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April 17, 2012 12:15 PM
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The 9/11 Pretender at the Center of 'The Woman Who Wasn't There'
Linda Gormley (L) and Tania Head (R) at the Steel Beam Ceremony at Tribute Center WTC, August 17, 2006
Investigation Discovery
But it was all made up. Head didn't even move to New York from her hometown of Barcelona until 2003. She invented the job at Merrill Lynch she claimed she was working at on September 11th, she had no apparent relationship with the man she said she was on the verge of marrying when he died in the North Tower. She became the president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, having possibly never even set foot in the buildings.
Illustration from film by Chase Stone
Meredith Vieira Prod.
"The Woman Who Wasn't There" has the rote look and feel of an investigative TV program, complete with courtroom-style illustrations of some of Head's claims, including the details of her invented relationship. But despite this, watching it feels like observing a massive trainwreck, particularly when the other survivors talk about their relationships with Head, how they admirered or depended on her and what that cost them. One survivor uncovered evidence that suggested she'd been lying, but couldn't bring himself to expose her because he was afraid of what it would do to the group that had become so important to him. Linda Gormley, another survivor who became one of Head's closest friends, tells in one notably heartwrenching moment of being scolded by the woman for not being supportive enough, because "the trauma she had sustained was so much worse" than what Linda had experienced.
Reporters in Spain appear as talking heads to delve into Head's background as the daughter of a disgraced factory owner, her youth spent as an unhappily overweight teenager obsessed with America, the auto accident that left her with scars. But it's a journalist from Time who offers the most potential insight when noting that we all wanted to have a piece of 9/11. It meant instant community, instant attention and caring -- a story to tell that made you important for just having been there, for having made it through. That someone actually acted on that, so boldly and shamelessly, is still a little hard to understand. The film ends abruptly with footage from when Guglielmo spotted Head on the street in 2011. In it, she doesn't speak, though that's all you want -- for her to explain why, to explain how.
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4 Comments
Frannie | September 11, 2012 5:47 PM
What a horrible thing to do to REAL survivors: to tell them they didn't suffer as badly as she did. Monstrous and incredibly selfish. My heart goes out to all the people she deceived, especially survivors and family members of victims.
Stehanie | April 18, 2012 4:14 PM
How did she afford to live in NYC? That was one thing that puzzled me.
Linda | April 18, 2012 6:43 AM
The show ended too abruptly. No one got any more information out of her when they found her on the street just recently?
tootsie | April 17, 2012 9:36 PM
What a sad monster this "lady" is