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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen

This podcast is fairly new, but I can’t believe we aren’t all talking about it. It outlines the scheme of the Hollywood Con Queen, who preyed on film and television aspirants—makeup artists, fitness trainers, photographers—by calling them up and impersonating high-powered executives, such as the real-life producer of Wonder Woman, Deb Snyder. She’d then offer a dream job, a position on a big-budget action movie shooting in Indonesia, telling them the gig was theirs if they could fly out as soon as possible. From Jakarta, things would get truly crazy. Investigative reporters Josh Dean and Vanessa Grigoriadis, the show’s hosts, aren’t the first to cover this story, but they are the first to unmask the Con Queen, a pursuit that is just as interesting as the truly bizarre scheme at the heart of it all. —Clementine Ford

Courtesy of Franckreporter/Getty Images.