Still No Positive Identification for 'Piano Man'

LONDON – Many callers have offered information about the mysterious "Piano Man," (search) including a mime who said he was a fellow street musician, but the hospital patient who loves to play Tchaikovsky (search) has yet to be positively identified, officials said Wednesday.

Michael Camp (search), the man's social worker, acknowledged claims by a Polish immigrant in Rome who believes the so-called "Piano Man" is a street musician from France -- but he said officials will continue to follow up on more than 600 calls they have received from as far away as Australia and Canada.

"I'm concerned that we don't just stop at the step of this particular person," Camp told reporters. "He might be him but at the same time he might not be."

Italian police reported that Polish mime artist Dariusz Dydymski (search) had approached them claiming the pianist -- found wandering, distraught and soaking wet on the Isle of Sheppey in southeast England on April 7 -- is Steven Villa Masson (search), a pianist with whom he worked in the French resort of Nice.

Hospital officials Monday released a photograph of the man, who is tall and thin with blond hair and believed to be in his 20s or early 30s.

He has not said a word since being found, but he has drawn intricate picture of pianos for staff at the Medway Maritime Hospital at Gillingham, where he was first taken, and played on the chapel piano, performing snippets of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and the music of John Lennon.

The man now is being cared for at a psychiatric unit in Dartford and is regularly playing a piano provided for him by a tabloid newspaper.

Adrian Lowther, a spokesman for the West Kent National Health Service Trust, which is caring for the man, said officials have received calls and e-mails from Australia, Canada, Sweden and Holland.

"They are just suggestions and they will now be looked at and until we do we can't rule any of them in or out," he said.

Italian police say they have taken a statement from Dydymski which will be passed to British authorities.

The British press has likened the case of the "Piano Man" to the Oscar-winning 1996 movie "Shine," about acclaimed pianist David Helfgott, who suffered a nervous breakdown while playing. But the man seems to be nothing more than an accomplished amateur.

Camp, the social worker, says he remains very anxious and uncommunicative, only seeming to relax when at the keyboard.

Hospital staff already have ruled out reports that he recently attended a local funeral. Interpreters from Poland, Latvia and Lithuania were brought in to see if he was from Eastern Europe and possibly an asylum seeker, but no one was able to get through to him.