No mistaking this case of mistaken identity

A few years ago, I almost gave a guy who worked at the Department of Homeland Security a heart attack. It wasn’t because I saw something and didn’t say something, but because I called his office and gave my name to the person who answered the phone.

This was when John Kelly was the head of DHS. I am a John Kelly, but I’m not that John Kelly. Though I identified myself as a Washington Post columnist, that part of the message didn’t get passed to the guy I had called. All he got was, John Kelly called. He wants you to call him back.

Uh-oh, the guy thought. Why does the big boss want to talk to me?

It was a case of mistaken identity. I’m fascinated by such episodes. Because I have a fairly common name, I’m not infrequently confused with others who share it, from the DHS/Trump White House John Kelly, to the “father” of the Watson computer John Kelly, to — for some reason — Baltimore Sun writer Jacques Kelly.

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That kind of confusion comes from having a similar name. But what about having a similar face? In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sherm Eagan traveled regularly from Chicago to Montreal.

He was an ad man and handled the Quaker Oats advertising account. Every couple of weeks Sherm would head to Canada to oversee the dubbing of Cap’n Crunch, Quisp and Quake cereal commercials into French. His Quebec French got good enough that he was once able to fill in for a voice actor who couldn’t make the session.

Sherm used to stay in the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal. There was a shopping mall in the hotel basement.

This mall had a bookstore, and one day while Sherm was standing in the checkout line, the women behind him noticed they were buying the same book: “A Terrorist Looks Back: A Novel of Revolutionary Quebec.” The book was credited to Claude X. LaBrecque. It told the story of the Quebec Liberation Front, a separatist group responsible for bombings, kidnappings, bank robberies and murders. It was in the news a lot in Canada then.

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Suddenly the woman behind Sherm screamed out, “Claude LaBrecque! You’re the author! Will you autograph my book?”

Sherm was not the author — he was an advertising exec trying to sell Cap’n Crunch to French Canadians — but when he looked at the back cover of the book, he could see why the woman thought he was LaBrecque. The book did not have an author photo, but there was a pen-and-ink drawing of a bearded, round-faced man who looked exactly like Sherm.

Said Sherm: “The checkout clerk picked up the microphone and announced to the store that I was there to autograph books and he held up my copy.”

Soon Sherm was besieged by nearly a dozen shoppers clutching copies of “A Terrorist Looks Back,” eager to get them signed. He could say he wasn’t LaBrecque, but isn’t that exactly what the author of book called “A Terrorist Looks Back” would say?

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“I did not protest very vigorously,” Sherm said. “By this point, there was no way to escape without huge embarrassment, so I signed my new checkout friend’s book and about nine others. I hope Claude forgives my identity theft. I meant no harm and I did sell a few books.”

Sherm stopped staying at the Queen Elizabeth hotel on future trips, afraid he might be recognized by someone who had seen him in the bookstore. He switched his business to the Bonaventure, a hotel a few blocks away.

Sherm is retired now and lives in McLean, Va. He has never again been mistaken for the author of a terrorist book.

But what about you? Have you ever been mistaken for someone else, either because you shared a name or an appearance? Email the details — with “Mistaken Identity” in the subject line — to me at john.kelly@washpost.com.

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