Impostor

Most impostors try to gain financial or social advantages. Pretenders for various thrones used to be common. Numerous men claimed they were Dauphin, heir to the French throne who disappeared during the French Revolution. There were at least two false Dimitris who were serious pretenders for the throne of Russia.

Very daring impostor may pretend to be someone else who really exists although fast news media has made this rather difficult in these days. Usually they just misrepresent their financial, educational or social status, family background and in some cases, their gender.

Impostors are usually aware of not being who they say they are, they are not the proverbial lunatics who think they are Napoleon. However there are borderline cases who may have end up believing their own tall tales.

People may make false claims about their past or background - that they can sing, for example - without being full-blown impostors; non-existent military service seems common. Only if a significant part of their past is fabricated - like that of George Dupre[?] who claimed to have been an SOE agent in World War Two - they approach the admittedly hazy border.

Sometimes women have masqueraded as men to obtain privileges only men can have or work in male-dominated professions (see James Barry). Some of them fought as men at least in Napoleonic Wars and American Civil War.

Many temporary impostors are criminals who maintain the façade for a time of a caper to defraud their victims (like Wilhelm Voigt). Others, like US prankster Joey Skaggs, do it as a prank or in order to make a point of some kind. The latter usually reveal the truth sooner or later.

Sometimes an organization (or even individual) who has been fooled keeps quiet to avoid the embarrassment and therefore allows the impostor try the same thing elsewhere.

Of course, the most successful impostors are those whose duplicity is never revealed so that we know nothing about them.

Sample impostors:

• Frank Abagnale who passed bad checks as a fake Pan Am pilot, doctor and lawyer
• Anna Anderson, who may have really thought she was Anastasia
• Mary Baker, who pretended to be Princess Caraboo of Javasu
• Chung Ling Soo[?], stage magician - real name William Robinson
• Ferdinand Waldo Demara, "The Great Imposter"
• Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance[?]
• George Psalmanazar, who claimed to be from Formosa
• James Reavis who claimed he owned Arizona
• Louis de Rougemont[?], wannabe explorer
• Tichborne Claimant[?]
• Wilhelm Voigt, "Captain of the Köpenick"
• Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of England
• Stanley Clifford Weyman[?]

Women who lived as men:

• James Barry, Victorian physician
• Billy Tipton, US jazz player

Books:

• Sarah Burton: Impostors - Six kinds of liar

See also: Impersonator[?], Claims of imposture[?], Internet imposture[?]