498 - The Great Imposter, Ferdinand Waldo Demara

Do Go On

Matt Stewart, Jess Perkins & Dave Warneke

Fact, History, Facts, Comedy

4.9 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 130 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr. was many things... an engineer, a teacher, a monk, an academic, a psychologist, a prison warden, a sheriff's deputy and even a surgeon. The only problem was he wasn't qualified to do any of these things. He was, an imposter!

This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 04:37 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).

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Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:

Joe McCarthy, “The Master Imposter: An Incredible Tale,” Life, Jan. 28, 1952.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=flQEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA79&pg=PA79&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=true

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2019/10/14/podcast-episode-268-the-great-impostor/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/ferdinand-waldo-demara-the-great-imposter-con-artist-fraud-a9080991.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Waldo_Demara#

The Great Imposter by Robert Crichton:

https://archive.org/details/greatimpostor010210mbp/page/n167/mode/2up?view=theater&q=argument

You Bet Your Life, Nov 12, 1959

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Rz5yYCeks&t=740s

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Transcript

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