MARIETTA - Former FBI agent and current Marietta resident Joseph Shea soon will have the thrill of seeing part of his life portrayed on the big screen, with Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks playing him. <br>
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But that's about all Shea gets out of it. Since Hanks' character in ``Catch Me if You Can'' goes by a different name, Shea won't get any royalties or other payments. <br>
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At 83, he's unsure if he'll even attend the premiere in Los Angeles. <br>
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Steven Spielberg directed ``Catch Me if You Can,'' a movie about the search and capture of con man Frank Abagnale, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. In the late 1960s, Abagnale was tracked down at a motel in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna and arrested by Shea, then the senior resident agent in the Marietta FBI office. <br>
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Abagnale was placed in the Cobb County jail but later escaped during a work detail. He was arrested again and spent five years in a federal prison for his crimes, which included impersonating doctors, lawyers and pilots all over the country. <br>
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Shea told the Marietta Daily Journal, ``He was not a violent type of criminal -- no guns, no knives, never hurt anybody. That wasn't his style. He used his brains and his bravado to pass himself off as what he was impersonating.'' <br>
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Abagnale was pretty good at it, too. <br>
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Shea said, ``I don't know anybody that rates con men, but if there was a rating system, he'd be right up there with the best.'' <br>
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``Catch Me if You Can'' is based on a book by Abagnale, now 54 and married with three sons. He owns Abagnale and Associates, a secure document consulting company, and he's restricted from talking freely about his life after selling the rights to his book.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/11/187923
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