Ferdinand Waldo Demara

Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr. (December 21, 1921 – June 7, 1982), known as 'The Great Impostor', masqueraded as many people - from monks to surgeons to prison wardens. He was the subject of a movie, The Great Impostor, in which he was played by Tony Curtis.

During Demara's 'careers', his impersonations included a ship's doctor, a civil engineer, a sheriff's deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher. One teaching job led to six months in prison. He never seemed to get (or seek) much monetary gain in what he was doing – just temporary respectability.

Many of Demara's unsuspecting employers, under other circumstances, would have been satisfied with Demara as an employee. Demara was said to possess a true photographic memory and was widely reputed to have an extraordinary IQ. He was apparently able to memorize necessary techniques from textbooks and worked on two cardinal rules: The burden of proof is on the accuser and When in danger, attack. He described his own motivation as "Rascality, pure rascality".

Demara, known locally as 'Fred', was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1921, at 40 Texas Avenue in the lower southwest Tower Hill Neighborhood. His father, Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Sr. was born in Rhode Island and worked in Lawrence's old Theatre District as a motion picture operator. Demara, Sr. was financially well-off, and the family lived on Jackson St. in Lawrence, an upper-class neighborhood. Demara Sr.'s brother, Napoleon Louis Demara, Sr. owned many of the theatres in Lawrence, in which Demara, Sr. was an active union member. Early on in the Great Depression, Fred's father became financially insolvent, forcing the family to move from the Tower Hill neighborhood to the poorer section in the city.

...
Wikipedia