The Amazing Mrs Livesey ─ The Remarkable Story of Australia's Greatest Imposter

An attractive young woman from a respectable middle-class family in Manchester, Ethel Livesey had 41 aliases, eight legitimate marriages, four divorces, and at least four children, and her story stretches from industrial England to the French Riviera, from Ireland to New York, Shanghai, New Zealand, the Isle of Man, and across Australia. Ethel claimed she was a wartime nurse, casino hostess, stowaway, artist, opera singer, gambler, spy, actress, movie star, close friend of the King, cotton heiress, wife of cricketer Jack Fingleton, air raid warden, charity queen—all before she was finally arrested in Australia in 1945. But what was fact and what was fiction? When her career imploded (with the abandonment of her glittering marriage to a wealthy Sydney socialite, just two hours before the guests were due to arrive), the story of The Amazing Mrs. Livesey was blazoned across newspapers around the world for nearly a year, enthralling the public with her adventures. But even then the whole truth never emerged—until now. Freda Nicholls' account of Ethel's life is purportedly written by her son Frank, a rough but loveable Aussie sundowner, who spoke extensively with his mother about her past after she evaded a lengthy prison sentence in 1946. It is based on tapes and transcripts Frank recorded two years before his death, as well as numerous court, police, divorce, and immigration records, and contemporary newspaper articles.

Luita Frances Aichinger is Ethel Livesey's granddaughter and has her father's tapes and transcripts recording his mother's life. Freda Marnie Nicholls is a rural journalist.