David Serero - The Lady and the Dale car

2023, David Serero, English, Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael, USA,

Full title: "The Lady and the Dale car: The true story of a con-man who desguised as a woman to create a false car in 1970s America" by David Serero.

The book presents Geraldine Elizabeth "Liz" Carmichael, an American automobile executive and convicted fraudster. During the 1970s energy crisis, she promoted a prototype for a low-cost fuel-efficient car via Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, but fled with investor money. She was captured in 1989, and served 18 months on fraud charges. She was born Jerry Dean Michael in Indiana in 1927. She grew up in Jasonville, Indiana, later moving to Detroit, Michigan with her family.

According to Wikipedia, Carmichael married four times while identifying as Jerry Dean Michael. She was charged with desertion for leaving her first wife, Marga, whom she met while stationed in Germany, and their two children.

In 1954, she married a woman named Juanita, with whom she had two children before their relationship ended in 1956. In 1958, she married a woman named Betty Sweets after knowing her for four weeks. They conceived a daughter, but the marriage ended within a year. In 1959, she married Vivian Barrett Michael, her fourth wife, and together they had five children. The media attention turned from interest in the car fraud to prodding and skepticism about Carmichael’s sex when Carmichael and her colleagues went on trial. When a reporter during the trial told Carmichael that people were interested in her personal life, Carmichael answered, ”Whatever claim to fame I have is that of a producer of automobiles, not as a sex change artist.” She spent 18 months in a men’s prison, despite the fact that the courts had recognized her as a woman. She died of cancer in 2004.

Available via Amazon

Photo via Zagria 

and esquire.com