How to Pose as a Rockefeller
News of a Rockefeller imposter kidnapping his daughter marks the second ?Rockephony? to hit New York in five years.
“Clark Rockefeller,” who used at least four aliases, kidnapped his daughter and is now believed to be on the lam in a 72-foot-yacht off the East coast. This follows the exploits of Christopher Rocancourt, the French faux-ristocrat who plundered wealthy investors on Long Island by saying his name was Christopher Rockefeller. Both used the Rockefeller name to gain access to high society.
Clark wasn’t shy about touting his fake name. He hobnobbed at top social clubs, such as Boston’s Algonquin Club, and New York’s Metropolitan and Knickerbocker clubs, and he was a well-connected art maven.
All of which raises the obvious question: Why didn’t he get caught earlier? Isn’t posing as a Rockefeller in New York a bit like posing as a Carnegie in Pittsburgh or an Agnelli in Turin?
David Rockefeller, after all, is a leading member of the Knickerbocker. And the Rockefellers are well known in art circles. Also, the descendants of John D. Sr., are fiercely protective of the family name. Peter Johnson, the family historian, keeps detailed genealogies on all of them along with a family archive. If anyone had who encountered Clark Rockefeller had bothered to call Rockefeller & Co., they would have quickly found out that he was a fake. (It is 212-649-5600 for all those Rockephony spotters out there).
Yet it turns out that calling yourself a Rockefeller is pretty easy–and common. There are about 10,000 Rockefellers in the U.S., according to Johnson, with maybe half of them (give or take) legally using the name Rockefeller. Only 100 or so are direct descendants of John D. Rockefeller Jr.–John Sr.’s son. There is a big difference, in other words, between being a Rockefeller and being a “Rockefeller.”
What is more, the family of John D.’s descendants keep to themselves, so the chances that a real Rockefeller would run into a fake one are slim. Mr. Johnson told me David Rockefeller eats at the Knickerbocker club only a three or four times a year.
“It’s possible that David was there eating lunch in the same room with Clark but nobody noticed,” he says. “But it’s unlikely.”
Mr. Johnson recalls eating lunch with David Rockefeller in the Rainbow Room when a guest introduced himself as a friend of David’s “cousin” in California. David, it turns out, had no such cousin. “We were very polite and didn’t say anything,” Mr. Johnson says.
So just because someone is a “Rockefeller” doesn?t mean they are a Rockefeller. And just because someone is a Rockefeller, doesn’t mean they’re rich.