This article is based on information from the book "The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth, While We Can" by Alan C. Logan, which provides a comprehensive look at Frank W. Abagnale's claims throughout his career. The book is very well researched and provides extensive citations to demonstrate that Abagnale's claims are mostly false or in a few cases, greatly embellished.
Frank Abagnale had moderate success speaking at colleges and trade groups, his success grew substantially after publishing his "autobiography" titled "Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake Paperback". The title of the book is more accurate than he realized. The book's authors are listed as Frank W. Abagnale and Stan Redding. Many autobiographies are not solely written by the featured person; they may employ ghost writers that are credited or uncredited to write the story in a more compelling way.
Toward the end of Logan's book, he goes into detail about the relationship between Redding and Abagnale. The section also looks at who Redding is, citing his own newspaper and colleagues calling him a liar in no uncertain terms. The following excerpts from Logan's book will show how Abagnale's "autobiography" wasn't one. Instead, it was largely a work of fiction based on the narrative that Abagnale had created, but beefed up considerably. So a few very minor exploits got spun into this large tale which Abagnale then used to further justify his claims. Despite that, all of the press and even the book were ultimately sourced from his claims and not verified by fact-checking at any point in his career.
Ultimately, Logan does a great job explaining the relationship between Redding and Abagnale and how the book came to be. He follows up pointing out how Abagnale started by citing the book as "proof" of his claims but later used the book to explain away any criticism or challenges of his claims.
Page 362 - "You get to a point in your life," Abagnale told him, "where you go, 'I don't remember what I did.'" Maybe Frank Abagnale, now in his early fifties, who long boasted he had an IQ of 140 and a photographic memory, could not tell anymore.
Page 362 - Certainly, Abagnale was starting to distance himself from his own autobiography. [..] The reason? Because he didn't write it!
Page 364 - Following the premiere of Catch me If You Can in December 2002, Abagnale developed a convenient solution for the problematic aspects of his autobiography. He deflected the blame for any misinformation, or outright disinformation, onto his book's co-author, Stan Redding, who had died fifteen years earlier. For the benefit of the skeptical minority, he distanced himself by saying that the 1980 autobiography had been largely engineered by his long-deceased co-author Redding.
Pages 364-365 - "That was his style and what the editor wanted. [Redding] always reminded me that he was just writing a story and not my biography," said Abagnale. "This is one of the reasons that from the very beginning, I insisted that the publisher put a disclaimer in the book." [262 citation] The disclaimer warned the reader that all the names, dates and places had been changed and that all of the characters and some of the events had been altered. Together with the admitted exaggerations and embellishments, how can the statement on the front cover of the book - This is the true story of Frank Abagnale - still be true?
Page 365 - Even the Houston Chronicle, the very newspaper Redding worked for, described him as "a rough-hewn raconteur, an indefatigable tellers of tall tales," in his 1987 obituary. Fellow Texas journalist, firecracker Molly Ivins, was more candid when she described Stan Redding as one of the "biggest liars" the state had ever produced.
Pages 366-367 - Redding did write an in-depth interview with Abagnale for the Houston Chronicle in June 1977. [29 citation] It wsa a lengthy article, complete with a full set of sleek, professionally produced photographs of Abagnale in "action" - performing medical exams, examning x-ray films, and exuberantly jumping with fistfuls of cash. While the latter was acknowledged as a promo shot, Chronicle readers were informed that the medical photographs were all taken while he was masquerading "as a consulting pediatrician at a Georgia hospital" in the 1960s. Yet he looked strangely more like Elvis in 1976 as he played his last show in Houston - bloated, thick-necked with heavy sideburns. In fact, the supposed "1960s teen" Abagnale looked virtually identical to his 1977 Chronicle photograph with wife, Kelly - and even looks to be wearing the same wedding ring.