The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of nonfiction! We’re joined by Robert Kerbeck to discuss his insider memoir, RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. Robert is in conversation with Zach Powers, novelist and Director of Communications at The Writer’s Center.
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We encourage you to order a copy of the book from your local, independent bookseller or online through Bookshop.org.
Robert Kerbeck is the founder of the Malibu Writers Circle and his essays and short stories have been featured in numerous magazines and literary journals, including Narratively, Cimarron Review, Los Angeles Magazine, Shondaland, and The Normal School. One of his stories was adapted into the award-winning film, Reconnected, which has appeared at film festivals worldwide. A lifetime member of The Actors Studio, Robert has worked extensively in theater, film, and television, earning several acting awards. His first-person account of the 2018 Woolsey Fire was read by over a million people as an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times. His debut book, Malibu Burning: The Real Story Behind LA’s Most Devastating Wildfire, won the 2020 IPPY Award, the Readers’ Favorite Award, and the Best of LA award. Most recently, he was selected as a finalist for the 2021 Southern California Journalism Awards for his writing on wildfires.
About the Book
B-list actor, A-list corporate spy
In the world of high finance, multibillion-dollar Wall Street banks greedily guard their secrets. Enter Robert Kerbeck, a professional actor who makes his real money lying on the phone, charming people into revealing their employers’ most valuable information. In this exhilarating memoir that will appeal to fans of Catch Me If You Can and The Wolf of Wall Street, unsuspecting receptionists, assistants, and big shot executives all fall victim to “the Ruse.”
After college, Kerbeck rushed to New York to try to make it as an actor. But to support himself, he’d need a survival job, and before he knew it, while his pals were waiting tables, he began his apprenticeship as a corporate spy.
As his acting career started to take off, he found himself hobnobbing with Hollywood luminaries: drinking with Paul Newman, taking J.Lo to a Dodgers game, touring E.R. sets with George Clooney. He even worked with O.J. Simpson the week before he became America’s most notorious double murderer.
Before long, however, his once promising acting career slowed while the corporate espionage business took off. The ruse job was supposed to have been temporary, but Kerbeck became one of the world’s best practitioners of this deceptive—and illegal—trade. His income jumped from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year.
Until the inevitable crash…
Kerbeck shares the lies he told, the celebrities he screwed (and those who screwed him), the cons he ran, and the money he made—and lost—along the way.