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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:01,379 --> 00:00:02,448 SHATNER: A master surgeon 2 00:00:02,551 --> 00:00:04,965 with no medical training. 3 00:00:05,068 --> 00:00:07,931 A Hollywood producer whose most outrageous story 4 00:00:08,034 --> 00:00:11,379 turned out to be the one about himself. 5 00:00:11,482 --> 00:00:14,827 And a jazz musician whose greatest performance 6 00:00:14,931 --> 00:00:19,034 was the one that was given offstage. 7 00:00:21,379 --> 00:00:24,724 What makes a person want to become someone else? 8 00:00:24,827 --> 00:00:27,827 Is it to escape their life? 9 00:00:27,931 --> 00:00:31,137 Or is it to fool someone? 10 00:00:31,241 --> 00:00:34,758 Or is there an even more profound reason? 11 00:00:34,862 --> 00:00:40,103 Well, that is what we'll try and find out. 12 00:00:40,206 --> 00:00:42,137 ♪ 13 00:00:52,586 --> 00:00:55,413 ♪ 14 00:00:59,551 --> 00:01:02,275 SHATNER: As the Korean War rages around it, 15 00:01:02,379 --> 00:01:07,758 the Royal Canadian destroyer HMCS Cayugabrings aboard 16 00:01:07,862 --> 00:01:10,793 19 badly wounded South Korean soldiers 17 00:01:10,896 --> 00:01:13,482 requiring immediate surgery. 18 00:01:13,586 --> 00:01:17,344 Dr. Joseph Cyr, the ship's newly arrived physician, 19 00:01:17,448 --> 00:01:20,793 is called upon to perform a series of procedures 20 00:01:20,896 --> 00:01:22,793 to save the men's lives. 21 00:01:22,896 --> 00:01:24,896 There's quite a few wounded men. 22 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,413 They're taken on board, and the ship captain tells Dr. Cyr, 23 00:01:28,517 --> 00:01:30,965 "You have to operate. You have to save these guys." 24 00:01:31,068 --> 00:01:33,275 So, according to all accounts, 25 00:01:33,379 --> 00:01:36,551 Dr. Cyr takes this relatively calmly 26 00:01:36,655 --> 00:01:38,551 and goes to it. 27 00:01:40,448 --> 00:01:42,793 SHATNER: While the patients are prepped for surgery, 28 00:01:42,896 --> 00:01:45,310 Dr. Cyr reviews a medical textbook 29 00:01:45,413 --> 00:01:48,310 in his private quarters to prepare himself 30 00:01:48,413 --> 00:01:50,517 for what would be the defining moment 31 00:01:50,620 --> 00:01:54,689 of not only his career, but his entire life. 32 00:01:54,793 --> 00:01:58,137 NATE HENDLEY: He performs a number of operations 33 00:01:58,241 --> 00:02:00,448 on these wounded South Korean soldiers, 34 00:02:00,551 --> 00:02:03,482 removing bullets, doing chest surgery. 35 00:02:03,586 --> 00:02:06,310 And by all accounts, he was successful. 36 00:02:07,586 --> 00:02:11,000 SHATNER: The story of Dr. Cyr's valiant performance 37 00:02:11,103 --> 00:02:14,482 hit Canadian newspapers and spread like wildfire. 38 00:02:14,586 --> 00:02:17,793 Across the country, people read about the naval doctor's 39 00:02:17,896 --> 00:02:20,000 heroic efforts to save the lives 40 00:02:20,103 --> 00:02:22,137 of the Korean soldiers. 41 00:02:22,241 --> 00:02:25,206 But there was at least one woman who was stunned 42 00:02:25,310 --> 00:02:29,206 by the news that Dr. Joseph Cyr had become a national hero. 43 00:02:29,310 --> 00:02:31,758 And as it turned out, she had a very good reason 44 00:02:31,862 --> 00:02:33,827 to be surprised. 45 00:02:33,931 --> 00:02:38,379 HENDLEY: The mother of Dr. Joseph Cyr was reading the newspaper, 46 00:02:38,482 --> 00:02:41,655 and reads this account of her son. 47 00:02:41,758 --> 00:02:44,482 So she phones her son up, and her son is sort of like, 48 00:02:44,586 --> 00:02:47,655 "Uh, no, I'm still posted in New Brunswick. 49 00:02:47,758 --> 00:02:50,172 I'm not on a ship. What are you talking about?" 50 00:02:50,275 --> 00:02:53,137 And it becomes obvious very quickly 51 00:02:53,241 --> 00:02:57,137 that the guy on board the destroyer is an imposter. 52 00:02:57,241 --> 00:03:00,034 The mother of the real doctor contacts the RCMP, 53 00:03:00,137 --> 00:03:02,931 Canada's equivalent of the FBI, 54 00:03:03,034 --> 00:03:05,551 and the shipboard captain on the destroyer is told, 55 00:03:05,655 --> 00:03:08,275 "Uh, well, your surgeon is an imposter. 56 00:03:08,379 --> 00:03:10,620 Uh, we've, uh, got to take him into custody." 57 00:03:10,724 --> 00:03:14,275 He's taken back to Canada, he's put before a court 58 00:03:14,379 --> 00:03:17,655 that would reveal that he's Ferdinand Demara, 59 00:03:17,758 --> 00:03:19,551 of Lawrence, Massachusetts. 60 00:03:19,655 --> 00:03:23,379 SHATNER: An American from Massachusetts 61 00:03:23,482 --> 00:03:26,068 masquerading as a Canadian naval doctor 62 00:03:26,172 --> 00:03:28,793 in the Sea of Japan? 63 00:03:28,896 --> 00:03:30,482 But how? 64 00:03:30,586 --> 00:03:31,931 And why? 65 00:03:32,034 --> 00:03:33,827 HARVEY ROSENSTOCK: Ferdinand Demara 66 00:03:33,931 --> 00:03:35,620 is a very fascinating man. 67 00:03:35,724 --> 00:03:39,034 First of all, he came from a middle-class family. 68 00:03:39,137 --> 00:03:41,000 Very comfortable. 69 00:03:41,103 --> 00:03:44,620 But then they suffered the Great Depression, 70 00:03:44,724 --> 00:03:45,965 They had to move. 71 00:03:46,068 --> 00:03:48,793 They had to downgrade, as it were. 72 00:03:48,896 --> 00:03:50,344 They get to a poor neighborhood, 73 00:03:50,448 --> 00:03:54,965 less of the affluent or semi-affluent amenities. 74 00:03:55,068 --> 00:03:58,103 So he went from a lot to less, 75 00:03:58,206 --> 00:04:00,896 but it seemed to bother him more than his parents, 76 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:03,137 the best that we can tell. 77 00:04:03,241 --> 00:04:07,241 And therefore, he had to fill in the difference. 78 00:04:07,344 --> 00:04:10,448 HENDLEY: By all accounts, he's a very smart kid. 79 00:04:10,551 --> 00:04:12,758 You know, does well at school. 80 00:04:12,862 --> 00:04:14,413 But he drops out of high school, 81 00:04:14,517 --> 00:04:18,137 and he starts this weird sort of moving around 82 00:04:18,241 --> 00:04:20,862 and trying on new personas. 83 00:04:20,965 --> 00:04:24,689 ROSENSTOCK: It turns out that he has the ability 84 00:04:24,793 --> 00:04:26,793 to memorize very quickly. 85 00:04:26,896 --> 00:04:30,379 He even claimed that he had a photographic memory. 86 00:04:30,482 --> 00:04:33,103 So that he could look at something, 87 00:04:33,206 --> 00:04:35,758 say, "That really belongs to me," 88 00:04:35,862 --> 00:04:40,551 and with a very good intellect, he could carry this off. 89 00:04:40,655 --> 00:04:42,137 And he found 90 00:04:42,241 --> 00:04:45,896 he could "borrow" any kind of credential 91 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:50,724 and become that person represented by that credential. 92 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:54,344 HENDLEY: He starts that from a very early age, 93 00:04:54,448 --> 00:04:57,034 and he joins the military, goes AWOL, 94 00:04:57,137 --> 00:05:00,241 joins other branches of the military. 95 00:05:00,344 --> 00:05:02,724 In one of his very early impersonations, 96 00:05:02,827 --> 00:05:05,896 he pretends to be a Trappist monk 97 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:07,965 and joins a monastery. 98 00:05:08,068 --> 00:05:11,965 At the time he was pretending to be a Christian monk, 99 00:05:12,068 --> 00:05:16,172 he made friends with a Canadian doctor named Joseph Cyr, 100 00:05:16,275 --> 00:05:19,551 and he then goes to enlist in the Canadian Navy 101 00:05:19,655 --> 00:05:22,344 and announces that he's Dr. Joseph Cyr 102 00:05:22,448 --> 00:05:25,551 and uses the same credentials that the real doctor had. 103 00:05:25,655 --> 00:05:28,724 There's a war going on at the time in Korea, 104 00:05:28,827 --> 00:05:30,758 so they don't ask too many questions. 105 00:05:30,862 --> 00:05:33,068 They're just delighted to get a surgeon. 106 00:05:33,172 --> 00:05:35,379 SHATNER: In addition to posing 107 00:05:35,482 --> 00:05:37,689 as a military surgeon and a monk, 108 00:05:37,793 --> 00:05:40,206 Demara tried his hand at impersonating 109 00:05:40,310 --> 00:05:43,034 a number of other professions, including 110 00:05:43,137 --> 00:05:45,448 civil engineer, zoologist, 111 00:05:45,551 --> 00:05:48,103 psychologist, philosophy professor 112 00:05:48,206 --> 00:05:51,689 and lawyer, among many others. 113 00:05:51,793 --> 00:05:54,758 Demara became so adept at impersonation 114 00:05:54,862 --> 00:05:59,655 that he eventually became known by his most famous alias of all: 115 00:05:59,758 --> 00:06:02,689 The Great Imposter. 116 00:06:02,793 --> 00:06:05,482 Ironically, Demara's life went full circle. 117 00:06:05,586 --> 00:06:08,103 After pretending to be all these different identities 118 00:06:08,206 --> 00:06:12,448 his whole life, in the end he became famous for who he was. 119 00:06:12,551 --> 00:06:14,344 Oh, I've been a surgeon lieutenant 120 00:06:14,448 --> 00:06:16,344 in the Royal Canadian Navy. 121 00:06:16,448 --> 00:06:18,034 - You operated on people? - Mm-hmm. 122 00:06:18,137 --> 00:06:19,862 [audience gasping, chuckling] 123 00:06:19,965 --> 00:06:21,896 Isn't that rather dangerous? 124 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:23,862 - You might say that. - Uh-huh. 125 00:06:23,965 --> 00:06:26,137 Where did you steal your new credentials? 126 00:06:26,241 --> 00:06:28,241 - I acquire these things. - Oh. 127 00:06:28,344 --> 00:06:29,827 I know. You keep telling me that. 128 00:06:29,931 --> 00:06:33,103 I hate to bring the word "steal" into this conversation. 129 00:06:33,206 --> 00:06:36,172 HENDLEY: He appeared on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx, 130 00:06:36,275 --> 00:06:38,034 and he makes it clear 131 00:06:38,137 --> 00:06:40,896 that he, "acquired credentials," 132 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,034 and that he's going to use his prize money 133 00:06:44,137 --> 00:06:46,482 to buy more credentials. 134 00:06:46,586 --> 00:06:48,896 Were you in jail in... in, uh, Canada? 135 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,344 - No, no. - In the United States, have you ever been in jail? 136 00:06:51,448 --> 00:06:53,448 Yes, I have been in jail. I spent a year 137 00:06:53,551 --> 00:06:55,482 in the Texas State Penitentiary. 138 00:06:55,586 --> 00:06:57,310 - Well, it's about time, I... - [laughter] 139 00:06:57,413 --> 00:06:58,551 that somebody nails you. 140 00:06:58,655 --> 00:07:00,344 What were you in there for? 141 00:07:00,448 --> 00:07:03,034 Uh, I was in there as deputy warden. 142 00:07:03,137 --> 00:07:04,689 [laughter] 143 00:07:04,793 --> 00:07:06,482 ROSENSTOCK: As a result of that, 144 00:07:06,586 --> 00:07:08,275 everybody wants to meet him, 145 00:07:08,379 --> 00:07:10,586 wants to talk about him, wants to hear about him. 146 00:07:10,689 --> 00:07:12,655 - Are you Martin Goddard? - Yes, I am. 147 00:07:12,758 --> 00:07:15,482 And your real name is Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr.? 148 00:07:15,586 --> 00:07:17,448 ROSENSTOCK: And then when Tony Curtis acted 149 00:07:17,551 --> 00:07:20,241 in The Great Imposter, he became famous 150 00:07:20,344 --> 00:07:22,620 because he could fool the world. 151 00:07:23,793 --> 00:07:25,827 ALEXANDER STEIN: In many respects, 152 00:07:25,931 --> 00:07:27,827 to be an imposter is... 153 00:07:27,931 --> 00:07:31,965 fairly normal, although we think of them as... 154 00:07:32,068 --> 00:07:33,896 somehow pathological. 155 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,482 In fact, there are many people who do it for work. 156 00:07:37,586 --> 00:07:40,137 Actors are a form of imposters. 157 00:07:40,241 --> 00:07:42,931 There are people who put on a costume or a uniform 158 00:07:43,034 --> 00:07:46,724 to transform themselves in some way that gives them 159 00:07:46,827 --> 00:07:49,862 some measure of authority in their work. 160 00:07:49,965 --> 00:07:52,620 SHATNER: Let's face it: at one time or another, 161 00:07:52,724 --> 00:07:55,620 most of us have fantasized about trying on a new identity. 162 00:07:55,724 --> 00:07:59,241 Like when we engage in role-playing games 163 00:07:59,344 --> 00:08:01,551 or wear costumes on Halloween. 164 00:08:01,655 --> 00:08:03,862 For most of us, of course, 165 00:08:03,965 --> 00:08:07,172 the fantasy remains simply that: a fantasy. 166 00:08:07,275 --> 00:08:09,862 But in the case of Ferdinand Demara, 167 00:08:09,965 --> 00:08:11,172 The Great Imposter, 168 00:08:11,275 --> 00:08:13,344 by pretending to be a surgeon, 169 00:08:13,448 --> 00:08:16,551 is it possible that-- in his mind, at least-- 170 00:08:16,655 --> 00:08:19,758 he actually became one? 171 00:08:19,862 --> 00:08:22,379 Ferdinand Demara impersonated a surgeon. 172 00:08:22,482 --> 00:08:24,758 He wasn't a surgeon, but during the Korean War 173 00:08:24,862 --> 00:08:27,379 while he was on a ship, he saved lives. 174 00:08:27,482 --> 00:08:29,551 His ability to adapt from impersonation 175 00:08:29,655 --> 00:08:32,000 might have given him the ability to adapt 176 00:08:32,103 --> 00:08:34,034 under a stressful situation. 177 00:08:34,137 --> 00:08:37,344 "Con man," of course, "con" is a kind of a nickname. 178 00:08:37,448 --> 00:08:41,827 The origin of that word is "confidence." 179 00:08:41,931 --> 00:08:46,310 In the case of someone like Ferdinand Demara, 180 00:08:46,413 --> 00:08:48,793 because of his success 181 00:08:48,896 --> 00:08:53,724 in being able to truly believe every one of his fantasies 182 00:08:53,827 --> 00:08:56,482 as one new piece of reality, 183 00:08:56,586 --> 00:08:59,689 he can act it out in such a real way 184 00:08:59,793 --> 00:09:02,068 for a limited period of time. 185 00:09:03,689 --> 00:09:05,586 SHATNER: By the time of his death, 186 00:09:05,689 --> 00:09:08,965 from a heart attack on June 7, 1982, 187 00:09:09,068 --> 00:09:12,103 Ferdinand Demara had spent the last several years of his life 188 00:09:12,206 --> 00:09:13,827 as a Baptist minister 189 00:09:13,931 --> 00:09:17,310 and later a counselor at Good Samaritan Hospital 190 00:09:17,413 --> 00:09:19,689 in Anaheim, California. 191 00:09:19,793 --> 00:09:24,103 In his obituary, Demara's lawyer and good friend, Melvin Belli, 192 00:09:24,206 --> 00:09:26,206 is quoted as saying... 193 00:09:29,827 --> 00:09:31,896 And why should there be? 194 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:36,344 After all, most of us can only live one life at a time. 195 00:09:36,448 --> 00:09:40,551 Ferdinand Demara was able to live several. 196 00:09:49,620 --> 00:09:51,172 PETER LANPHOTOGRAPHER: Chris! Chris, Chris! 197 00:09:51,275 --> 00:09:53,379 SHATNER: French movie producer Christopher Reyes 198 00:09:53,482 --> 00:09:55,758 is the talk of Tinseltown. 199 00:09:55,862 --> 00:09:57,482 PHOTOGRAPHER: Where's the girls tonight? 200 00:09:59,379 --> 00:10:00,620 SHATNER: Between a movie deal 201 00:10:00,724 --> 00:10:03,551 with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, 202 00:10:03,655 --> 00:10:07,034 co-ownership of two chic Beverly Hills boutiques, 203 00:10:07,137 --> 00:10:10,586 a perfume line endorsed by singer Michael Jackson 204 00:10:10,689 --> 00:10:14,344 and a PlayboyPlaymate wife, 205 00:10:14,448 --> 00:10:18,172 it appears Reyes's burgeoning reputation 206 00:10:18,275 --> 00:10:20,137 as a Hollywood player is secure. 207 00:10:20,241 --> 00:10:21,517 PHOTOGRAPHER: Thanks, Chris. 208 00:10:21,620 --> 00:10:22,827 - Good to see you. - All right. 209 00:10:24,655 --> 00:10:27,620 He would mix with some of the movers and shakers in L.A. 210 00:10:27,724 --> 00:10:30,620 Uh, so he'd throw kind of glamorous dinner parties. 211 00:10:30,724 --> 00:10:33,689 He'd invite all of his friends that he'd met, 212 00:10:33,793 --> 00:10:35,896 and he'd make sure that they saw that he was being generous 213 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:37,206 during these parties. 214 00:10:37,310 --> 00:10:39,206 He said he was a venture capitalist. 215 00:10:39,310 --> 00:10:42,172 He was in L.A. and he was mixing with the kind of people 216 00:10:42,275 --> 00:10:43,896 who are also millionaires. 217 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:48,172 He would talk of how he was Sophia Loren's son, 218 00:10:48,275 --> 00:10:51,137 he was Oscar de la Renta's nephew, and there was no reason 219 00:10:51,241 --> 00:10:52,551 for people to disbelieve him. 220 00:10:52,655 --> 00:10:54,448 He would maybe say, "Do you want to invest? 221 00:10:54,551 --> 00:10:56,724 He'd give them an opportunity, and they would think 222 00:10:56,827 --> 00:10:59,448 that they were gonna get something from him. 223 00:10:59,551 --> 00:11:01,275 PHOTOGRAPHER: Chris! Let's go. 224 00:11:01,379 --> 00:11:04,551 SHATNER: To everyone he meets, it seems Christopher Reyes 225 00:11:04,655 --> 00:11:07,586 has perfected the recipe for Hollywood success. 226 00:11:07,689 --> 00:11:11,551 Except there's one key ingredient missing. 227 00:11:11,655 --> 00:11:14,586 Because, as it turns out, the man claiming 228 00:11:14,689 --> 00:11:17,965 to be Christopher Reyes is a bigger fiction 229 00:11:18,068 --> 00:11:21,551 than any conceived by a Hollywood screenwriter. 230 00:11:21,655 --> 00:11:24,344 He is actually a notorious French con artist 231 00:11:24,448 --> 00:11:28,172 named Christophe Rocancourt. 232 00:11:28,275 --> 00:11:31,758 Well, Rocancourt was the world's coolest con man, in essence. 233 00:11:31,862 --> 00:11:35,482 Um, you know, he was smooth, he was charismatic. 234 00:11:35,586 --> 00:11:37,689 He was ambitious. 235 00:11:37,793 --> 00:11:40,379 So, he had all the traits of a classic con man. 236 00:11:40,482 --> 00:11:42,275 HENDLEY: By all accounts, 237 00:11:42,379 --> 00:11:46,413 Christophe's approach was very simple, but direct. 238 00:11:46,517 --> 00:11:48,586 He would tell people, you know "If you invest 239 00:11:48,689 --> 00:11:51,655 in my various enterprises," 240 00:11:51,758 --> 00:11:54,275 you know, "I can vastly increase your money." 241 00:11:54,379 --> 00:11:57,517 So his methods were not terribly, 242 00:11:57,620 --> 00:12:00,034 you know, sophisticated, but they worked, 243 00:12:00,137 --> 00:12:03,275 and he pulled in a lot of money from people. 244 00:12:07,241 --> 00:12:10,137 IANTORNO: In Paris, he'd set up this alias for himself, 245 00:12:10,241 --> 00:12:11,827 a wealthy Russian nobleman. 246 00:12:11,931 --> 00:12:15,103 From just sheer confidence and imagination, 247 00:12:15,206 --> 00:12:19,068 he was able to pull off a few scams. Uh, most notably, 248 00:12:19,172 --> 00:12:22,448 when he managed to forge the deeds to a building in Paris 249 00:12:22,551 --> 00:12:24,655 and sell it for over a million dollars. 250 00:12:24,758 --> 00:12:26,931 SHATNER: As he scammed his way across Europe, 251 00:12:27,034 --> 00:12:30,241 Christophe Rocancourt defrauded dozens of victims 252 00:12:30,344 --> 00:12:32,620 under numerous aliases. 253 00:12:32,724 --> 00:12:34,724 But while authorities had a mountain of lies 254 00:12:34,827 --> 00:12:37,620 and fake identities to sort through, 255 00:12:37,724 --> 00:12:41,310 they were missing one elusive truth: 256 00:12:41,413 --> 00:12:43,379 who actually was 257 00:12:43,482 --> 00:12:45,896 Christophe Rocancourt? 258 00:12:49,172 --> 00:12:51,310 IANTORNO: Rocancourt grew up, um, in a small town 259 00:12:51,413 --> 00:12:53,172 on the Normandy coast, 260 00:12:53,275 --> 00:12:55,551 uh, just where the-the River Seine meets the English Channel. 261 00:12:55,655 --> 00:12:58,034 Uh, it's a lovely place, um, 262 00:12:58,137 --> 00:13:00,206 but he didn't have the best childhood. 263 00:13:01,448 --> 00:13:03,827 His father was an alcoholic 264 00:13:03,931 --> 00:13:07,344 and his mother had to resort to prostitution. 265 00:13:07,448 --> 00:13:11,827 HARVEY ROSENSTOCK: Here is a young person who is in 266 00:13:11,931 --> 00:13:16,206 a desperate survival mode from the earliest stages. 267 00:13:16,310 --> 00:13:20,827 This kind of person really has no reason to trust the world. 268 00:13:20,931 --> 00:13:24,103 And so he found out 269 00:13:24,206 --> 00:13:29,068 that he can acquire wealth by deceptive means. 270 00:13:29,172 --> 00:13:31,103 There's no reason for him to feel sorry 271 00:13:31,206 --> 00:13:33,793 about the next person, 'cause in his mind, 272 00:13:33,896 --> 00:13:36,344 presumably, no one felt sorry for him. 273 00:13:38,206 --> 00:13:40,586 JONATHAN YOUNG: I think the game had its own reward. 274 00:13:40,689 --> 00:13:42,137 This is a very hostile game, 275 00:13:42,241 --> 00:13:44,517 and this is a wounded, aggressive person. 276 00:13:44,620 --> 00:13:47,793 He wanted to hurt people. He wanted to take their money. 277 00:13:47,896 --> 00:13:51,206 It was a coldhearted transaction. 278 00:13:52,965 --> 00:13:55,551 SHATNER: For most people, the notion of scamming 279 00:13:55,655 --> 00:13:58,586 and conniving their way to wealth and happiness 280 00:13:58,689 --> 00:14:00,000 is unthinkable. 281 00:14:00,103 --> 00:14:04,310 So, what drives serial impostors 282 00:14:04,413 --> 00:14:07,310 like Christophe Rocancourt to use impersonation 283 00:14:07,413 --> 00:14:10,448 to not merely pretend to be someone else, 284 00:14:10,551 --> 00:14:13,172 but to actually inflict harm? 285 00:14:13,275 --> 00:14:18,896 And not just once or twice, but over and over again? 286 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:20,965 ROBBINS: For a lot of impostors that grow up 287 00:14:21,068 --> 00:14:23,034 in a damaged childhood where they're facing abuse 288 00:14:23,137 --> 00:14:25,689 or traumatic events, they have to develop 289 00:14:25,793 --> 00:14:27,965 these sort of coping mechanisms. 290 00:14:28,068 --> 00:14:31,068 One, they start to see themselves on the outside 291 00:14:31,172 --> 00:14:33,689 of the normal reality that everyone else does. 292 00:14:33,793 --> 00:14:35,620 The society as a norm is here, 293 00:14:35,724 --> 00:14:37,241 and they're on the outskirts of that. 294 00:14:37,344 --> 00:14:40,172 So, then they start to categorize people as others. 295 00:14:40,275 --> 00:14:42,103 The second is that they have to be able 296 00:14:42,206 --> 00:14:44,482 to anticipate the actions of their abuser. 297 00:14:44,586 --> 00:14:46,758 So, this starts to form an unusual kind 298 00:14:46,862 --> 00:14:50,068 of predictive empathy in order for them to survive. 299 00:14:55,310 --> 00:14:57,862 SHATNER: No matter the reason for their duplicity, 300 00:14:57,965 --> 00:15:00,275 once discovered, most impostors' lives 301 00:15:00,379 --> 00:15:02,620 are shattered beyond repair. 302 00:15:02,724 --> 00:15:04,448 But while you might think someone 303 00:15:04,551 --> 00:15:07,379 as internationally notorious as Christophe Rocancourt 304 00:15:07,482 --> 00:15:08,827 would stop his antics 305 00:15:08,931 --> 00:15:13,758 after being so thoroughly exposed, well, 306 00:15:13,862 --> 00:15:16,000 you'd be wrong. 307 00:15:16,103 --> 00:15:18,586 Eventually things came tumbling down when people 308 00:15:18,689 --> 00:15:20,655 started suspecting that he was a fraud. 309 00:15:20,758 --> 00:15:23,931 So when he moved from L.A. to New York, 310 00:15:24,034 --> 00:15:25,620 Rocancourt was running the same scams 311 00:15:25,724 --> 00:15:26,931 as he always had done. 312 00:15:27,034 --> 00:15:28,965 He was having lavish dinner parties, 313 00:15:29,068 --> 00:15:31,241 he was inviting exclusive guests. 314 00:15:31,344 --> 00:15:33,551 He was getting them to invest large sums of money, 315 00:15:33,655 --> 00:15:36,206 $50,000 or a $100,000 at a time. 316 00:15:36,310 --> 00:15:39,137 I think people started suspecting Rocancourt 317 00:15:39,241 --> 00:15:42,448 when a few things just stopped adding up. 318 00:15:42,551 --> 00:15:45,827 He was driving a Mazda rather than the kind of car 319 00:15:45,931 --> 00:15:47,862 that you'd expect a millionaire to be driving. 320 00:15:47,965 --> 00:15:49,793 He tasted some wine that was cheap wine, 321 00:15:49,896 --> 00:15:52,000 and he thought it was expensive wine. 322 00:15:52,103 --> 00:15:54,068 Maybe he was just getting sloppy. 323 00:15:54,172 --> 00:15:56,793 And it was an unpaid hotel bill in the end 324 00:15:56,896 --> 00:16:00,206 that was the thing that got him caught. 325 00:16:00,310 --> 00:16:04,379 SHATNER: In 2003, Christophe Rocancourt plead guilty 326 00:16:04,482 --> 00:16:08,862 to charges of bribery, theft and fraud. 327 00:16:08,965 --> 00:16:12,896 He was ordered to pay $1.2 million to his victims 328 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:16,655 and sentenced to 46 months in federal prison. 329 00:16:16,758 --> 00:16:20,068 After his release in October 2005, 330 00:16:20,172 --> 00:16:22,000 Rocancourt returned to Europe 331 00:16:22,103 --> 00:16:24,724 where his notoriety as a smooth-talking con man 332 00:16:24,827 --> 00:16:27,827 continued to make headlines. 333 00:16:27,931 --> 00:16:31,482 But Rocancourt's deceptions appear almost benign 334 00:16:31,586 --> 00:16:34,931 when compared to those of another famous impostor, 335 00:16:35,034 --> 00:16:38,206 one who became so desperate to hide his true identity 336 00:16:38,310 --> 00:16:41,448 that it not only cost people their fortunes, 337 00:16:41,551 --> 00:16:45,551 it also cost them their lives. 338 00:16:54,551 --> 00:16:57,827 SHATNER: Sandra Boss, a recent Harvard Business School graduate, 339 00:16:57,931 --> 00:17:01,724 marries Clark Rockefeller, a man who is known to her 340 00:17:01,827 --> 00:17:04,310 as a member of one of the wealthiest 341 00:17:04,413 --> 00:17:06,413 and most powerful families in America. 342 00:17:08,413 --> 00:17:10,275 After the couple's fairy-tale wedding, 343 00:17:10,379 --> 00:17:11,758 Sandra went to work 344 00:17:11,862 --> 00:17:14,137 for a prestigious consulting firm in Boston 345 00:17:14,241 --> 00:17:18,103 while Clark resumed working on international poverty relief. 346 00:17:18,206 --> 00:17:20,965 But the fairy tale didn't last long. 347 00:17:21,068 --> 00:17:24,068 MARK SEAL: He claimed he was working on so many high-level things, 348 00:17:24,172 --> 00:17:26,965 but he wasn't contributing to the marriage financially. 349 00:17:27,068 --> 00:17:29,344 And he said, "Well, to charge these struggling countries 350 00:17:29,448 --> 00:17:32,068 a fee would be, you know, unconscionable." 351 00:17:32,172 --> 00:17:35,758 He didn't seem to want to go out and get a regular job. 352 00:17:35,862 --> 00:17:39,103 And so she was beginning to get tired of this. 353 00:17:42,379 --> 00:17:44,137 SHATNER: After more than ten years of marriage, 354 00:17:44,241 --> 00:17:47,517 Sandra Boss finally had enough and filed for divorce. 355 00:17:47,620 --> 00:17:51,034 It was a decision that would not only unravel her marriage, 356 00:17:51,137 --> 00:17:56,241 but also unravel the strange truth about her husband. 357 00:17:56,344 --> 00:17:58,241 SEAL: Clark Rockefeller had 358 00:17:58,344 --> 00:18:01,724 no passport, no credit cards, no birth certificate 359 00:18:01,827 --> 00:18:04,034 that she could find. 360 00:18:04,137 --> 00:18:06,068 HENDLEY: She can't come up with any documentation. 361 00:18:06,172 --> 00:18:09,034 So she really has the whip hand during the divorce, 362 00:18:09,137 --> 00:18:13,241 and she ends up winning custody of their daughter, Snooks. 363 00:18:13,344 --> 00:18:17,000 He's absolutely gobsmacked by this, and he's miserable, 364 00:18:17,103 --> 00:18:19,413 because he is actually devoted to his daughter. 365 00:18:19,517 --> 00:18:21,586 So he comes up with this harebrained plan 366 00:18:21,689 --> 00:18:24,310 and he kidnaps his daughter. 367 00:18:24,413 --> 00:18:26,448 SHATNER: The FBI immediately launched 368 00:18:26,551 --> 00:18:28,137 a nationwide manhunt, 369 00:18:28,241 --> 00:18:31,931 but Clark Rockefeller had vanished into thin air. 370 00:18:32,034 --> 00:18:34,620 And the reason the authorities had such a hard time 371 00:18:34,724 --> 00:18:36,586 tracking down Clark Rockefeller 372 00:18:36,689 --> 00:18:38,517 was because 373 00:18:38,620 --> 00:18:42,103 there was no Clark Rockefeller. 374 00:18:42,206 --> 00:18:44,758 So, I'm at home. My brother calls me. 375 00:18:44,862 --> 00:18:48,344 He goes, "Turn on CNN right now." 376 00:18:48,448 --> 00:18:52,275 I turn on the TV, and I look, and I go, 377 00:18:52,379 --> 00:18:55,482 "That's Christian Gerhartsreiter." 378 00:18:55,586 --> 00:18:58,000 And it says right across the top, "Clark Rockefeller." 379 00:18:58,103 --> 00:19:00,620 So we called the FBI and said, 380 00:19:00,724 --> 00:19:02,379 "This is Christian Gerhartsreiter." 381 00:19:02,482 --> 00:19:04,931 He was a German exchange student that came to our house. 382 00:19:05,034 --> 00:19:07,344 I was 15 at the time, 383 00:19:07,448 --> 00:19:11,034 and he was 17. 384 00:19:11,137 --> 00:19:13,275 But the FBI, like, they didn't even know his name. 385 00:19:14,758 --> 00:19:17,103 SEAL: It was covered in all the media, on television, 386 00:19:17,206 --> 00:19:21,586 and when the AMBER Alert was issued, he was apprehended. 387 00:19:21,689 --> 00:19:25,241 He was returned to Boston to face charges. 388 00:19:25,344 --> 00:19:28,172 And that's when his incredible life 389 00:19:28,275 --> 00:19:32,448 of all these different personas unspooled. 390 00:19:32,551 --> 00:19:35,344 SHATNER: At trial, Sandra watched as her husband, the man 391 00:19:35,448 --> 00:19:38,862 she had believed to be a member of the Rockefeller family, 392 00:19:38,965 --> 00:19:41,551 was sentenced to four to five years in prison 393 00:19:41,655 --> 00:19:44,241 for custodial kidnapping. 394 00:19:44,344 --> 00:19:47,689 But what was it that compelled Christian 395 00:19:47,793 --> 00:19:49,793 to lie to his friends, family 396 00:19:49,896 --> 00:19:52,517 and associates for so long? 397 00:19:54,793 --> 00:19:57,413 ROBBINS: The phenomenon of an impostor is an interesting dichotomy 398 00:19:57,517 --> 00:19:59,068 that somebody has to live with. 399 00:19:59,172 --> 00:20:01,827 They have two stories constantly colliding. 400 00:20:01,931 --> 00:20:04,344 And often, if you're going to perpetuate that consistently, 401 00:20:04,448 --> 00:20:07,034 you have to almost have a form of delusion, 402 00:20:07,137 --> 00:20:09,068 to be able to compartmentalize one of those realities 403 00:20:09,172 --> 00:20:10,655 so that you can live your life 404 00:20:10,758 --> 00:20:13,793 without having this other one on the back burner. 405 00:20:13,896 --> 00:20:17,310 SHATNER: Are impostors who carry out elaborate deceptions 406 00:20:17,413 --> 00:20:21,137 acting out a kind of wish fantasy? 407 00:20:22,517 --> 00:20:24,655 And if so, how does this fantasy 408 00:20:24,758 --> 00:20:26,758 first take hold in their mind? 409 00:20:26,862 --> 00:20:30,620 For the answer, perhaps it's best to look all the way back 410 00:20:30,724 --> 00:20:32,482 into Christian's past. 411 00:20:34,344 --> 00:20:36,172 Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter 412 00:20:36,275 --> 00:20:38,517 grew up in West Germany. 413 00:20:38,620 --> 00:20:41,275 By all accounts, he was kind of a bit of an oddball, 414 00:20:41,379 --> 00:20:43,379 prone to fantasy, a little on the nerdy side, 415 00:20:43,482 --> 00:20:47,586 and really wanted to get out of West Germany. 416 00:20:47,689 --> 00:20:52,137 So in 1978, he travels to the United States 417 00:20:52,241 --> 00:20:55,482 and shows up on the doorstep of this family in Connecticut 418 00:20:55,586 --> 00:20:57,206 called the Savios, 419 00:20:57,310 --> 00:20:59,413 and just sort of went into high school, 420 00:20:59,517 --> 00:21:02,172 said he was an exchange student, and things got 421 00:21:02,275 --> 00:21:05,000 progressively stranger from there. 422 00:21:05,103 --> 00:21:08,103 SAVIO: He told me that his father created parts 423 00:21:08,206 --> 00:21:09,862 for Mercedes-Benz. 424 00:21:09,965 --> 00:21:11,862 And, of course, you know, they had money. 425 00:21:11,965 --> 00:21:13,896 You know, servants. 426 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:15,310 We all knew it was ridiculous. 427 00:21:15,413 --> 00:21:17,758 We laughed at it at the time. 428 00:21:19,275 --> 00:21:21,689 SHATNER: By 1985, Christian had taken up residence 429 00:21:21,793 --> 00:21:23,275 on the West Coast. 430 00:21:23,379 --> 00:21:26,344 He had also taken a new name. 431 00:21:26,448 --> 00:21:28,620 He moved to San Marino, which is a rich community 432 00:21:28,724 --> 00:21:30,034 in Southern California, 433 00:21:30,137 --> 00:21:32,965 and assumed the name Christopher Chichester, 434 00:21:33,068 --> 00:21:36,448 and announced that he was part of the British royal family. 435 00:21:36,551 --> 00:21:39,896 He would go get free lunches at social clubs 436 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:41,448 and private members clubs. 437 00:21:41,551 --> 00:21:44,931 He'd start schmoozing up all the rich ladies in town, 438 00:21:45,034 --> 00:21:47,275 attends a very fancy church. 439 00:21:47,379 --> 00:21:49,724 Ends up living in the guesthouse 440 00:21:49,827 --> 00:21:53,689 of a local woman named Ruth Sohus. 441 00:21:53,793 --> 00:21:55,448 He lives there rent-free, 442 00:21:55,551 --> 00:21:58,344 and all is well for a while, but then 443 00:21:58,448 --> 00:22:03,034 Ruth's son, John, shows up with his wife Linda. 444 00:22:03,137 --> 00:22:04,793 And John, apparently, 445 00:22:04,896 --> 00:22:08,172 was a bit suspicious of this 446 00:22:08,275 --> 00:22:10,758 strange guy living in Mom's guesthouse. 447 00:22:10,862 --> 00:22:14,758 And then, all of a sudden, Linda and her husband disappear. 448 00:22:14,862 --> 00:22:17,965 SHATNER: Soon after Linda and John Sohus disappeared, 449 00:22:18,068 --> 00:22:20,448 so did Christopher Chichester. 450 00:22:20,551 --> 00:22:24,413 And Christian the imposter moved back to the East Coast, 451 00:22:24,517 --> 00:22:28,172 where he would eventually live under his most infamous alias: 452 00:22:28,275 --> 00:22:30,103 Clark Rockefeller. 453 00:22:30,206 --> 00:22:33,862 The rest, as they say, is history. 454 00:22:33,965 --> 00:22:35,448 But not before this bizarre story 455 00:22:35,551 --> 00:22:38,965 took yet another unexpected twist. 456 00:22:39,068 --> 00:22:41,724 In March of 2011, 457 00:22:41,827 --> 00:22:45,206 after Christian was convicted of kidnapping his daughter, 458 00:22:45,310 --> 00:22:47,931 authorities in California gathered enough evidence 459 00:22:48,034 --> 00:22:50,310 to charge him with a more serious crime 460 00:22:50,413 --> 00:22:53,965 than any he had been charged with before: 461 00:22:54,068 --> 00:22:56,551 the 1985 murder 462 00:22:56,655 --> 00:22:58,551 of John Sohus. 463 00:23:00,655 --> 00:23:03,655 MARK SEAL: Ruth Sohus had passed away, 464 00:23:03,758 --> 00:23:06,172 and another couple had bought her home 465 00:23:06,275 --> 00:23:08,517 and were installing a swimming pool. 466 00:23:08,620 --> 00:23:11,310 HENDLEY: Where Christian lived in San Marino, 467 00:23:11,413 --> 00:23:15,172 they dug up the backyard and discovered human remains. 468 00:23:15,275 --> 00:23:18,413 And the body was cut up into pieces, 469 00:23:18,517 --> 00:23:20,448 but it was wearing the same kind of clothes 470 00:23:20,551 --> 00:23:23,034 that John Sohus typically wore: 471 00:23:23,137 --> 00:23:25,068 jeans and a flannel shirt. 472 00:23:25,172 --> 00:23:28,758 And apparently, parts were in bags from schools 473 00:23:28,862 --> 00:23:32,241 that Christian Gerhartsreiter had attended. 474 00:23:32,344 --> 00:23:36,310 So then he was put on trial for murdering John Sohus. 475 00:23:36,413 --> 00:23:38,931 He was found guilty, and he is now an inmate 476 00:23:39,034 --> 00:23:41,241 in San Quentin Prison in California. 477 00:23:41,344 --> 00:23:43,448 The police detective that I interviewed 478 00:23:43,551 --> 00:23:45,620 said that the motive was money. 479 00:23:45,724 --> 00:23:48,344 He was to inherit a sizable amount of money 480 00:23:48,448 --> 00:23:52,034 from Ruth Sohus, and that's what they believed. 481 00:23:52,137 --> 00:23:54,965 And Linda Sohus had disappeared 482 00:23:55,068 --> 00:23:56,758 off the face of the earth. 483 00:23:56,862 --> 00:23:58,206 What happened to Linda? 484 00:23:58,310 --> 00:24:01,275 That's still an enduring mystery of this case. 485 00:24:01,379 --> 00:24:03,103 SHATNER: Imposters like Christian, 486 00:24:03,206 --> 00:24:04,586 who are willing to lie-- 487 00:24:04,689 --> 00:24:08,586 or even kill-- for the sake of protecting an illusion, 488 00:24:08,689 --> 00:24:10,827 would certainly seem to be troubled, 489 00:24:10,931 --> 00:24:13,275 misguided individuals. 490 00:24:13,379 --> 00:24:16,448 But if that's true, then why do so many of us 491 00:24:16,551 --> 00:24:18,758 fall for their deceptions? 492 00:24:20,206 --> 00:24:22,068 YOUNG: Part of the magic story 493 00:24:22,172 --> 00:24:24,379 is using a name like Rockefeller. 494 00:24:24,482 --> 00:24:27,310 It has a mana, a glitter to it. 495 00:24:27,413 --> 00:24:29,275 It draws people. 496 00:24:29,379 --> 00:24:32,206 And there is an element of collusion. 497 00:24:32,310 --> 00:24:34,793 So the inability to catch the warning signs 498 00:24:34,896 --> 00:24:38,793 has to do with the intentional blindness of the victim. 499 00:24:38,896 --> 00:24:42,137 They want something, and they want this story to be true, 500 00:24:42,241 --> 00:24:44,827 so they're participating. 501 00:24:44,931 --> 00:24:46,931 ROBBINS: That's really the secret to a con. 502 00:24:47,034 --> 00:24:49,344 It's not about manufacturing a whole fake reality. 503 00:24:49,448 --> 00:24:50,965 Instead, it's finding the story 504 00:24:51,068 --> 00:24:52,931 that people are telling themselves 505 00:24:53,034 --> 00:24:54,413 and just elaborating on it. 506 00:24:54,517 --> 00:24:56,344 They're able to compartmentalize this reality, 507 00:24:56,448 --> 00:24:58,517 because they're not worried about somebody else. 508 00:24:58,620 --> 00:25:00,379 These, together, present opportunity 509 00:25:00,482 --> 00:25:02,586 for somebody to be very evil. 510 00:25:04,103 --> 00:25:07,275 SHATNER: Today, instead of going by the name Clark Rockefeller, 511 00:25:07,379 --> 00:25:11,551 Christian is known as inmate number AR3108 512 00:25:11,655 --> 00:25:14,551 at San Quentin State Prison. 513 00:25:14,655 --> 00:25:17,379 Hopefully, his days of adopting false identities 514 00:25:17,482 --> 00:25:19,448 have been ended forever. 515 00:25:19,551 --> 00:25:22,655 Unlike another imposter, 516 00:25:22,758 --> 00:25:25,379 whose assumption of a new identity was so credible 517 00:25:25,482 --> 00:25:27,517 and so enduring 518 00:25:27,620 --> 00:25:30,655 that many remain convinced that her deception was true, 519 00:25:30,758 --> 00:25:34,344 even decades after her death. 520 00:25:39,758 --> 00:25:44,000 HENDLEY: In the case of impostors who have a damaged past, 521 00:25:44,103 --> 00:25:47,103 does the assumption of a new identity help them 522 00:25:47,206 --> 00:25:49,689 to recover the details of a forgotten life? 523 00:25:51,655 --> 00:25:55,206 Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the case of a woman 524 00:25:55,310 --> 00:25:58,344 who many called an imposter, 525 00:25:58,448 --> 00:26:01,379 but who, until the day she died, 526 00:26:01,482 --> 00:26:03,551 insisted she was really 527 00:26:03,655 --> 00:26:07,448 a long-lost Russian princess: 528 00:26:07,551 --> 00:26:11,965 the Grand Duchess, Anastasia. 529 00:26:19,275 --> 00:26:22,103 In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, 530 00:26:22,206 --> 00:26:25,310 the exiled emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, 531 00:26:25,413 --> 00:26:28,620 his wife Alexandra, and their five children 532 00:26:28,724 --> 00:26:32,172 are awakened in the night by their captors. 533 00:26:32,275 --> 00:26:34,862 Frightened and confused, 534 00:26:34,965 --> 00:26:37,758 they are herded along with four of their loyal servants 535 00:26:37,862 --> 00:26:41,517 into the basement of the Ipatiev House. 536 00:26:41,620 --> 00:26:44,310 There, while waiting for further instructions, 537 00:26:44,413 --> 00:26:46,896 a group of Soviet secret police 538 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,379 enter and raise their pistols. 539 00:26:50,482 --> 00:26:53,896 The last thing the confused family hears. 540 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:55,689 is the sound of gunfire. 541 00:26:55,793 --> 00:26:58,896 [gunshots echoing] 542 00:27:00,620 --> 00:27:03,655 After the execution, the bodies of the Romanov family 543 00:27:03,758 --> 00:27:06,965 were burned and then buried in a mass grave. 544 00:27:10,655 --> 00:27:14,241 But in the wake of the killing, rumors emerged 545 00:27:14,344 --> 00:27:17,344 that the youngest daughter, Anastasia, 546 00:27:17,448 --> 00:27:20,172 had survived the slaughter. 547 00:27:23,068 --> 00:27:27,620 I think the idea that An-Anastasia might have escaped, 548 00:27:27,724 --> 00:27:32,379 it seems to be because of the chaos and the time it took 549 00:27:32,482 --> 00:27:37,137 for the true events that night to come out. 550 00:27:37,241 --> 00:27:39,344 It was said that the gunmen were drunk, 551 00:27:39,448 --> 00:27:43,034 and the cellar was full of smoke. 552 00:27:44,137 --> 00:27:46,482 The story, such as it is, 553 00:27:46,586 --> 00:27:49,103 is that she somehow survived the shooting 554 00:27:49,206 --> 00:27:51,379 and that one of the Bolshevik guards 555 00:27:51,482 --> 00:27:53,068 noticed she was alive 556 00:27:53,172 --> 00:27:56,241 and had this residual sympathy for the royal family, 557 00:27:56,344 --> 00:27:58,206 and sneaked her out of the death house 558 00:27:58,310 --> 00:28:00,310 and put her on a horse cart 559 00:28:00,413 --> 00:28:02,758 and rode her to Romania. 560 00:28:16,586 --> 00:28:18,655 SHATNER: The limp body of a young woman 561 00:28:18,758 --> 00:28:20,586 is pulled from a canal 562 00:28:20,689 --> 00:28:23,482 after a failed suicide attempt. 563 00:28:23,586 --> 00:28:27,965 Suffering from traumatic amnesia and severe depression, 564 00:28:28,068 --> 00:28:30,862 she is admitted into a mental hospital. 565 00:28:30,965 --> 00:28:34,896 The doctors, unable to verify the woman's identity, 566 00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,862 refer to her as Fraulein Unbekannt: 567 00:28:37,965 --> 00:28:40,758 Miss Unknown. 568 00:28:40,862 --> 00:28:43,310 WELCH: She became known as Miss Unknown, 569 00:28:43,413 --> 00:28:45,206 which lasted for months. 570 00:28:45,310 --> 00:28:48,379 And she was ripe for having an identity 571 00:28:48,482 --> 00:28:49,896 sort of thrust on her. 572 00:28:51,310 --> 00:28:53,793 ROSENSTOCK: Most likely, she has a primary diagnosis 573 00:28:53,896 --> 00:28:56,137 of post-traumatic stress disorder. 574 00:28:56,241 --> 00:28:58,379 Therefore, we have some deficits 575 00:28:58,482 --> 00:29:00,241 in cognition, 576 00:29:00,344 --> 00:29:02,758 we have some bizarre emotionality, 577 00:29:02,862 --> 00:29:05,793 and we have someone who's in a state 578 00:29:05,896 --> 00:29:10,551 of confusion, which comes and goes in different gradations. 579 00:29:11,931 --> 00:29:14,068 Over the course of about a year or so, 580 00:29:14,172 --> 00:29:17,137 another patient sort of notices she looks a bit like 581 00:29:17,241 --> 00:29:20,586 one of the Romanov daughters, and so these rumors emerge 582 00:29:20,689 --> 00:29:23,000 that she's connected to the royal family. 583 00:29:24,689 --> 00:29:27,655 WELCH: Once they've latched on to some evidence 584 00:29:27,758 --> 00:29:30,068 that she might be Anastasia, 585 00:29:30,172 --> 00:29:33,758 it's all sort of a case of confirmation bias. 586 00:29:33,862 --> 00:29:35,758 Everybody looks for the things. 587 00:29:35,862 --> 00:29:37,827 And I think, in a general way, 588 00:29:37,931 --> 00:29:41,172 people wanted hope out of a terrible tragedy. 589 00:29:41,275 --> 00:29:43,137 It's a human instinct. 590 00:29:43,241 --> 00:29:46,448 And the survival of Anastasia represented hope. 591 00:29:46,551 --> 00:29:48,724 SHATNER: In 1922, 592 00:29:48,827 --> 00:29:50,448 the mysterious woman, 593 00:29:50,551 --> 00:29:52,862 who had also gone by the name Anna Anderson, 594 00:29:52,965 --> 00:29:54,827 was released from the hospital 595 00:29:54,931 --> 00:29:58,068 and soon began calling herself Anastasia. 596 00:29:58,172 --> 00:30:01,275 And it wasn't long before her haunting story 597 00:30:01,379 --> 00:30:03,379 made worldwide headlines, 598 00:30:03,482 --> 00:30:05,517 prompting many to ask, 599 00:30:05,620 --> 00:30:08,620 "Was the woman in Berlin an imposter 600 00:30:08,724 --> 00:30:11,068 or the Russian grand duchess?" 601 00:30:12,827 --> 00:30:15,862 STEIN: She went viral, in a sense, at that time, 602 00:30:15,965 --> 00:30:20,482 because the world was hungry for that kind of scandal. 603 00:30:20,586 --> 00:30:23,551 Because she wasn't out there 604 00:30:23,655 --> 00:30:27,551 energetically trying to perpetrate frauds 605 00:30:27,655 --> 00:30:29,034 under the guise of being this person. 606 00:30:29,137 --> 00:30:31,689 In a sense, she was just put into a role. 607 00:30:33,931 --> 00:30:35,551 ROBBINS: She was somebody who was desperately 608 00:30:35,655 --> 00:30:37,034 searching for a reality, 609 00:30:37,137 --> 00:30:40,655 and she danced through multiple realities. 610 00:30:40,758 --> 00:30:43,137 The question of whether she was intentionally impersonating 611 00:30:43,241 --> 00:30:45,724 someone else or whether that was the truth 612 00:30:45,827 --> 00:30:48,689 is still left up to history. 613 00:30:50,758 --> 00:30:53,827 There were quite a few Anastasia imposters, 614 00:30:53,931 --> 00:30:57,241 but she benefitted from having this sort of definite transition 615 00:30:57,344 --> 00:31:00,068 where she was pulled from the canal. 616 00:31:00,172 --> 00:31:04,793 And the reason for her success was because she was supported 617 00:31:04,896 --> 00:31:07,931 by members of the Romanov family. 618 00:31:08,034 --> 00:31:11,896 Unfortunately, she was also not supported by a lot of them. 619 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,034 She had supporters and detractors. 620 00:31:14,137 --> 00:31:16,241 But I think once you have a grand duke 621 00:31:16,344 --> 00:31:18,172 or a prince on your side, 622 00:31:18,275 --> 00:31:20,344 then people will flock around. 623 00:31:20,448 --> 00:31:24,068 HENDLEY: There's these rumors that the Romanovs banked 624 00:31:24,172 --> 00:31:27,448 outside of Russia, that they had millions of rubles 625 00:31:27,551 --> 00:31:29,655 in a British bank and all this. 626 00:31:29,758 --> 00:31:31,827 So the real Anastasia 627 00:31:31,931 --> 00:31:33,896 could be in for a fortune. 628 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,620 So for a period of time was really living it up. 629 00:31:37,724 --> 00:31:41,724 She, at one point, was staying with European royals. 630 00:31:41,827 --> 00:31:44,551 WELCH: Two of her big supporters 631 00:31:44,655 --> 00:31:46,206 in Germany were aristocrats, 632 00:31:46,310 --> 00:31:49,172 who supported Anastasia, believed in her cause, 633 00:31:49,275 --> 00:31:51,310 even though she was very difficult to handle. 634 00:31:51,413 --> 00:31:54,068 But these people were so sure 635 00:31:54,172 --> 00:31:56,758 that she was Anastasia, they put up with a lot. 636 00:31:58,034 --> 00:31:59,586 SHATNER: Given that she possessed 637 00:31:59,689 --> 00:32:02,034 what was thought to be a Russian accent, 638 00:32:02,137 --> 00:32:04,103 had scarring across much of her body, 639 00:32:04,206 --> 00:32:07,310 which seemed consistent with bayonet wounds, 640 00:32:07,413 --> 00:32:09,655 and cornflower-blue eyes, 641 00:32:09,758 --> 00:32:13,068 which matched those of the missing Grand Duchess, 642 00:32:13,172 --> 00:32:15,275 there was enough compelling evidence to suggest 643 00:32:15,379 --> 00:32:18,275 that the young woman pulled from the German canal 644 00:32:18,379 --> 00:32:20,793 might really be Anastasia. 645 00:32:20,896 --> 00:32:23,551 But given the nature of the tsar's family's 646 00:32:23,655 --> 00:32:25,275 bloody execution, 647 00:32:25,379 --> 00:32:27,793 how could anyone survive? 648 00:32:39,896 --> 00:32:42,965 ROSHATNER:: The young woman claiming to be the Grand Duchess, Anastasia 649 00:32:43,068 --> 00:32:45,620 has taken up residence at Castle Seeon 650 00:32:45,724 --> 00:32:48,344 as a guest of Duke George of Leuchtenberg, 651 00:32:48,448 --> 00:32:51,482 a distant relative of Tsar Nicholas II. 652 00:32:51,586 --> 00:32:53,655 But the aristocrats and European royalty, 653 00:32:53,758 --> 00:32:56,827 who had been hosting the strangely eccentric woman 654 00:32:56,931 --> 00:32:59,724 are beginning to suspect that there is no way 655 00:32:59,827 --> 00:33:03,103 she could actually be the long-lost Russian princess. 656 00:33:03,206 --> 00:33:06,724 Especially after it is reported that Anna Anderson 657 00:33:06,827 --> 00:33:10,586 actually had yet another name. 658 00:33:10,689 --> 00:33:13,413 HENDLEY: What happened was in 1927, 659 00:33:13,517 --> 00:33:15,172 a detective looked into her background, 660 00:33:15,275 --> 00:33:18,793 and the detective says, "This is not Anastasia." 661 00:33:18,896 --> 00:33:22,758 This is a Polish peasant girl named Franziska. 662 00:33:22,862 --> 00:33:25,793 And Franziska moved from Poland to Berlin 663 00:33:25,896 --> 00:33:29,034 during the first World War and suffered a severe head injury 664 00:33:29,137 --> 00:33:31,034 while working in a munitions plant. 665 00:33:31,137 --> 00:33:35,758 There was an explosion, so she had brain damage, 666 00:33:35,862 --> 00:33:38,620 went into mental homes after that, 667 00:33:38,724 --> 00:33:41,827 and then all of a sudden jumps into a canal in 1920. 668 00:33:41,931 --> 00:33:44,689 And this triggers this decades-long argument. 669 00:33:44,793 --> 00:33:47,206 You know, is this really Franziska 670 00:33:47,310 --> 00:33:49,689 or is this Anastasia? 671 00:33:49,793 --> 00:33:53,000 SHATNER: In 1938, as the controversy 672 00:33:53,103 --> 00:33:56,862 regarding Anna Anderson's identity reached a fever pitch, 673 00:33:56,965 --> 00:33:59,689 the woman who had by now firmly convinced herself 674 00:33:59,793 --> 00:34:02,586 that she was the real Anastasia 675 00:34:02,689 --> 00:34:05,241 petitioned a German court to try her case 676 00:34:05,344 --> 00:34:07,379 and restore her birthright. 677 00:34:07,482 --> 00:34:10,655 It marked the beginning of the longest-running lawsuit 678 00:34:10,758 --> 00:34:12,068 in German history. 679 00:34:12,172 --> 00:34:15,137 For decades, evidence was presented 680 00:34:15,241 --> 00:34:17,931 both for and against Anna's claim, 681 00:34:18,034 --> 00:34:21,206 including comparisons of handwriting samples 682 00:34:21,310 --> 00:34:26,793 and photographic comparisons of Anna and Anastasia's ears. 683 00:34:26,896 --> 00:34:30,724 Officially, Anna's court case ended in 1970, 684 00:34:30,827 --> 00:34:33,793 with neither side able to conclusively establish 685 00:34:33,896 --> 00:34:36,586 the would-be monarch's identity. 686 00:34:36,689 --> 00:34:39,793 But that was by no means the end of the story. 687 00:34:39,896 --> 00:34:44,206 In 1991, seven years after Anna's death, 688 00:34:44,310 --> 00:34:47,586 the mangled remains of the Romanov family were found 689 00:34:47,689 --> 00:34:50,275 buried in a mass grave just a short distance 690 00:34:50,379 --> 00:34:51,965 from where they were executed. 691 00:34:54,724 --> 00:34:57,724 And the investigators were shocked to find 692 00:34:57,827 --> 00:35:01,172 that the remains of the tsar's son Alexei 693 00:35:01,275 --> 00:35:03,655 and one of the Romanov's four daughters 694 00:35:03,758 --> 00:35:06,551 were missing. 695 00:35:06,655 --> 00:35:09,068 WELCH: In 1978, 696 00:35:09,172 --> 00:35:10,965 one of the killers of the Romanov family 697 00:35:11,068 --> 00:35:13,931 made a confession, and as a result of that, 698 00:35:14,034 --> 00:35:16,758 bodies were found under some railway sidings. 699 00:35:16,862 --> 00:35:20,068 HENDLEY: The guy who found the remains 700 00:35:20,172 --> 00:35:22,620 kept this a secret, though, for two decades 701 00:35:22,724 --> 00:35:24,448 because the communists were still in power 702 00:35:24,551 --> 00:35:27,862 and he kind of sensed this might be a bad idea to tell everybody. 703 00:35:27,965 --> 00:35:30,931 WELCH: This was in the '90s and Anastasia, 704 00:35:31,034 --> 00:35:33,862 Anna Anderson, had already died, unfortunately. 705 00:35:33,965 --> 00:35:36,448 But it was discovered that two of the bodies were missing. 706 00:35:38,275 --> 00:35:40,862 SHATNER: Two of the bodies missing? 707 00:35:40,965 --> 00:35:44,517 Could it be that Anna Anderson was not an impostor 708 00:35:44,620 --> 00:35:47,517 after all, but the real Anastasia? 709 00:35:47,620 --> 00:35:49,655 WELCH: When the news came through 710 00:35:49,758 --> 00:35:53,103 that two bodies were missing, everybody was rather excited 711 00:35:53,206 --> 00:35:57,068 and thought, "Well, this proves that Ana-Anastasia lived." 712 00:35:57,172 --> 00:36:01,586 However, the bodies were then tested for DNA. 713 00:36:01,689 --> 00:36:05,172 HENDLEY: They compared samples of Anna 714 00:36:05,275 --> 00:36:08,379 and find that she doesn't match the Romanovs at all. 715 00:36:08,482 --> 00:36:10,827 But there is a match between 716 00:36:10,931 --> 00:36:13,862 Anna and her relatives of Franziska. 717 00:36:13,965 --> 00:36:18,620 Later on, a second plot of bodies was found, 718 00:36:18,724 --> 00:36:22,068 and the body of Anastasia is 719 00:36:22,172 --> 00:36:24,172 actually found and DNA-tested. 720 00:36:24,275 --> 00:36:26,931 For a second time, DNA testing is brought in 721 00:36:27,034 --> 00:36:29,551 and said, "No, no, no, Anastasia was buried 722 00:36:29,655 --> 00:36:31,068 along with the rest of her family." 723 00:36:31,172 --> 00:36:34,379 And Franziska was totally deluded. 724 00:36:34,482 --> 00:36:38,793 But even today, there's people who insist that the DNA tests 725 00:36:38,896 --> 00:36:41,413 were all fake and that this really was Anastasia, 726 00:36:41,517 --> 00:36:43,896 and someone really did survive 727 00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,068 this brutal slaughter of the royal family. 728 00:36:47,310 --> 00:36:49,275 YOUNG: Strangely, Anna Anderson did 729 00:36:49,379 --> 00:36:51,344 become something larger than life. 730 00:36:51,448 --> 00:36:52,896 She became a legend. 731 00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,172 There have been many books. 732 00:36:56,275 --> 00:36:58,379 There have been movies, a musical. 733 00:36:58,482 --> 00:37:00,448 We still love the story, 734 00:37:00,551 --> 00:37:03,862 and when it is retold in the fictionalized versions, 735 00:37:03,965 --> 00:37:06,862 she is always really the princess. 736 00:37:06,965 --> 00:37:10,965 STEIN: She was just a puppet of forces 737 00:37:11,068 --> 00:37:13,000 that were beyond her. 738 00:37:13,103 --> 00:37:15,068 And she was clearly quite malleable 739 00:37:15,172 --> 00:37:18,379 and was willing to become 740 00:37:18,482 --> 00:37:20,931 the persona that had been assigned to her. 741 00:37:21,034 --> 00:37:23,862 Her capacity to be 742 00:37:23,965 --> 00:37:27,586 delusional clearly played a part in the formation 743 00:37:27,689 --> 00:37:30,931 of this false identity, 744 00:37:31,034 --> 00:37:35,448 which she seemed to live as if it were actual. 745 00:37:38,034 --> 00:37:40,551 SHATNER: Whether Anna Anderson truly believed 746 00:37:40,655 --> 00:37:45,620 or simply wanted to believe that she was Anastasia Romanov, 747 00:37:45,724 --> 00:37:48,689 she never wavered from her claim 748 00:37:48,793 --> 00:37:51,068 even until the day she died. 749 00:37:51,172 --> 00:37:54,172 But what drives someone 750 00:37:54,275 --> 00:37:57,034 to stick to their story, no matter what? 751 00:37:57,137 --> 00:37:59,724 For some, as it turns out, it is not merely 752 00:37:59,827 --> 00:38:02,862 a choice, a con or a delusion. 753 00:38:02,965 --> 00:38:05,965 Some people are simply born to be someone else. 754 00:38:13,034 --> 00:38:16,586 Tipton, once a popularjazz musician and band leader 755 00:38:16,689 --> 00:38:21,448 during the 1940s and 50s, dies at the age of 74 in his home. 756 00:38:21,551 --> 00:38:25,689 But when the paramedics arrive, they make a shocking discovery. 757 00:38:25,793 --> 00:38:28,724 Billy Tipton was, in fact... 758 00:38:28,827 --> 00:38:30,793 a woman. 759 00:38:30,896 --> 00:38:34,000 Here's someone who was gifted, a great pianist, 760 00:38:34,103 --> 00:38:39,275 a great saxophone player, someone who had dramatic talent. 761 00:38:39,379 --> 00:38:42,689 But every time Dorothy Lucille Tipton 762 00:38:42,793 --> 00:38:45,275 went for a musical audition, 763 00:38:45,379 --> 00:38:48,517 she was turned down regardless of obvious talent. 764 00:38:48,620 --> 00:38:51,862 YOUNG: One day here she is, Dorothy Lucille Tipton 765 00:38:51,965 --> 00:38:54,103 changes her name to Billy Tipton, 766 00:38:54,206 --> 00:38:57,965 cuts her hair short, puts on a suit, goes in, gets the job. 767 00:38:58,068 --> 00:39:00,482 She's got the chops, she's got the talent, 768 00:39:00,586 --> 00:39:02,068 and now she has the work. 769 00:39:02,172 --> 00:39:04,241 And she has a successful career, 770 00:39:04,344 --> 00:39:07,344 decades as a successful jazz pianist. 771 00:39:09,275 --> 00:39:11,896 The Billy Tipton Trio were quite popular. 772 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:13,448 They played all over the place. 773 00:39:13,551 --> 00:39:15,724 And by all accounts, 774 00:39:15,827 --> 00:39:18,379 they were a well-regarded jazz trio 775 00:39:18,482 --> 00:39:21,241 back in this era, in the '50s, '60s. 776 00:39:21,344 --> 00:39:25,586 STEIN: Billy Tipton was looking to do something 777 00:39:25,689 --> 00:39:29,379 that was critically important to her life-- to make music 778 00:39:29,482 --> 00:39:32,206 and to be accepted into a society 779 00:39:32,310 --> 00:39:34,896 that would not have her as herself. 780 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,965 She wasn't gonna let something like gender 781 00:39:38,068 --> 00:39:41,000 or prejudice get in her way. 782 00:39:43,586 --> 00:39:47,965 SHATNER: Eventually, Billy became so committed to living as a man 783 00:39:48,068 --> 00:39:50,758 that even his wives, of which he had five 784 00:39:50,862 --> 00:39:52,241 over the course of his life, 785 00:39:52,344 --> 00:39:55,344 claimed to never know the truth about Billy. 786 00:39:56,482 --> 00:39:59,551 The 30s, 40s, 50s were much primmer than today. 787 00:39:59,655 --> 00:40:02,517 Husbands and wives typically didn't parade around naked 788 00:40:02,620 --> 00:40:03,931 in front of each other. 789 00:40:04,034 --> 00:40:07,655 ROSENSTOCK: This individual said, 790 00:40:07,758 --> 00:40:09,862 "I have a certain kind of problem 791 00:40:09,965 --> 00:40:12,068 "where I can't have sex. 792 00:40:12,172 --> 00:40:13,965 "It comes from a childhood injury, 793 00:40:14,068 --> 00:40:15,862 "too difficult to explain. 794 00:40:15,965 --> 00:40:19,655 "But I can be a wonderful husband. 795 00:40:19,758 --> 00:40:21,965 I can be a wonderful father." 796 00:40:22,068 --> 00:40:24,620 And, therefore, he was able to carry out 797 00:40:24,724 --> 00:40:28,103 this facade as Billy Tipton. 798 00:40:28,206 --> 00:40:31,137 STEIN: There are people in certain societies 799 00:40:31,241 --> 00:40:33,862 all over the world who, 800 00:40:33,965 --> 00:40:36,931 by virtue of the prejudice of the society 801 00:40:37,034 --> 00:40:38,379 or the community in which they live, 802 00:40:38,482 --> 00:40:41,689 cannot allow themselves to be themselves, 803 00:40:41,793 --> 00:40:43,724 which seems like a real perversity 804 00:40:43,827 --> 00:40:46,827 that the only way they could be real is to be fake. 805 00:40:46,931 --> 00:40:48,931 Because you are living the secret, 806 00:40:49,034 --> 00:40:50,448 not just living with a secret. 807 00:40:50,551 --> 00:40:53,793 We have many characters within ourselves. 808 00:40:53,896 --> 00:40:55,517 We're not consistent. 809 00:40:55,620 --> 00:40:58,068 We have a business self, we have a social self, 810 00:40:58,172 --> 00:41:00,172 we have a parental self, we have a good-citizen self. 811 00:41:00,275 --> 00:41:04,517 And this brings up some issues about reality. 812 00:41:04,620 --> 00:41:07,275 An old thief once told me that you have to die with a lie. 813 00:41:07,379 --> 00:41:09,206 If somebody finds out that you're a fraud, 814 00:41:09,310 --> 00:41:11,586 they'll think you're a fraud from that point forward. 815 00:41:11,689 --> 00:41:14,965 Billy Tipton died with that lie, but for him, that wasn't a lie. 816 00:41:15,068 --> 00:41:17,034 That was his truth. 817 00:41:18,931 --> 00:41:23,000 SHATNER: For Billy Tipton, living as a man was more than a role. 818 00:41:23,103 --> 00:41:25,896 It was his life. 819 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,413 But when a person commits themselves 820 00:41:28,517 --> 00:41:30,827 to an impersonation so thoroughly, 821 00:41:30,931 --> 00:41:33,413 which part of them is more real? 822 00:41:33,517 --> 00:41:35,275 Who they were? 823 00:41:35,379 --> 00:41:39,034 Or who they've chosen to become? 824 00:41:40,551 --> 00:41:44,448 Perhaps they exist to remind us that who we are 825 00:41:44,551 --> 00:41:47,103 and who we think we are are not always the same. 826 00:41:47,206 --> 00:41:50,241 And that our own carefully constructed facades 827 00:41:50,344 --> 00:41:52,724 could shatter at any moment, 828 00:41:52,827 --> 00:41:55,862 exposing the parts of ourselves we would prefer to keep hidden 829 00:41:55,965 --> 00:41:59,068 and, um... unexplained. 65966

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