Female Fraud

Fairhaven, Mass., Feb. 19 (Special) — An attractive “girl” of 17, who had been a perfect lady’s maid for a New York family and a hootchy-kootchy dancer with a carnival, was unmasked today as a young man who had fooled associates with his female impersonation for more than a year.

The young man, Albert H. Cook, son of a Fairhaven laborer, also was identified as a thief. Exposure of his hoax came with his arrest for the theft of $25,800 worth of jewelry from the home where he worked as a girl domestic.

— Chicago Tribune, February 20, 1947

Albert Cook went to a party dressed as a young lady on Halloween in 1945, and the disguise was so good that no one, not even his closest friends, recognized him. It gave the 15-year-old resident of Fairhaven, Massachusetts an idea — why not dress as a girl and see if he could get a job in a big city? There wasn’t much keeping him in Fairhaven — his mother died when he was small. Life in a small New England town wasn’t exciting and it didn’t hold much interest for young Albert. An only child, Albert and his father lived with his grandparents. His father had been a fisherman, but by 1940 Charles Cook worked in a dull, backbreaking job, on a road construction crew for the W.P.A.

Blessed with a creamy complexion, black hair and dark blue eyes, Albert put on his blonde wig, padded himself with “falsies” and dressed in his Halloween costume in March 1946. He headed to Manhattan, where, using his friend, Ruth Hathaway’s name as an alias, he went to an employment agency and was quickly hired as a servant for a Khedouri Zilkha, a wealthy Iraqi-Jewish banker. Dainty in a lacy French uniform, “Ruth” was acknowledged by the Zilkha family to be the “perfect maid.”

A few complications cropped up. Every so often his voice cracked unexpectedly. He had to shave his beard daily, but he had a private bathroom in the Zilkha home. With the help of his wig and padding, along with an electric razor, powder and rouge, he was able to keep up the ruse for six weeks.

Then in May 1946 Mr. Zilkha accused “Ruth” of stealing two silver platters. Albert claimed he was innocent of the crime, but it got him to thinking. If he was going to be labeled a thief and lose his job, he might as well be one! He absconded with $25,800 worth of the Zilkha’s jewelry, including a $6000 diamond studded platinum clasp, and headed to Boston. There he pawned some of the loot to finance a six-month long tour of the country.

He moved on to Chicago where he donned his female disguise and paid a private detective $30 to guard him and the jewelry for an evening on the town. After pawning more of the jewelry he left for Tennessee. Still in disguise, he joined a carnival as a “hoochie coochie (i.e. belly) dancer” and traveled with the show to Lake City, Florida. Eventually he ran out of money and, putting his “boy’s clothes” back on, he returned home to Fairhaven, where he was arrested for grand larceny and extradited to New York. Albert admitted to the theft and signed a confession. None of the Zilkha’s jewelry was recovered.