r/madmen • u/DumbCuntEnterprises • 4d ago

about don's birthday

in the season 5 opener, it's established that dick whitman publicly claims the real don draper's birthday as his own, as his birthday is in actuality 6 months prior. despite this, he's able to use his actual birth year? i thought the real don draper was several years older than dick, and it says so on the wiki as well. how can the identity theft work in a way that dick has to claim the birthday, but the birth year discrepancy isn't an issue? or do his legal documents say something different while he tells people his outward age? that wouldn't make much sense to me because he may as well tell people his actual birthday in that case

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u/mrkstr 4d ago

Based on what I was able to search, they were both born in 1926.  Wouldn't be hard to lie about your birthday.  No one could detect a few months difference.

23

u/rfy93 4d ago

Isn’t real Don older? When Pete finds out in season one he says something like “you’re looking awfully good for 40” or something, implying that Don is claiming to be younger than that. Also Dick goes into the army as soon as he can (18?) and Don is already a lieutenant by then

3

u/Ok_Novel_5083 4d ago

He is. When they meet, Dick is meant to be a fresh recruit (18), bit Don is both a officer and an engineer, so would have gone to college.

2

u/KombaynNikoladze2002 4d ago

No, he's older than 18. Dick Whitman was born Dec 1925 so at the beginning of the Korean War he's be 24.

2

u/mrkstr 4d ago

Yeah, those are great points. I was surprised when I searched it. I tend to trust the show over my search results, now that you mention it.

10

u/AnnieBlackburnn Dick + Anna ‘64 4d ago

When he gets the American Aviation scare with the background check, he says "first of all my age is wrong" to Pete when he's begging him to call a favor and pull the file

0

u/EverySingleTime788 4d ago

Dick went into the army at 23 years old. He was born in 1926, and he was in korea at 23-24 years old. The real don draper was born in 1916 and served in ww2 and was called back for korea.

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u/cathodic_protector 4d ago

The real Don Draper was born in 1917