# Celebrities in Hiding

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [September 21, 2001, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042 "2001-09-21T16:47:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BobSchroeck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/13edae/32.png) [@BobSchroeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobSchroeck)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042/1 "2001-09-21T16:47:41Z")

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I’m blanking out on the name, and a web search hasn’t helped me any, but wasn’t there a French poet who disappeared at the height of his career and was decades later discovered, on his deathbed, to have been living under an assumed name all that time? I know I’ve heard this from a couple of sources, but the only one that comes to mind is the reference made in the movie “Eddie and the Cruisers”…

– Bob

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042/2 "2001-09-21T18:37:28Z")

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A link to Cecil’s column is appreciated. [Has any famous person ever succeeded in faking his own death?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010921.html)

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**Author:** ![arara123](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@arara123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arara123)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042/3 "2001-09-22T03:33:09Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by BobSchroeck \*wasn’t there a French poet who disappeared at the height of his career and was decades later discovered, on his deathbed, to have been living under an assumed name all that time?  
> – Bob \*\*

Possibly Arthur Rimbaud, although he was not popular when he was alive. He wrote all his major poetry between the ages of 15 and 19 and then went to Abyssinia to become a gun runner and (possibly) a slave trader. He fell ill and returned to France. His leg was amputated in Marseille and he died on the journey to Paris at the age of 36 or 37, not knowing that his work had just become the rage of Paris.

There was a movie about his life starring Leonardo DiCaprio, _Total Eclipse_, I think.

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**Author:** ![bsb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bsb)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042/4 "2002-05-17T13:14:56Z")

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Surely the question is flawed: For anyone to SUCCESSFULLY fake their own death, we would, by virtue of their success, not know about it.

- B

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**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-in-hiding/83042/5 "2002-05-17T16:02:41Z")

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Well for most purposes, to successfully fake your own death one only has to maintain the illusion until you _really_ die. If a body found in some motel turns out to be Jim Morrison then we can safely say he faked his death successfully.

I guess you could tag “that we know of” after the question.