Was the Story of 'Catch Me If You Can' Frank Abagnale Jr.'s Greatest Con?

Though it might not be as famous as any of the Indiana Jones movies or Jurassic Park or Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can has always quietly been one of Steven Spielberg's greatest films. In fact, Catch Me if You Can is actually ranked as Spielberg's fourth-best directorial effort on Rotten Tomatoes, above any of his other movies I've mentioned here.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as real life con man Frank Abagnale Jr., who throughout the '60s and '70s cashed more than $2 million in fake checks and successfully posed as a doctor, a lawyer, a college professor, and a pilot for Pan American airlines. According to Abagnale's own story, he began conning at the age of 15 and was hunted throughout his teenage years by the FBI (Tom Hanks plays the fictional agent Carl Hanratty, loosely based on Joseph Shea who was a friend of Abagnale). The film also shows Abagnale escape twice from the FBI—once from a plane as it was on the runway at JFK and again from a detention center in Atlanta.

It's an incredible story. But a new book from journalist Alan C. Logan says Abagnale's version of things—and the movie's narrative—might be his greatest con.

Using public records and interviews, Logan outlines a very different story in The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth, While We Can.

“What really happened was that, dressed as a TWA (Trans World Airlines) pilot, which he only did for a few weeks, [Abagnale] befriended a flight attendant called Paula Parks,” Logan told WHYY podcast The Pulse. “He followed her all over the Eastern Seaboard, identified her work schedule through deceptive means, and essentially stalked the woman.”

This is far from the sexy, charming, almost Bond-like version of the story we see in Catch Me If You Can.

“So Abagnale’s narrative that between the ages of 16 and 20, he was on the run, chased all over the United States and even internationally by the FBI. This is completely fictitious,” Logan told The Pulse. “Public records obtained by me show that he was confined for the most part in prison during those years.”

Logan says that Abagnale started inventing the version of the story we see in Catch Me If You Can after he appeared on the 1977 game show To Tell The Truth (there's a recreation of this episode in the film, even). This led to multiple appearances on television, speaking engagements, a best-selling book, and, of course, the Spielberg film.

But, hey, maybe conning all of us for nearly half a century into believing he was the world's greatest con man is Abagnale's greatest con.

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