy. 785 00:39:57,020 --> 00:40:00,106 The 30s, 40s, 50s were much primmer than today. 786 00:40:00,189 --> 00:40:03,192 Husbands and wives typically didn't parade around naked 787 00:40:03,276 --> 00:40:04,611 in front of each other. 788 00:40:04,694 --> 00:40:08,323 ROSENSTOCK: This individual said, 789 00:40:08,364 --> 00:40:10,575 "I have a certain kind of problem 790 00:40:10,658 --> 00:40:12,702 "where I can't have sex. 791 00:40:12,785 --> 00:40:14,913 "It comes from a childhood injury, 792 00:40:14,996 --> 00:40:16,539 "too difficult to explain. 793 00:40:16,623 --> 00:40:20,376 "But I can be a wonderful husband. 794 00:40:20,460 --> 00:40:22,629 I can be a wonderful father." 795 00:40:22,712 --> 00:40:25,298 And, therefore, he was able to carry out 796 00:40:25,423 --> 00:40:28,760 this facade as Billy Tipton. 797 00:40:28,843 --> 00:40:32,055 STEIN: There are people in certain societies 798 00:40:32,138 --> 00:40:34,474 all over the world who, 799 00:40:34,515 --> 00:40:37,602 by virtue of the prejudice of the society 800 00:40:37,685 --> 00:40:39,187 or the community in which they live, 801 00:40:39,270 --> 00:40:42,315 cannot allow themselves to be themselves, 802 00:40:42,398 --> 00:40:44,484 which seems like a real perversity 803 00:40:44,609 --> 00:40:47,528 that the only way they could be real is to be fake. 804 00:40:47,654 --> 00:40:49,697 Because you are living the secret, 805 00:40:49,781 --> 00:40:51,366 not just living with a secret. 806 00:40:51,449 --> 00:40:54,494 We have many characters within ourselves. 807 00:40:54,619 --> 00:40:56,412 We're not consistent. 808 00:40:56,537 --> 00:40:58,790 We have a business self, we have a social self, 809 00:40:58,873 --> 00:41:00,833 we have a parental self, we have a good‐citizen self. 810 00:41:00,917 --> 00:41:05,046 And this brings up some issues about reality. 811 00:41:05,129 --> 00:41:07,882 An old thief once told me that you have to die with a lie. 812 00:41:07,966 --> 00:41:09,801 If somebody finds out that you're a fraud, 813 00:41:09,842 --> 00:41:12,178 they'll think you're a fraud from that point forward. 814 00:41:12,261 --> 00:41:15,974 Billy Tipton died with that lie, but for him, that wasn't a lie. 815 00:41:16,015 --> 00:41:17,809 That was his truth. 816 00:41:19,519 --> 00:41:23,982 SHATNER: For Billy Tipton, living as a man was more than a role. 817 00:41:24,023 --> 00:41:26,526 It was his life. 818 00:41:26,609 --> 00:41:29,278 But when a person commits themselves 819 00:41:29,362 --> 00:41:31,531 to an impersonation so thoroughly, 820 00:41:31,614 --> 00:41:34,117 which part of them is more real? 821 00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,160 Who they were? 822 00:41:36,244 --> 00:41:39,872 Or who they've chosen to become? 823 00:41:41,207 --> 00:41:45,086 Perhaps they exist to remind us that who we are 824 00:41:45,169 --> 00:41:47,755 and who we think we are are not always the same. 825 00:41:47,839 --> 00:41:51,134 And that our own carefully constructed facades 826 00:41:51,259 --> 00:41:53,261 could shatter at any moment, 827 00:41:53,344 --> 00:41:56,639 exposing the parts of ourselves we would prefer to keep hidden 828 00:41:56,723 --> 00:41:59,642 and, um... unexplained. 829 00:41:59,726 --> 00:42:06,143 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS