Alan Conway - Kubrick Impersonation

Kubrick Impersonation

Conway's impersonations of director Stanley Kubrick took place during the early 1990s, by which time Kubrick had been withdrawn from public view for 15 years. Kubrick had also worn a beard since the late 1960s, and Conway was shaven making the hoax easier to pull off. He convinced several figures in the entertainment industry that he was the famed director, promising both roles in films and exclusive interviews. He on occasion had others pay for dinner, claiming his studio would reimburse them.

Frank Rich, a famed Broadway critic for The New York Times, was taken in by Conway's act in Joe Allen's restaurant when they invited Conway and his friends to join him at his table. Frank Rich was so taken with Conway's act that he later said that he thought Stanley Kubrick was homosexual after meeting Conway. Rich and his journalist friends were excited at the prospect of an exclusive interview with 'Stanley Kubrick' but later found out that he was in fact an impostor after contacting executives at Warner Brothers, who knew of the con but had been unable to identify the imposter.

Kubrick's lawyer found out that there was someone impersonating him and, when he informed Kubrick of the impostor, Kubrick was said to be fascinated by the idea. Stanley Kubrick's wife, Christiane, was less taken with the idea, as she later reflected "It was an absolute nightmare. This strange doppelgänger who was pretending to be Stanley. Can you imagine the horror?"

Conway was tracked down in part through the efforts of Kubrick's personal assistant Anthony Frewin, who went on to write the screenplay for the 2006 film Colour Me Kubrick based on these incidents starring John Malkovich as Conway.

Conway died in 1998 of myocardial infarction (coronary thrombosis, a heart attack) shortly before Kubrick's death in March 1999.