Mark Hofmann is the greatest forger of the 20th century. In the 1980s he forged historic American and Mormon documents that fooled the world's best experts. As well as making money, many of his forgeries had a darker purpose - to undermine and ridicule the institution that had dominated his life - the Mormon Church.
On 15 October 1985, Hofmann's crimes reached another level when he murdered two innocent people. This film explores the complex motivations behind his forgery and the pressures that drove him to become a killer.
Director Matthew Thompson discusses the Hofmann and his criminal double life.
Interview
BBC Four: What did you find most fascinating about Hofmann as a character?
Matthew Thompson: The complexity of his mind and the complexity of the web that he spun. He was obviously not a nice man - he is hated and wrecked a lot of people's lives, but there were things to admire about him such as his intelligence.
BBC Four: Were there stories surrounding any of the forgeries that you particularly liked?
MT: Probably his first major forgery, which he hid in an old bible. It's not just the forgery but the way he gave it provenance. He bought a very, very old bible and then made something that would appear to be an ancient gum and used that to stick his forgery inside a couple of pages at the back. It was quite believable that it could have sat inside that bible for 150 years unfound. It's another example of his logical ability and intelligence.
BBC Four: It seems incredible that he duped so many people, especially the way he tried to undermine the Mormon Church...
MT: The common reading of the situation is that Hofmann exploited their weakness in that they wanted to cover these [forged] documents up because they weren't very complementary about the Church and the Church's founder. He fooled a lot of people - the CIA, the FBI, leading document experts so in a lot of ways all the Mormon Church did was believe the experts.
BBC Four: But even his friends and family were completely unaware of his criminal activity...
MT: It's often said that Mormons make good intelligence agents. A disproportionate number of US intelligence agents are Mormons. The thought is that it's quite a secretive religion and they are naturally good at keeping secrets so he was that tendency taken to the greatest extreme. He was able to run two completely different lives in parallel and not let anyone know. It's like winning the lottery and not telling anyone.
BBC Four: The title, The Man Who Forged America, gives a clue to how grand his schemes were. What sort of impact do you think he might have had if the murders hadn't happened?
MT: He was getting started on a huge scale when it all fell part. He'd just started on America. The document he forged, The Ode to a Freeman, was a hugely significant piece of American history - it's not only the first document printed in America but it had great political importance in a way of establishing America's spirit about becoming a citizen and having the right to vote. There's a Declaration of Independence that's supposedly out there that he forged at least some of the signatures on. He just got away with it again and again so I think the sky was the limit.
