My True Crime Case

My True Crime Case

How a Mystery Writer in Connecticut Got Involved
in a True Crime Case in Texas

 

Decades ago, my daughter and I were watching the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and she remarked that the man who played brother Frank was the best dancer of them all.  “Who is that?” she asked, and because I’d been raised in the ’50s and knew all the stars from then, especially those in musicals, I answered immediately, “Tommy Rall.”  So we watched Kiss Me Kate, My Sister Eileen, and every other Tommy Rall film I could name.  When we ran out, I went to IMDb, then in its infancy, to look up his other movies.  There was almost nothing there.  Off I went to the library at the university where I worked to find out more about him; when I’d gathered all the info I could, I posted a mini-biography and updated credits on Tommy Rall’s page on the IMDb. (It’s still there:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0707720/?ref_=fn_all_nme_1 )

Over the years, I got the occasional e-mail from someone who read the mini-biography, asking me about which films were best or how to contact him (which I didn’t know).  But in October 2006, I got an e-mail from a woman living outside of Houston who said her daughter was taking dancing lessons from a man who claimed he had danced in ’50s movies under the name of Tommy Rall; she was growing suspicious of his claims.  Could I tell her if Rall lived in Houston?  I replied I was pretty sure he lived outside of Los Angeles and was no longer dancing, but I wasn’t 100% positive the man in Houston was an imposter.  She wouldn’t give the name he was now using (she didn’t want to get him in trouble, she said) but she did send me his photo and his so-called credits.

https://www.geocities.ws/crazyforcinema/BrameBio.jpg

The credits were wrong: sure, he mentioned Seven Brides and Kiss Me Kate, but also Hello Dolly and West Side Story (nope to both).  I was sure the man was a fraud but I couldn’t prove it – and I was furious that this man was taking credit for Tommy Rall’s work.

Now why, my friends have asked, would anyone try to impersonate Tommy Rall?  Well, he couldn’t very well say he was Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, could he?  But Tommy Rall was the second lead in many movies and has great dancing credits (including American Ballet Theatre) and almost no one knew what he looked like all these years later.  I tried several ways to get in touch with the real Rall, but he obviously didn’t want a lot of attention from fans. After several unsuccessful searches, I found a cousin of his wife who offered to relay my information to him (by this time, it was late December).  In January 2007, I got a letter from the real Tommy Rall (!!!), indeed living outside of LA, who said he would like to get the Screen Actors Guild after this man, if I could find out his name.  (He also sent a glossy 8X10 photo signed “the real Tommy Rall” – it’s on my wall now.)

The original woman in Texas still refused to give me the name.  But coincidentally, a teenager from Texas posted on the IMDb bulletin board (no longer in existence) a message reporting that Tommy Rall had just come to her high school to talk about his life in movies.  I posted that he was an imposter and could she please give me the man’s name?  No answer.  A day or two later, a dance teacher from outside Houston posted the man’s name (Ric Brame) and the name of his dance studio – she had been suspicious of him for years, she said.

I relayed the name and the name of the studio to Tommy Rall.  A week later, I got a phone call from a reporter from the Houston Chronicle wanting to know how a woman in CT got involved in this case.  Evidently Rall had notified not just SAG, but the sheriff’s office and the Chronicle.

Mr. Rall declined to take Brame to court.  But Brame wrote a letter of apology – in which he admitted to posing as Tommy Rall for THIRTY years, both in Florida and Texas – which was sent to Rall and to all the dance studios at which Brame had taught.  The reporter said that Brame’s wife had left him (he had lied about his identity to her too!).  Since there was to be no criminal case, the Chronicle decided not to print the story.

I assumed it was over, and at least I had that nice photo on my wall.  But I kept thinking about the thirty years worth of students who were deceived.  (There are several on the Internet who had mentioned in various places that they studied with “Ric Brame aka Tommy Rall.”)  Didn’t they deserve to know?

And then the case heated up. Ric Brame was not only an imposter, but a sexual abuser. He was jailed for sexual assault in 2007. It was then that the Chronicle decided to print the story about the fraud, including my part in unmasking Brame.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Dance-teacher-Decades-of-lies-weren-t-my-fault-1586328.php

Brame was indicted in July 2007 on seven different counts of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, and indecency with a child. He pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated sexual assault of a child and second-degree sexual assault of a child. Brame was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison for each count, but the sentences were to be served concurrently.

https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Dance-teacher-pleads-guilty-to-sex-assault-9251803.php

If Brame is still alive, he should have been released by 2018. I can find no record of his release, nor his obituary, so I assume he’s out there somewhere and about 90 years old.

Tommy Rall himself died in 2020 at the age of 90. On his Wikipedia page, I’m not mentioned by name, but appear as “a friend of the family.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Rall

But his signed photo looks down on me as I write this.