Ronald Dante

Ronald Pellar is an American hypnotist and fraudster who performed under the stage names Ronald Dante and Dr. Dante and who was briefly married to actress Lana Turner. He has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to several criminal offenses, including mail fraud in connection with his operation of the diploma mill Columbia State University and attempted murder for trying to contract for the murder of another hypnotist and entertainer. As of 2006, he had been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for 20 years for having been paid the highest-ever lecture fee. He has been known by as many as 40 aliases, including Phil Harris, Earl Clevenger, and Bonnie Ritchie.

Pellar has given different accounts of his age and personal history. In a 2006 interview, Pellar said he was born in 1920; this birthdate is consistent with the age of 49 that was reported in 1969, when he married Lana Turner. In 1985 he was reported to be 57 years old, indicating a birth date in 1927 or 1928. In 2003 he was reported to be 73 years old and in 2004 he was reported to be 74 years old, indicating a birth date in 1929 or 1930.

In a 2006 interview he said that he spent his early childhood in Kuala Lumpur, where his parents and a sister were killed in an attack by Malaysian insurgents, leaving the 5-year-old Ronald Pellar and his 10-year-old brother, who were sent to live in an orphanage in Chicago. Pellar says that he and his brother "walked away" from the orphanage when he was 11, becoming street kids. He claims that he ran a successful street business as a teenager, repackaging cheap watches to appear to be expensive brands and selling them to people who thought they were getting bargain prices because the products were stolen goods. According to Pellar, by the time he was 18 he had amassed enough money to move from the streets to a suite in the Palmer House Hotel, together with other street kids who worked for him. In her autobiography, Lana Turner said that he had told her that he had grown up in Singapore and held a doctorate in psychology from a university there, but reporters who investigated this story had found it to be untrue.

...
Wikipedia