The British Labour Party politician and junior Cabinet Minister John Stonehouse faked his suicide by drowning, leaving a pile of his clothes on a Miami beach in 1974. He was in financial trouble, cooking the books and was under investigation. He started a new life in Australia with his lover and secretary Sheila Buckley, assuming the identity of Joseph Markham, the dead husband of one of his constituents. He was discovered because of suspicions that he was the ‘disappeared’ Lord Lucan. Full story here: John Stonehouse - Wikipedia
Funnily enough I did hear that Harold Holt and Lord Lucan have been living the life of Riley in an Albanian palace with Enver Hoxa. Its a funny ol’ world.
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Interesting. I wonder if the Stonehouse story was part of what inspired Eric Idle’s joke in The Rutles (produced, I think, in 1974) to have the pseudo-Brian Epstein character “move to Australia” (=“die”).
Also, interesting how Britain has (or had) a crime of “wasting the police department’s time.” I wonder if there’s such a thing in the US.
Patrick McDermott, not famous in his own right but instead as the boyfriend of Olivia Newton John. Successful at faking his death for a while, later found to be, and still in hiding.
I guess the nearest answerable question is something like: “Has any celebrity faked their death such that a death certificate was issued and there was virtually no police suspicion that they might still be alive (until the point where they were exposed)?”
Or…I suppose if a celeb was only exposed posthumously, that might fit the bill of a successful fake death that nonetheless we know about.
Ditto for Billy the Kid and Jesse James. Kind of hard to prove these things now, and even back then. (don’t know the latest on both those guys, maybe they’ve been resolved).
Ambrose Bierce disappeared under suspicious circumstances at a point in his life where his celebrity was possibly more of a burden than an asset.
And let us not forget “Mad” King Ludwig II of Bavaria. While wikipedia lists several theories that contradict the official story of his death, they omit theories that the recovered body was not in fact his.
I’d certainly like to think that he gave up an unhappy kingship to assume the identity of a common immigrant to America, and that his detractors were aware and fine with him not being actually dead so long as he were permanently gone.
Well, then the question becomes pointless because the only answer can be “we don’t know”. I’d say if someone was able to pull it off for a year or more before being accidentally discovered then I would consider it successful. By that criteria Stonehouse doesn’t qualify but McDermott likely would.
“Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965. In an attempt to mislead police, he faked suicide by having friends leave his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka, along with an elaborate suicide note, written by the Pranksters. Kesey fled to Mexico in the back of a friend’s car. When he returned to the United States eight months later, Kesey was arrested and sent to the San Mateo County jail”
