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Catching myself some motion blurs in suits Before he turned 19, Frank Abagnale Jr. assumed eight separate identities, forged US$2.5 million worth of cheques, escaped from police custody twice, and flew over a million miles on over 250 flights and visited 26 countries. Sounds like the stuff movies are made of? Definitely! That’s why Steven Spielberg came on board to reproduce this man’s TRUE STORY on the big screen. Let us present to you the real-life Frank Abagnale Jr., the inspiration for the movie Catch Me If You Can (2002) -- yes, no changing of main character names for this one! What would you do if one day your parents divorced, and you didn’t know anything until you had to decide which parent to live with in court? And, you’re all of 16 years-old, with no clue what stepping into a “Family Court” meant. Cry perhaps? Well, that was exactly what young Frank did when he had to choose, but then he also chose to run away from it all.
When you’re 16 and still a tenth grade student, you do what you have to do… Sixteen, and all alone in New York City. You’d think any normal person would give up when all the cash ran out. However, Abagnale Jr. here is no ordinary man – he has an IQ of 140 and an almost-photographic memory (Although not as awesome as last week’s guy on our Larger Than Life feature). What he first did was to find a job with his legitimate identity. However, that didn’t work for him because the payout was too little. If you're 16 years of age, they would put a student price on your head; but he had a few grey hairs, so that worked to his advantage. Augmenting his driver’s licence, he “aged” a decade and was paid more. However, that was still not enough for him to get by. So he started writing personal cheques on his bank account which had no more money in it, and moved on to accounts in other banks before they caught him. As he got more skilful, he even printed his own forged cheques and talked the bank tellers into forwarding the cold, hard cash in advance.
Some frequent flyer miles, and I’ll have fries with that please His first professional “job” was with the Pan American World Airways as a co-pilot. He managed to get hold of a uniform and talked the identification card producers into making him an almost-perfect card. In his two-year stint in this role, he never flew with Pan Am, but became a deadhead with other airlines. Think of deadheading as getting a free ride without doing anything except having a good excuse. He also impersonated a paediatrician when he filled out an application for an apartment in Georgia. During this time, a real doctor moved in, so Frank retreated to the library before his cover was blown. The hospital also needed help, so he was enlisted as a supervisor for the interns there.
Frank Abagnale Jr. was a man who wore many hats: No! Not literally! But I'll admit, it still takes skill In the movie, Abagnale Jr. also becomes an attorney after passing the bar exam at Louisiana after studying for a mere two weeks. The real Abagnale Jr. begs to differ, saying he took almost two months to cram for that exam, failing twice in the process. Still, amazing! (I've never had a head for law) Frank also impersonated a security guard, taught sociology at a University for a semester, and held forged degrees from Harvard and Columbia University. Call it luck, gift of the gab, or the trusting nature of the 1960s, but Frank managed to keep his charade up until he was arrested in 1969, before his 21st birthday. That’s almost a whopping five years evading the police. His downfall? A woman. An Air France attendant who was an ex-girlfriend remembered him and ratted on him to the police.
Everyone needs to have their cake and eat it, even a congratulatory “Yay you’re outta jail!” cake As a result, Frank was handed a sentence 72 years long, but he only had to serve six months in French prison (where he almost died from malnutrition and pneumonia), six months in Swedish prison, and four years in American prison (he was on parole until 1981). Yet life as he knew it didn’t end there. Armed with his spectacular wit and knack at negotiation, he moved beyond the simple jobs he had taken on after his release (from which he was fired when his employers discovered he was an ex-convict) and into a lifelong career as a security consultant for banks and the FBI. He turned it into a (legit) million-dollar business, Abagnale & Associates, in 1976.
Can you imagine this man was an ex-crook? Now he’s a good friend of the FBI Now remember, don’t try this at home. Fraud is a serious crime; and although it makes for a brilliant life story, most fraudsters end up doing time in a cell. Some wise words from the now 62-year-old Abagnale Jr. himself: “I consider my past immoral, unethical and illegal. It is something I am not proud of.” For more comments on the movie from the man himself, head to his website. |
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