help to take de Hory to a local hospital, though en route he died in Forgy's arms. Clifford Irving has expressed doubts about de Hory's death, claiming that he may have faked his own suicide in order to escape extradition, but Forgy has dismissed this theory. Legacy While de Hory's self-invention was a purposeful intent to deceive, the absence of historical evidence throughout much of his saga invites suspicion of this enigmatic man. There is no verifiable record of his whereabouts during those years between 1940 and 1945 that confirm or deny his account of prison camp internment by the Nazis or the Russians as he claimed in Clifford Irving's 1969 biography Fake. Stories about the lives and fates of immediate family members have been debunked. What further confuses de Hory's fictional universe is the recent research that has corroborated many of his claims. For example, one eyewitness, Charles Gee, has emerged. He rescued de Hory from his first suicide attempt in Washington, D.C., and confirmed his long-standing friendship with Hungarian actress-celebrity Zsa Zsa Gabor (an association she allegedly denied according to Irving) and de Hory's story about his New York encounter with Salvador Dalí, among others. Despite many newfound facts, the repository of information entwining fiction, fantastic-but-true reality, and the spaciousness of uncertainty continues to aid the legend de Hory constructed around his life. There is no denying his lifetime of friendships with actors, writers, artists, and the rich and famous people who gravitated to him; here is where we find clues and better understanding of who de Hory was. De Hory's friend, secretary, and heir may give the most accurate and up-close perspective of him (see The Forger's Apprentice: Life with the World's Most Notorious Artist by Mark Forgy 2013). It was, by Forgy's account, de Hory's charisma that drew friends and converts to the artist/conman. This trait, alloyed with his artistic talent, secured sales of his pastiches of the modern masters in an era when success was often the product of personal chemistry over a rigorous scientific analysis of his would-be masterpieces. Herein is a difference between de Hory's illicit career and the careers of the forgers and fakers who followed him. The scandal in the wake of de Hory's outing as the 'greatest forger of the twentieth century' yielded some counterintuitive side effects. First, rather than succumbing to the foreseeable consequences of his criminality, de Hory