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$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. I haven't told you before. What? What? What? Camellia. Season 5. Dr. Dante. A production of Campside Media. Oh. Dr. Dante. 3, 2, 1. Happy 2000...
When the clock struck midnight on Y2K, Ronald Dante was in a prison cell. After decades of hopscotching from scam to scam and reinventing himself a truly exhausting amount of times, here he was, a bonafide old man, or old dude as he preferred to be called, stuck on the inside with nothing to keep him warm but memories of the neon glow of his show business heyday.
This prison term had all the makings of an ending for our anti-hero. And it's quite possible that prison would have been Dante's final act, had he languished in his cell or disappeared into obscurity upon release, his bizarrely complex legacy left behind in the 20th century. It probably would have been the end if it wasn't for a documentary filmmaker in Texas named Bradley Beasley.
So I was living in Austin. I just finished a series called Roller Girls and was about to start a documentary for HBO about a prison rodeo in Oklahoma. Roller derbies, prison rodeos, guys who catch giant catfish with their bare hands. These are the scenes that Bradley gravitates toward. I was constantly on the search for
for stories about misfits and outcasts. In short, I was looking for a character, and not just any character, but one with complexity and layers. So one day, Bradley had just wrapped an out-of-town project and was driving home on the highway, heading back to Austin. Listening to NPR as you do in 2006. Our contributor Jennifer Sharp brings us this story about the charming charlatan who calls himself Dr. Dante. ♪
Dr. Ronald Dante. You look great, hey. In a purple silk scarf, gold whistle medallion, and rubber blue... And yeah, I heard Jennifer's voice, which I'd never heard before, introducing me to Dante's world. Just...
taking notes as I'm driving like a crazy person. And you know how this goes by now. When you first hear about Dante, you're very quickly tumbling down a rabbit hole. The husband of actress Lana Turner opened a cosmetic school from his 80-foot yacht to eight months in prison. He fled to Mexico. And I was like, who in the fuck is this guy? And when do we start filming? I just knew within minutes of hearing Jennifer's story about Dante that
that we would be making a film about him. Like, I knew it was gold. I just had to tell this story. So as soon as Bradley gets home, he goes on the internet to find the NPR reporter Jennifer Sharp and writes her an email saying, "I'm a documentarian. Let's make a film about this guy." Some filmmakers spend a lifetime looking for a character like Dr. Dante.
So I was just beyond thrilled when Jennifer Sharp wanted to collaborate on this documentary. And within two weeks of me hearing this story, Jennifer and I were knocking on Dante's door and being welcomed in by him for days. And when the Bradley of 2006 entered Dante's orbit, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. He turned on the charm of
Immediately. Like Lana in the disco, or Bobby Gold joining the Dante entourage, or a Columbia State student writing a check, Bradley was unwittingly stepping on the ride. You could see how he persuaded so many people into getting these fake degrees or going to one of his seminars. You know, he just had charisma about him. And I fell for that myself.
Bradley does not know that he's about to help Dante write his final chapter. And in a life where so many chapters ended the same, this time, a new kind of ending. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Dr. Dante. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.
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You're listening to Camellia from Campside Media. When Bradley first called Jennifer Sharp after hearing her story on NPR, he was like, how did you find this guy? So my father had this old photo collection that was vast. It is vast. I don't know what to do with it now that I've inherited it all. Jennifer's dad was a performance artist and a pioneer in the world of recorded pranks.
He was sort of the ancestor to shows like Punk'd or Nathan Fielder's shows. And in his domestic life, he was also known as a compulsive collector or hoarder of all things strange.
He couldn't drive past a junk store or a garage sale without pulling over and just digging through bins of photos. He was like an addict. And one day at a junk sale, he hit the, well, at least for him, the jackpot. A box of files from a defunct talent agency filled with headshots and brochures, stuff like that, from Novelty Act. A lot of ventriloquists and magicians, and
or diving off of a diving board into a tub with no water, like just really ridiculous acts. And, you know, among all these like headshots of people, this one press kit sort of stood out to both me and my father. And that was Dr. Ronald Dante's press kit.
Jennifer and her dad became enamored with this press kit together. They'd flip through it all the time at home, taking turns reading it aloud to each other. First it was at the Berkeley house. We might have even brought it with us on a vacation. I remember it was like the centerpiece of a dinner party in Cape Cod.
The press kit is full of letters endorsing Dante's act. The most entertaining show to come into Saigon for a long time. Climaxing with a foot stomping, cheering, calling for encores. We should say...
clearly fake endorsements. - The typewriter, like the C is skipping, it's like up higher. And I noticed that the D does the same thing on a different letter. So it's the same typewriter, but he's using it to write a different letter from a different person. - But the real strength of the kit, the thing designed to grab your attention, is its photos. There's pages and pages of Dante hanging out with huge celebrities.
Like Louis Armstrong or Bob Hope, Eric Clapton, George Hamilton, Sammy Davis Jr. You know, and it was just one after the other. And it wasn't the celebrities that stood out to Jennifer. It was Dante. Dante always looks more relaxed and in control than whoever else he's standing with. There's like this power that he's conveying.
In many of the photos, the celebrities are looking at Dante as Dante looks coolly down the barrel of the camera lens.
I was like, I have to have contact with this person. And it was just a pure compulsion. It took a few years, but Jennifer tracked Dante down and did the interview with him that turned into the radio story that had Bradley scribbling notes on the side of the highway outside Austin and calling Jennifer. And then the two of them hopped in a car to go find Dante in the flesh.
And where was the great Dr. Ronald Dante? The man who exuded class and style, who'd made millions many times over in his life. So this isn't what you'd expect a trailer park to look like, is it?
Dante was living in a trailer park. In some ways it was nicer than your average trailer park, but it was also a mixed bag. Some of the lots had simple prefab homes, some had trailers, and some had folks just living in tents. So here's his place here at the end. His trailer was like some cookie cutter manufactured home for people that don't want to bother decorating.
Like Dante just showed up one afternoon with a suitcase and moved in within a few hours, which was kind of strange to me because he kind of had cool taste. Hey, how you doing, guys? My God, we got a crew here. Hey, Ron, I'm Bradley. Hi, Bradley. Thank you so much for having us. Oh, that's all right. He had this crazy, wacky perm from the 80s. And the crazy, like, windshield of bling.
rhinestone glasses on. Yeah, I loved your... Ruby and crusted whistle and the alpaca cardigan and the blue Crocs. He looked like some bad 90s rapper. Like he'd go viral today. Probably would have done a great rap too, by the way. He wouldn't even have to come up with a rap name. He also had a commanding elegance. There was something very respectable seeming about him as well. Like deposed royalty.
And very quickly, it became clear that in this place... Dr. Dante was the king of the trailer park. Okay, I want to introduce these people. This is Warren. Dante brought Bradley and his crew for a tour around the park to meet some of the locals. Warren is a geologist. And this is Sir Charles. I call him Sir Charles...
Ellen, she'll be out soon. And this is our writer. And this is our civil engineer. And he's the most brilliant man around. Adoring subjects all around. Everything you do is kind of astonishing to me. Thank you, David. You're such an extraordinary fellow, Dante. He's so cool. He's so cool. He's always going places. He's always doing something. He just doesn't sit around. He invents things.
She has no idea. He said he was Leonard Turner's last husband. I take that back. Maybe she does have an idea. Get his book of records, the biggest grossing seminar, his parents being killed in Malaya, wherever it was, and growing up on the streets of Chicago. He was still playing all his greatest hits, and the people loved him for it. He was like a prophet. And these folks were guzzling the Dante Kool-Aid.
Everywhere Dante went with Bradley and Jennifer, to everyone they met, and I do mean everyone,
he would make clear that once, and I don't know if we've mentioned this on the podcast yet, but once he was married. I was married to a very famous lady, Lana Turner, a very famous movie star. And one of my wives was Lana Turner, the movie star. I was married to a woman by the name of Lana Turner, a movie star. I was married to Lana Turner. You ever hear of a woman by the name of Lana Turner, movie star? Yes.
I was married to her. Lucky man. She never got married after that. After hearing the lore about the invincible Dr. Dante, and then spending a few days in his world, Bradley couldn't quite match the man before him to the legend. To me, he was just like a nice, funny grandpa.
Life had humbled him. He'd lost his fortune, his marriage, his notoriety, and now he was living off $600 a month in a trailer he could only afford because his big brother Marshall bought it for him. Even Dante's health wasn't on solid ground anymore. The fact is that I have prostate cancer. They give me these shots that stop you from making testosterone. So nothing appeals to me. Pretty girls don't appeal to me.
Pretty boys don't appeal to me. Nothing. But there is one thing that Dante would never lose: his optimism, his ability to transcend his surroundings. Look at the mountain. Look at over there. Look how beautiful this is. Look how pretty it is. Dante has a way about him in which he's able to make situations
work for him. Whether it was his time in prison, I didn't really mind it. They respected me. or the prostate cancer shots that had cruelly stolen his libido from him. It's not bad because you have more time to do other things. And to show Bradley and Jen what he meant by other things, he invited them inside.
It was cramped with old junk and memorabilia and sparsely decorated. It was kind of this real mishmash of like stuffed animals from the 80s and poorly taped up press photos on the wood paneling walls with some like thrift store lazy boys and a TV. And that was about it. As she looked around, taking the place in,
Jennifer's eyes paused on a bouquet of flowers on the table. Oh, you see these flowers I make? Wait, those aren't real flowers? These are paper flowers. I learned how to make these in prison.
These are made out of toilet paper. Huh. They really do look real. And they were a nice touch in an otherwise lonesome-seeming place. Dante didn't have a wife anymore, and he told Bradley that his grown children didn't call him for Father's Day. But he was not entirely by himself in this place. I always have company. Always. Because I never like being alone. Hey, Furby! Hey!
For those who missed Christmas at my house in 1998, Furbies were a half-owl, half-mug-why robotic toy that you could talk to. Hey, Furby, tell me a joke. Who's there? Why who? A nanny?
If he can't have a wife, he'll play with a Furby. If he can't play on a yacht, he'll play with a kite. Just like he did on his early first dates with Lana. Wait, Dante, what kind of a kite is that? That's just made out of a piece of paper and dental floss. That's all it is. Where'd you learn this craft? In prison. It costs a penny and you can have as much fun as you want. We'd sell them for like a couple of bags of tuna.
The economy inside prison fascinates me. As Dante walked them proudly around the trailer park, pointing at RVs and tents, you get the sense that he's painting a new reality for you. Like you're one of his hypnosis subjects. You think this is a trailer park filled with methadone addicts? With people down on their luck? Look again. These are mountain people.
They love living outside. They love doing this. They're nomadic. They can move whenever they want to. They live the life that people dream about. Dante's spin on the place was infectious. I loved that trailer park. I loved going there. It's a place where people go where they don't want to be found. Exactly. It was like a place of freedom in a way. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.
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It would be easy to imagine Dante living out the rest of his life in that trailer park, regaling his neighbors with his old Hollywood stories around the campfire, telling dirty jokes with friends at the local sushi place, doing magic tricks for the neighborhood kids. It looked like, against all odds, he'd found happiness and had finally embraced the simple life. His days of scamming finally over. Except...
The blinking light on his answering machine suggested otherwise. You have two new messages and ten old messages. This is ****** right about here.
Less than a year out of prison, Dante had already started doing the thing that he'd always done best, the thing he compulsively did his entire adult life. He placed an ad in the paper. After two stints in prison, Dante was ready to shake the rust off an old hustle of his, hypnotherapy seminars. Anyway,
So anyway, give me a jingle when you get a chance. Dante wrote the man's number down with a smirk. And then, for Bradley and Jennifer's benefit, well, I suppose mostly for his own benefit, Dante picked up the phone and started dialing. Yeah, hi, this is Dr. Dante calling. How are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you, Dr. Dante? How long have you been in sales? Oh, 20 years. Oh, you just started. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Every single time. You don't even sound anywhere close to age.
Which might be because he wasn't anywhere close to 87. He was, in fact, 77. Thank you, thank you. So Dante eventually gives him the spiel on how much the seminar will cost. How to make $10,000 in a weekend. And this was some sort of bait-and-switch tactic where he would invite people to
for $600 to attend this weekend seminar where they're actually going to learn how to make $10,000 in a weekend. You learn the secrets of 60 years in one day. Seems to like what he's hearing. And then Dante pulls out his signature move. Good news and bad news. And the bad news is that the classes are all filled up for the next five and a half, six months. Aw, shoot. Sold out? Poor... The only thing I can do is put you on a waiting list.
Yeah, on occasions I do have people who drop out. Very rarely, though. But on occasions, maybe in the next couple of weeks or so, I might have somebody drop out. And if I do, I can put you on a waiting if you're interested. The truest statement ever uttered. It doesn't hurt to be put on a waiting list. And if I have something, if I have something, I'll let you know sooner.
It was a pleasure to speak with you. Okay, take care. Bye-bye now. The man, even at the fake age of 87, still had it. That's how easy it is. I mean, you know, I mean... And the calls kept coming. I'd love to speak with you regarding the availability and the position. I saw your extraordinarily intriguing ad in the Uniframe. And I would like very much to...
At one point, Dante turns to Jennifer and Bradley and gestures to the camera. This thing is not going to be shown before November. Okay. Because my parole officer, my supervised release of it was very sweet. Dante had a very sweet parole officer, but they would very much have things to say if they found out Dante was running a new scheme.
Bradley couldn't believe what he was watching. It just seemed so ballsy. He was going to keep running his small-time cons no matter what. As Marty and J.W., the journalists who tracked him down, said, once a con man, always a con man. Prison, poverty, and cancer be damned. The man would never stop. As his godson Bobby Gold put it, It's the same thing that a
A gambler still likes to go roll the dice. He knows it's out there. He knows it's out there, and Dante wanted it. Without sounding too dramatic about it, do you feel like this is sort of a way to once again reinvent yourself after prison like you've done many times before? Do you think that's possible? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, of course. I can make millions.
I like to do it. I would like to make it, to show it, to take care of my brother. He's dying and he's in a home in San Diego. And then my children, I want to get them situated and to take care of my wife, my ex-wife. His ex-wife, Elizabeth. There was one more person who came to visit Dante while Bradley and Jennifer were there, besides Furby. Hey, Furby. Hey.
They'd been divorced for several years by then, but you wouldn't be able to tell that by watching them interact. Those are tuberose for you. Thank you, sweetie. You're welcome, baby. Jesus. You're a beautiful girl. How about that?
Their chemistry was palpable, almost uncomfortably so. Bradley and Jennifer went out to eat with Dante and Elizabeth. And when the waitress comes up to take their order, Dante turns to the table, unprompted. Last night was one of the greatest nights we've ever had.
It was? Yes. Well, we had the, what's that stuff called again? Whatever it was, it was seven hours that it lasted. Anyway, all of this is to say that on the phone lines and in his personal life, Dante was starting a comeback of sorts. And with the friendship he developed with Bradley on the film, Dante saw the potential to take this comeback to another level.
Hey, Dr. Dante, it's Bradley Beasley. - Bradley? - Hey. - Hey, how you doing, buddy? - I'm good. I'm gonna be coming out there to Oceanside over Christmas to see my-- - I'd invested three years into telling Dante's story, and it was time to wrap things up and try to finish the documentary, and I wanted to share Dante's story with the world.
But before Bradley could, he and Dante were in need of a final act. Bradley for his film and Dante for his legacy. So one day Dante came to Bradley with an idea. Dante wanted to do a comeback show. You're listening to Camellia from Campside Media. You're listening to Camellia from Campside Media. Dante's comeback show. Dante's comeback show was his idea.
But I personally loved it. Sit back at your seats, deep breath, and sleep way down, way down. Because of all the things that Dante had claimed to be in his life but wasn't, this was the one thing he definitely was, a master stage hypnotist. And all Bradley had was the archival tape. I love you all. Did you love these volunteers? Were they not gorgeous? Thank you so much, lovely people. Boo! Boo!
Bradley wanted to help bring Dante back to the place all of this madness began, where his God-given charisma and voice shone the brightest: on the stage. Bradley had already invested thousands into filming Dante by then, and putting on a show like this wasn't going to be something that Dante could fund.
So, if this show was going to happen, it would be Bradley ponying up to pay for the travel, accommodations, venue, car rentals, and a crew, putting himself in a very precarious financial position. I needed the comeback show more than Dante. And on top of the havoc that Bradley was wreaking on his credit card,
He wasn't even sure that Dante in his late 70s would be able to get all the way through a show by himself. So just in case, being very careful not to upset the ego of the man,
Bradley asked Dante if perhaps he would like to have a wingman on stage. You know, just in case his body or mind might falter in the big moment. And to Bradley's relief, Dante agreed. And I asked Dante, I said, who do you want your right-hand man to be? And he said, yeah, Bobby Gold. Bobby Gold.
As you'll remember, Bobby left Dante when the heat was getting too hot from the feds during the Permiderm years. For a time afterward, Bobby went on to do his own version of Permiderm, a slightly more above-board version, it seems. But he eventually moved on and followed in yet more of Dante's footsteps.
Bobby became a stage hypnotist. He was a professional, so he'd be the perfect sidekick for a now frail Dante. He knew Dante's act better than anyone.
Because he played second fiddle to Dante for most of his adult life. If there's any human who knew how to help Dante, it was Bobby. So it was a no-brainer. So Bradley booked a theater, made arrangements to get Dante a tuxedo, and hired a makeup artist.
Bradley was calling in considerable favors too. He spammed his filmmaking community, asking everyone to show up for him, to help fill the seats and to make this comeback show feel like a real show and a real opportunity for both him and Dante.
The night before the show, Dante arrived in LA and they all went out for a nice dinner together. And Bradley observed him come alive in a way that he hadn't seen yet. This was, after all, where he had, you know...
had his glory days as the self-proclaimed hypnotist to the stars. I just thought, okay, he's here, he's in his element. After dinner, they checked Dante into his hotel room and Bradley headed back to his, where he went over the itinerary for the big day, for which everything was meticulously planned out.
Beginning with a morning drive with Dante. We get him a convertible and we're going to go visit some of his old haunts on the Sunset Strip in LA where Dante used to perform, where he lived with Lana Turner. Everything was ready. So we show up in the morning, the day of the performance.
to get Dante from his hotel. Bradley heads up to Dante's hotel room, and he knocks on the door, but there's no answer. And when he listens closely, it doesn't sound like there's any movement inside the room. Dante wasn't in his room. Bradley's like, what the hell? And heads down to the front desk to ask the clerk if they've seen anyone who looks like Dante. And the clerk said he left a note, and it just said...
Bradley, I'm out. I'm not going to compete with Bobby Gold. I'm not going to compete with Bobby Gold? Bradley stood, looking at the words, stunned. I mean, how did I think this story was going to end? My thought was...
That motherfucker just conned me. Dante was indeed in true form, making big promises and breaking them. Bradley, it seemed, had completed the Dante loop that starts with high hopes and investment only to be left with nothing.
He was Lana Turner left in San Francisco. He was the feds waiting at the courthouse for a Dante who'd already fled to Mexico. He was a Columbia State student with a worthless degree. Welcome to the club, Bradley. No matter how the story starts, this is always how it ends. Except this time. Because while Dante was done with Bradley, Bradley was not done with him. ♪
Next time on Dr. Dante. Let's chase him down and bring his ass back to LA. I've got too much writing on this.
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Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. Dr. Dante was written and hosted by me, Sam Mullins. It's produced by Aboukar Adan and edited by Karen Duffin. Our associate producer is Tanita Rahmani. Original music, sound design, and mixing by Garrett Tiedemann.
Additional music by APM and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Lauren Vespoli. Our consulting producer is Bradley Beasley. Special thanks to Johnny Kaufman and to our operations team, Doug Slaywin, Aaliyah Papes, and Destiny Dingle. The executive producers at Campside Media are Josh Dean, Matt Scher, Vanessa Grigoriadis, and Adam Hoff.
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