Word: conning
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...beads and trinkets, real estate has been one of the happiest hunting grounds of all for the Great American Confidence Man. Last week in Washington members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations sat spellbound as witnesses unfolded a vivid account of the latest and biggest real-estate con game: the "advance fee" racket. From its birthplace in Chicago more than five years ago, the racket has expanded to all 48 states until some 70 firms now bilk unwary U.S. property owners of an estimated $25 million-$50 million a year...
...Preston in a few summer stock shows; Bloomgarden, too, knew Preston's work. Says Da Costa: "Preston has energy and he has reality. He's an actor who can project himself larger than life. And he has enough sureness of technique and enough urbanity to portray the con man and the opportunist without resorting to a wax mustache. The part calls for a guy with an open face and a great big frustration which he can satisfy only by taking the easy way out -conning people...
...campaign to convince the world that Russia is out to ease international tensions, Nikita Khrushchev has displayed the sure timing of an expert con man and the insinuating patter of a carnival barker. Last week, in a single act of savagery, Khrushchev threw away the diplomatic fruits of all this patience and skill...
Britain's Champion Stirling Moss whirled out of the pits and whirled into the lead with his dark green Aston Martin, hoping to con the whole team of Ferraris into giving chase. Last year this stunt made wrecks of the bright red Italian cars; they burned out before they really got into the race. This year California's Phil Hill and his co-driver, Belgium's Olivier Gendebein, played it smart: they kept their 3-liter Ferrari well back in the pack. And they saw the field thin rapidly as they nursed their car along. Last year...
...seven visiting Soviet strongmen began to wonder whether weight lifting in the U.S. is a sport or a sideshow. Dutifully they drank Cokes and made muscles for Manhattan photographers: dutifully they helped hoist "Miss Body Beautiful" aloft for enterprising Chicago newsmen. Light-Heavyweight Trofim Lomakin let one publicity man con him into posing on horseback until a comrade muttered: "Cossack!" Bantamweight Vladimir Stogov, an army chauffeur, took a turn behind the wheel of a new Ford, fled in terror when he pushed a button and the retractable hardtop began to fold. By the time the Russians got to their first...