Unveiled: The Shocking Truth Behind the Real-Life Conman Who Inspired ‘Catch Me If You Can’
So, how exactly does the real story of Catch Me If You Can differ from the movie?
The Surprising True Story Of ‘Catch Me If You Can’
Despite Frank Abagnale Jr.’s many early arrests, Spielberg’s 2002 film only shows the 1969 apprehension in France. In fact, in public speaking engagements and interviews, Abagnale has reportedly claimed that he was only arrested that once.
The movie also had to play with the timeline of actual events to account for its exaggerations. Onscreen, Abagnale (portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio) is arrested in France in 1967. This is likely because the real-life Abagnale was in prison between 1965 and 1968 — not pretending to be a Pan American pilot, passing the Louisiana State Bar exam, posing as a doctor, and traveling across the world to flee from the FBI, as he claimed in his memoir.
Kevin Winter/ImageDirect/Getty ImagesThe premiere of Catch Me If You Can in 2002. From left to right: Tom Hanks, Jennifer Garner, Steven Spielberg, Frank Abagnale Jr., and Leonardo DiCaprio .
According to Abagnale, during this purported long con, he flew more than one million miles, visited 26 countries, and cashed $2.5 million in bad checks. However, there’s no proof that most of this ever happened.
Alan C. Logan began investigating the true story behind Catch Me If You Can around 2020, though he’d had his doubts about Abagnale’s tales for years. He first saw the movie when it was released in 2002, and as he told WHYY-FM in 2021, “I remember just having this nagging feeling and that something just wasn’t quite right about it.”
When Logan set out to write The Greatest Hoax on Earth, he looked through old newspapers and public records in an attempt to verify Abagnale’s memoir and the events depicted onscreen. What he found was that Abagnale had seemingly exaggerated — or outright lied about — much of his story. There’s not even any proof that he took the Louisiana State Bar exam.
Logan also discovered that Abagnale’s most enthralling con — impersonating a commercial airline pilot — wasn’t nearly the years-long swindle he’d claimed. Instead, Logan told WHYY-FM, “What really happened was that, dressed as a TWA (Trans World Airlines) pilot, which he only did for a few weeks, he befriended a flight attendant called Paula Parks. He followed her all over the Eastern Seaboard, identified her work schedule through deceptive means, and essentially stalked the woman.”
Abagnale purportedly even showed up at her New Orleans apartment one time. She tried to get rid of him by explaining she was going to visit her family in Baton Rouge. Instead, Abagnale invited himself to join her.
“So Frank Abagnale meets her parents in Baton Rouge,” explained Logan. “Frank and Paula… part ways, and a few days later, Frank Abagnale shows back up at the house in Baton Rouge and said, ‘Hey, I’m Paula’s friend. Remember me? I’m on furlough as a pilot.’ And they invited him in out of kindness.”
San Francisco ChronicleNewspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle had previously caught Abagnale in various lies, but the dots weren’t all connected until 2020.
The generous family introduced Abagnale to their high-profile friends. Meanwhile, he stole $1,200 worth of checks from them and various businesses in the area — in stark contradiction to Abagnale’s narrative of only ever defrauding hotels, banks, and airlines.
In addition, much of Catch Me If You Can follows Abagnale as he works undercover for the FBI, particularly Agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks). There is no evidence that Abagnale ever worked for the agency, and Hanratty didn’t really exist. His character is based on several FBI agents, including Joseph Shea, whom Abagnale claimed to have befriended during his parole in the early 1970s. However, even this alleged relationship seems to be exaggerated. Instead, it seems that Abagnale and Shea didn’t even meet again until the late 1980s.
Sometime between his release from prison in 1974 and the publication of his book in 1980, Frank Abagnale Jr. decided that the real story of Catch Me If You Can wasn’t nearly exciting enough — and he started stretching the truth until it became a completely different tale altogether.
The True Legacy Of A Lifelong Conman
In The Greatest Hoax on Earth, Logan argued that Abagnale’s fabricated construct of himself began around 1977, after he was paroled and started nurturing his legacy through speaking engagements and a To Tell the Truth game show appearance — which was recreated for the film.
This led to nationally televised interviews on shows like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which cemented Abagnale’s narrative for good. Various local newspapers did expose some of Abagnale’s fabrications, but a lack of communication between publications before the internet saw these discoveries buried.
Abagnale & Associates/Wikimedia CommonsFrank Abagnale Jr. in 2008.
“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,” said Logan. “Public records obtained by me show that he was confined for the most part in prison during those years.”
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