Diana Nyad likes to be first: the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island, for instance, or the first person to swim unassisted from Cuba to Florida, or even the first entry in a non-existent database of abuse survivors.
But she won’t be the first charlatan who duped Hollywood. She won’t even be the first Nyad.
. . .
The Walt Disney Company optioned a fraudulent memoir, Monique De Wael’s Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, but didn’t go ahead with production. Oprah loved Herman Rosenblat’s Angel at the Fence, which producer Harris Salomon of Atlantic Overseas Pictures intended to spend $25 million adapting—until the book turned out to be a hoax. However, Asa Earl Carter’s The Education of Little Tree, another fraud, became a well-regarded film. That doesn’t bode well for trying to keep an illegitimate Nyad off the screen.
And what is it with people like De Wael and Rosenblat who, according to genealogist and hoax researcher Sharon Sergeant, “exploit human tragedy for personal gain”? Given Diana Nyad’s experience in this area, perhaps she can let us know.
While we wait for Diana’s explanation, let’s look at the first Nyad to con members of the movie industry.
Another Nyad Takes In Hollywood
Aristotle Z. Nyad left Piraeus, Greece, on May 11, 1940, as a crew member of the S.S. Nea Hellas. Seventeen days later, the ship docked in New York. Aris promptly deserted.
In 1941, he entered Canada illegally, got deported to New York, then returned to Canada to join the Royal Canadian Air Force as a pilot. That’s quite a feat considering Aris probably didn’t know how to fly.
In 1942, authorities arrested Aris in New York, this time for entering the U.S. illegally.
We pick up the elder Nyad’s trail again later that year. A January 1943 Los Angeles Times article reports that “Lieutenant Commander” Aristotle Nyad, a self-proclaimed war hero wearing an officer’s uniform, had been in Hollywood for months, “feted at night clubs and by film celebrities.”
When Beverly Hills Police arrest him on immigration and gun possession charges, he explains that “he served seven or eight years in the Greek navy as a flyer, was wounded and came back to this country to spur Greek morale.”
A Federal Judge hands Nyad the maximum sentence, six months in County Jail, for illegally posing as a soldier.
Ten years, two marriages, and at least one child later — and after
- a stint in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer;
- running one of the largest smuggling operations in the history of Greece;
- receiving a three-year sentence, in absentia, from a court in Athens;
- and spending time in a Swiss prison for fraud —
Aris finds his way to Florida. Posing as a wealthy land developer, he meets Lucy Sneed—the former Lucy Winslow Curtis—in the summer of 1953. Sneed is an heiress to the Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup fortune. The penniless Nyad can’t help but find Lucy irresistible.
Aris and the heiress elope to Arizona a few months later, conferring upon three-year-old Diana and her one-year-old brother William a new father and a prescient surname. The rest is marathon swimming history.
. . .
So, CAA and STX, Mr. Lazar and Mr. Schwarzman, Ms. Vasarhelyi and Mr. Chin — allow me to suggest a new film based on the real Diana:
Finding Nyad
How the daughter of a patent medicine heiress and a con artist became one of the most successful frauds in sports history.
I can feel the Oscar buzz already!
My hope for the film is that it will be a classic, that it will touch audiences for generations to come. And my hope for Ms. Bening is that this will be the role that will bring her the coveted Oscar. (Diana Nyad, Facebook, 4 Mar 2021)
For more on Aris and his exploits, please see:
- Aris Nyad Timeline
- And Then We Were Three: Diana Nyad’s Very Bad Year
- Articles in German, French, and Dutch about Aris Nyad’s involvement in a major smuggling ring in the late 1940s
I’ve provided rough English translations for some of these articles and am working on the others. These pieces provide many insights into the nature of the apple tree from which Diana dropped. - Diana Nyad’s Unspeakable Lie, part 2