Ghosting (identity Theft) - Famous Examples

Famous Examples

The most famous ghoster is Ferdinand Waldo Demara, alias "The Great Impostor", whose case is unusual for two reasons: (1) he appropriated the identities of several different men (in series);(2) all of Demara's ghosted identities were persons still alive at the time and therefore able to confront him. After Demara's death in 1982, it was revealed (in his New York Times obituary) that he had been arrested twice on charges of attempted sex with minors.

The American film actor Wallace Ford was a successful ghoster. Born in England under the name Samuel Jones, he was estranged from his family at an early age and placed in a school in Canada. At the age of 15, Jones became a hobo and stowed away aboard freight trains with a fellow hobo named Wallace Ford. The two boys eventually were in a train accident; Jones survived, but Ford was killed. Jones then appropriated the other man's name and some aspects of his biography, becoming a successful actor under the name Wallace Ford, eventually starring on Broadway and in Hollywood films. As "Wallace Ford," Jones used the real Ford's birthdate and other statistics on all of his own tax returns and official documents, even applying for a passport as Wallace Ford for his 1937 return to England. Only shortly before his death in 1966 did the actor reveal the complete truth about his identity.

Jones (Ford) was fortunate to have an ideal candidate for his ghost identity: a dead person of his own race, sex and approximate age whose death was never officially recorded. (No one came forward to identify the real Wallace Ford's remains.) Typically, ghosters seeking a dead person's identity must choose someone whose death has been recorded in public archives, creating a risk that, after donning this new identity, the ghoster will eventually be confronted with a copy of his "own" death certificate.

Some fictional characters are ghosters. One example is Seymour Skinner, the grade-school principal in The Simpsons. Several years after his first appearance on this series, Skinner revealed that he was an impostor who had stolen the real Seymour Skinner's life and identity after the real Skinner died in combat overseas. Bizarrely, the false Skinner was abetted in this scheme by the real Skinner's mother, who preferred the impostor over her actual son. Creed Bratton, from The Office, is another example of a character who has stolen the identity of another man. Don Draper, the main character in AMC's Mad Men, is yet another example of a Ghoster. Don obtained the identity from his deceased superior officer in the Korean War.

Undoubtedly, there are other successful ghosters whose imposture has never been discovered, because, unlike Wallace Ford, they never revealed their imposture.