The ‘Counterfeit Rockefeller’ Revisited
In the November issue of Vanity Fair, an update on a fascinating story of a French con artist entitled, “The Counterfeit Rockefeller,”aka Christopher Rocancourt, who, following his release from prison last year, is today living in Paris with a former Miss France and their baby daughter. Rocancourt’s celebrity has proved surprisingly enduring following the publication of his second memoir My Lives that topped the French best seller list last year. The French, as more than one commentator noted, never tire of hearing a countryman’s stories of outwitting rich Americans.
In January 2001, special correspondent Bryan Burrough unearthed the extraordinary life story of a dashing young French con man named Christopher Rocancourt, who, masquerading as millionaire playboy “Christopher Rockefeller,” fleeced dozens of gullible Americans from the Hamptons to Beverly Hills (“The Counterfeit Rockefeller”). The son of a prostitute and an alcoholic father who froze to death after a wintry drinking bout, Rocancourt had risen from a Normandy orphanage to the streets of Paris, to Rodeo Drive, where he rubbed elbows with the likes of Mickey Rourke and Jean Claude Van Damme. In a memorable side trip to the mansions of eastern Long Island, he succeeded in enticing any number of people to “invest” with him. Needless to say, no one ever saw their money again.
Facing criminal charges in New York, Rocancourt fled to British Columbia, where he was arrested in April 2001. From jail he gave interviews to outlets as varied as 60 Minutes and The New Yorker and became a celebrity in his native France. Before his extradition to the U.S., in 2003, he wrote a book, I, Christopher Rocancourt: Orphan, Playboy, Prisoner, that became a French best-seller. Rocancourt pleaded guilty to fraud charges and served part of a four-year sentence in the federal prison at Allenwood, Pennsylvania, before being placed on a plane back to France in early 2006.
In Paris, Rocancourt received the full star treatment, waving to paparazzi at the airport, selling interviews to the French media, even striking a deal to place his name on a clothing line. His celebrity has proved surprisingly enduring; the French, more than one commentator notes, never tire of hearing a countryman’s stories of outwitting rich Americans. Rocancourt’s second memoir, My Lives, topped the French best-seller list last year; a third book followed. Today he lives in Paris with a former Miss France and their infant daughter. He has a Web site, christopherocancourt.net, and a press agent. A movie of his life is now in the works, with Edward Norton and Heath Ledger rumored to be in the running to play Rocancourt.
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