The Truth About Diana Nyad
According to Diana Nyad in her 2015 memoir Find A Way, her mother, Lucy, returns from Paris in 1941, then goes to her mother Jeannette’s apartment “on the east side of Manhattan somewhere,” only to have Jeannette turn her away forever. But that never happened. Here’s why.
We need to go back one more generation, to Diana’s great-grandmother, Mrs. Charles Wilder Glass. Born Kate Elizabeth Perkins in 1869, she became a spiritualist minister and a medium. And she wrote three volumes of Mars-based science fiction:
According to Diana Nyad, her grandfather succumbed to the wiles of a show-dancer 50 years his junior. Jeannette Glass danced, but that’s where the truth ends and Nyad’s tall tale begins.
Diana Nyad knows next to nothing about her family, but that doesn’t stop her from inventing stories about them. Until recently, I’d always wondered about this bit from Find A Way:
Lucy Winslow Curtis [Diana’s mom] was born in New York City in 1925, daughter of a wealthy, erudite man of society: businessman, artist, and college professor George Warrington Curtis, age seventy-one. Her mother was a young show dancer and gold digger, Jeanette, age twenty-one. (p. 36)
Fifty years’ difference — ewwwww! Except that it’s not true. The numbers follow traditional Nyadian mathematical principles, figures growing or shrinking depending on how much Diana wants to elevate herself or belittle others. In fact, when Lucy was born, her father was 55, and her mother 30. So 25 years’ difference, not a half-century.
Continue reading “Dance, Jenny, Dance: The Truth About Diana Nyad’s Maternal Grandparents”
Nyad almost made it through an entire article without lying. For Diana, though, truth is never enough.
Last Wednesday, Diana tweeted about the joyous Thanksgiving she spent in Connecticut with her partner Bonnie’s family:
I saw the tweet 40 minutes after Nyad posted it. Too late — she had already deleted the article. (The original tweet remains as of this writing.)
I can think of a few reasons why she might have removed her piece on Wednesday. One possibility: she thought better of posting about Thanksgiving before it happened. Another: she felt her article lacked a certain je ne sais quoi typical of the rest of her handiwork. If so, she added that the next day.
Continue reading “Holiday Special: How Diana Nyad Overcooked Her “Family Thanksgiving””
In addressing the September 11 terrorist attacks, Nyad lies to increase her trauma cred and cover herself with a façade of empathy.
Diana Nyad was born in New York City on August 22, 1949, but her family had moved to Florida by the time she was three. She has begun claiming, however, that she lived in New York until she was seven.
Continue reading “Diana Nyad Tackles 9/11 With Predictable Results”
In May 2013, Diana Nyad spoke with William De La Guerra Poett and predicted the future, feigned indifference, named the Jane Goodall of jellyfish, and more.
Diana Nyad’s recent Facebook post about an upcoming speaking gig sent Bill Poett to the moon:
This makes me super happy, your interview was one of the highlights of my show.
When swimmer Lisa Amorao pointed out that “Diana Nyad is the biggest fraud in marathon swimming,” Poett took offense, equating truth with hate:
not sure why you got to pass on hate, her swim from Cuba to Florida was no fraud so you might want to stand down.
Continue reading “A 2013 Interview Sheds Light On a New Nyad Defender”
Diana Nyad treats us to some surprises as she addresses her movie, her dog, and who should tell her story.
Sarah Davidson, erstwhile corporate lawyer and current “funtrepeneur,” met Diana Nyad, erstwhile marathon swimmer and current contrepeneur, on Necker Island, property of erstwhile budgie breeder and current sine-qua-non-trepreneur Richard Branson.
As a result, Davidson invited Nyad to appear on her podcast, Seize the Yay. In their chat, Diana presented many variations on her standard themes — you can find an annotated list here — but she tossed in a handful of surprises, which you’ll find below. Diana has not lost her touch! Continue reading “Highlights From Diana Nyad’s Appearance on Seize the Yay”
The Diana Nyad biopic may be in trouble. Statements the swimmer made in two recent presentations — and statements she hasn’t made on Facebook — signal cinematic distress.
“I’ve written a screenplay based on my life,” she says. “It’s kind of like Rocky. And the happy ending is the Cuba swim.” (Barry Bearak, “The Selling of Diana Nyad,” Miami Herald, 31 July 1978)
On March 4 of this year, after decades of longing for a biopic about herself, Diana Nyad announced that her fantasy had come true: big producers, big directors, and at least one big star, all lining up to turn her life — the version of it she makes public, anyway — into Nyad, the cinematic extravaganza she knows she deserves.
Continue reading “Nyad Movie Mayday?”
After the announcement of a Diana Nyad biopic, skeptics confronted Nyad fans with facts. The believers responded with nonsense.
On March 4, Diana Nyad announced that Nyad, a biopic about her favorite subject — and mine, for better or worse — would begin filming this summer. While her fans cheered the announcement, a few skeptics tried to inject some reason into the festivities. In particular, they questioned the legitimacy of Diana Nyad’s Cuba-Florida swim. For example:
This did not please Nyad’s devotees. I saved some of their replies and have listed them below.
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.
“I’ve been approached now for the feature film, and there are a number of A-list Hollywood people. I, [I’m] just running in the other direction.” (KQED, 26 Oct 2015, clip here)
I suspect that Diana Nyad was not truthful when she said the “running in the other direction” part five years ago.
Tomorrow, March 10 (Wednesday) at 3 p.m., Nyad will chat live on Facebook about her recently-announced biopic, away from which she does not appear to be running.
Before your watch party begins, here’s your chance to brush up on Nyad’s cinematic history.
Continue reading “Nyad: The Motion Picture (pre-Facebook-Live briefing)”
