Library of Congress's Blog, page 61

Everyday Mysteries…Solved!

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Bactrian camel, Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, MD. 1906. Detroit Publishing Co. Prints and Photographs Division.

This delightful guest piece is by Jennifer Harbster, head of the Library’s science reference section. She chooses some of her favorite questions submitted to Everyday Mysteries. It’s adapted from the Library of Congress Magazine’s March-April 2020 issue. 

Can it rain frogs, fish and other objects?

There have been reports of raining frogs and fish dating back to ancient civilization. Of course, it doesn’t “rain” frogs or fish in the sense that it rains water — no one has ever seen frogs or fish vaporize into the air before a rainfall. However, strong winds, such as those in a tornado or hurricane, are powerful enough lift up a school of fish or frogs and “rain” them elsewhere.

Why do geese fly in a V?

Scientists have determined that the V-shaped formation that geese use when migrating serves two important purposes: Energy conservation and visual assurance.

Who invented the toothbrush and when was it invented?

The toothbrush as we know it today was not invented until 1938. However, early forms of the toothbrush have been in existence since 3000 B.C. Ancient civilizations rubbed a “chew stick,” which was a thin twig with a frayed end, against the teeth.

How does a touchscreen work?

By using your finger to disrupt an electrical current.

What causes flowers to have different colors?

Anthocyanins and carotenoids are the main sources of flower coloration, but there are other factors that can affect how colors present themselves. The amount of light flowers receive while they grow, the temperature of the environment around them, even the pH level of the soil in which they grow can affect their coloration.

How much water does a camel’s hump hold?

None. A camel’s hump does not hold water at all — it actually stores fat.

Why is it hot in the summer and cold in the winter?

It is all about the tilt of the Earth’s axis. Many people believe that the temperature changes because the Earth is closer to the sun in summer and farther from the sun in winter. In fact, in the Western Hemisphere the Earth is farthest from the sun in July and is closest to the sun in January.

How high can a nine-banded armadillo jump into the air?

Of the 20 species of armadillo that exist throughout the Americas, the nine-banded armadillo (dasypus novemcinctus) is the only one found in the United States. When startled, it can jump straight upward about 3 to 4 feet into the air. Another interesting fact: armadillos can hold their breath for six minutes or more.

Why and how do cats purr?

No one knows for sure why a domestic cat purrs, but many people interpret the sound as one of contentment. Our understanding of how a domestic cat purrs is becoming more complete; most scientists agree that the larynx (voice box), laryngeal muscles and a neural oscillator are involved.

What is the strongest muscle in the human body?

There is no one answer for this question since there are different ways to measure strength. There is absolute strength (maximum force), dynamic strength (repeated motions), elastic strength (exert force quickly) and strength endurance (withstand fatigue).

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Hey Kids! Dav Pilkey Reads From “Dog Man,” Shows You How to Draw Big Jim

Friends and fans of “Dog Man” have we got a fun few minutes for you! The one and only Dav Pilkey is teaming up with the Library to keep you jazzed about reading. Today, he’s got a couple of treats. First, he shows you how to draw Big Jim.

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Big Jim (aka Commander Cupcake) is seven feet tall in the “Dog Man” books. But here, Dav shows you how to bring him down to size in just a few strokes. You can replay it as often as you need to so that you can get Big Jim just right.

Second, because everyone loves a good story, here he is reading from “Dog Man Unleashed.” Check out those sound effects!

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Dav will by stopping by the blog each Friday for a few weeks, so be sure to check back in!

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Best of the National Book Festival: Stephen King

Each weekday,  the National Book Festival blog  is featuring a video presentation from among the thousands of authors who have appeared at the National Book Festival and as part of the new year-long series, National Book Festival Presents . We’re spotlighting some of them here. Today? No less than Stephen King. Their schedule: Mondays will feature topical nonfiction; Tuesday: poetry or literary fiction; Wednesday: history, biography, memoir; Thursday: popular fiction; and Friday: authors who write for children and teens. Please enjoy, and make sure to explore the full National Book Festival video collection!

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Today, this series features America’s undisputed king of horror and suspense, Stephen King, looking back on his long and prolific career.

In 2016, King walked onto the Main Stage at the National Book Festival in D.C. and was greeted by a standing-room-only crowd, many of whom had traveled from across the country to see and hear their favorite author. King didn’t disappoint. He was at turns extraordinarily clever, bitingly satirical and hilariously funny.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden introduces King, and presents him (at 4:40) with the Library of Congress Literary Champion medal for his “tireless” devotion to literacy and other worthwhile causes. King’s most recent work at the time was “End of Watch.” The author takes audience questions at 46:00.

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Erik Larson: True Tales from the Library of Congress

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Erik Larson. Photo by Nina Subin.

Erik Larson’s latest book, “The Splendid and the Vile,” tells the story of Winston Churchill during the London Blitz of World War II. His earlier nonfiction bestsellers include “The Devil in the White City,” a saga about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair that was a National Book Award finalist; “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania,” about the British passenger liner sunk by a German U-boat in 1915; “In the Garden of the Beasts,” the tale of America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany; and “Isaac’s Storm,” Larson’s first book in the genre about the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas. Here, Larson answers a few questions about his writing and research, including at the Library.

How did you get started writing nonfiction?

I started writing nonfiction as a career when I got my first newspaper job, back in 1978, and have been doing so ever since, along a progression from small newspaper to large, to magazines and finally to books, this after realizing that for the amount of effort I was putting into my larger magazine pieces, I might as well write a book. And needless to say, books have a much longer shelf life.

 

How do you select topics? Your subjects are fairly diverse.

It’s a mystery, actually. I don’t have a must-do list of book ideas; I wish I did. Each comes to me along a unique path, though I’m a big believer in putting oneself in the way of luck — that is, reading extensively, traveling, visiting museums and so forth, with the idea that at some point, an idea will occur to me. I’m driven entirely by story, not epoch or specialty. But it’s got to be the right story, amenable to being told in a compelling fashion, with a beginning, middle and end. When I lived in Baltimore, once a month I would drive to D.C. and spend a day in the Library of Congress’ Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, reading randomly, one month starting with magazines beginning with A, the next month, with Z. I don’t think the exercise ever generated a book idea, but I firmly believe that filling your head with obscure details is a useful pursuit, because you never know when one of those details will set your imagination on fire.

What drew you to write about Churchill — someone whose life has been extensively covered?[image error]

It wasn’t Churchill per se who attracted me. It was a question: How on earth did the British actually go about surviving the German bombing campaign of 1940–41? In deciding to try to answer it, I first considered focusing on a typical London family, but then I thought, wait a minute, what about the quintessential London family? And so, Churchill, his family and his close advisers became my cast of characters. Incredibly, no one had focused a book on this question before, on the nuts and bolts of how they all survived that first year of Churchill’s premiership. Using this as a fresh lens on the past, I was able to unearth new material and, equally important, to tell the story in a fashion that, I hope, provides new insights into the man and the time.

Which books have you researched at the Library, and what is a favorite story about finding something here?

I’ve relied on the Library of Congress throughout my career, mainly the vast holdings of the Manuscript Division, which always seem to provide a rich seam of material, no matter what subject I’m investigating. My favorite moment was when I was going through the papers of Martha Dodd, the daughter of America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany, for my book, “In the Garden of Beasts,” and came across a clear plastic archival envelope containing two locks of Carl Sandburg’s hair, thereby providing additional confirmation that Martha and he had indeed had an affair, as per rumor. His hair, by the way, really was strikingly white.

Do you have any advice for other researchers wondering about how to navigate the Library’s enormous collections?

My best advice is, dive in. I try not to be too focused, because an important letter, diary or report could lie in a completely unexpected location. In my view, there’s no substitute for simply starting with the first box in a collection and moving forward through the rest. The Library is a necessary first stop for me on all my books, because there’s always something of incredible value, be it the personal memoir of the killer H. H. Holmes or love letters written by a Russian spy to the daughter of America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany.

What’s next for you?

I wish I knew. I’m back in the mode of putting myself in the way of luck. A couple of ideas are lurking in the shadows, but so far none has chosen to step forward to declare itself. But, I’m hopeful that I’ll be back on the case, and back in the Library, by year’s end.

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Library of Congress buildings are closed because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The Library’s digital collections, however, remain accessible to researchers who may want to replicate Larson’s brainstorming method.

José Andrés: Best of the National Book Festival

This is a guest post by Marie Arana, the Library’s Literary Director. In it, she explains how the National Book Festival blog will be featuring an author talk from our archives each day during the current public health crisis. We’ll be featuring one or two per week on this blog as well, given the level of talent the NBF features.

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José Andrés speaks with Diane Rehm on the National Book Festival Main Stage, August 31, 2019. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Welcome to our ongoing celebration of the Library of Congress National Book Festival! If you’re looking for food for the mind, heart and soul, you’ve come to the right place. Sit back and let our authors take you to other worlds.

There is nothing so rewarding to a reader than seeing a favorite writer in person and hearing how a book or idea came to be; and there’s nothing so rewarding to a writer than being seen, heard, and applauded for work done. That is why the National Book Festival, established twenty years ago, has become one of the most beloved public book events in the country. For a full two decades now, hundreds of thousands of writers and readers have come together to celebrate the joys of reading.

The Literary Initiatives group of the Library is delighted to present this retrospective. In the weeks (and perhaps months) to come, we will roll out an assortment of author talks, bringing you highlights from the many stages of the NBF, from its beginnings on grounds of the Library, to its expansion to the Mall, to its later incarnation in the vast halls of the Washington Convention Center. Most recently, the NBF has found new life as National Book Festival Presents, a year-long series of talks that will also be represented here.

Whatever your tastes, you’re bound to be entertained and enlightened. Here is what we’ll be offering on a daily basis over on the NBF blog:

Monday—Topical nonfiction

Tuesday—Literary fiction and poetry

Wednesday—History, biography, or memoir

Thursday—Popular genre fiction

Friday—Children’s and Teens

We begin this series with world renowned chef and author José Andrés on the Main Stage at the 2019 National Book Festival, talking with Diane Rehm about his proactive spirit in the wake of a devastating hurricane, as recounted in his book “We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time,” and about his cookbook “Vegetables Unleashed.” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden introduces the presentation, which begins at 4:45; the Q&A begins at 47:15.

Enjoy!

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Ask a Librarian — We’re Open for (Online) Business!

The following is a guest post by Peter Armenti, a research specialist in the Researcher and Reference Services Division. It tells you how to access the Library’s fantastic online reference desk, even while our physical offices are temporarily closed.

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Reference librarians, some growing “telework beards,” monitor the Library’s Ask a Librarian service while at home. Photo: Megan Armenti. 

Most of the Library’s reference librarians, including myself, are now teleworking in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But our Ask a Librarian service remains open! While our ability to completely answer some of your questions may sometimes be limited by our lack of access to the Library’s physical collections, we are committed to answering your questions to the fullest extent possible. If we need to wait to consult the Library’s physical resources before getting back to you, we’ll let you know.

Fortunately, many questions we receive can be answered remotely through digital resources, whether these be our subscription databases, our digital collections, or free online resources. One is these is how to find a beloved book when the researcher doesn’t remember the title or author. I’ve noticed an uptick in this type of question during the past couple weeks, which I attribute to many people seeking “comfort reads” during these stressful times.

Whether you’re trying to locate a book series for girls whose main character’s name starts with an A, a romance novel in which twin sisters switch places and die in an explosion on their lover’s yacht, or a male-authored poetry book about love and drinking that has a yellow cover (all real examples recently received), my colleagues and I are here to help! Feel free to submit your question to our Ask a Librarian service and we’ll do our best to track down the right book.

When submitting your question, provide as much information as possible about the book’s content, physical format, and the context in which you originally encountered or read the book. Some types of information we’ve found to be extremely helpful are details about the book’s content, physical format and context.

Content. Identify, if possible, the book’s intended audience (adults, young adults, or children); its genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, etc.); all remembered elements of the book’s plot, especially any “odd” or particularly memorable scenes or incidents that might help differentiate the book from others with a similar plot; and any unique names, words, and phrases you recall from the book. Describe, if you can, the book’s cover image and any illustrations.
Physical Format. Size and shape of the book; hardcover or paperback; number of pages; color of binding; presence of dust jacket; inclusion of illustrations (color or black and white).
Context. In approximately what year did you read the book? (Be sure not to state only that you read the book “as a child” or “when in high school,” which give no indication of the actual year you read it.) Was the book recently published at the time you read it? Did you read the book as part of a school or work assignment, or for leisure?

We can’t claim a 100% success rate—though my colleagues are pretty darn good!—even if we can’t find the right work, you’re not completely out of luck. We’ve created an entire resource guide, Lost Titles, Forgotten Rhymes, that you can consult for further guidance on strategies and resources for locating “lost” novels, stories, and poems. This includes a number of other resources you can contact to seek help from librarians and fellow readers.

Our Ask a Librarian service, of course, isn’t limited to book identification questions. The Library is home to twenty different reading room and research centers, each with their own range of subject and format specialties. If you have a question, whether it’s related to poetry and literature or a completely different subject, simply complete our General Inquiries Ask a Librarian form. Our reference staff will refer your questions to the area of the Library or subject specialist best able to answer your questions and in adherence to our Reference Correspondence Policy.

So what are you waiting for? Ask away!

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Garth Brooks: A Few Minutes in Nashville

 

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We sat down with Garth Brooks for an interview at his Nashville studio last fall, just after he was announced as this year’s Gershwin Prize honoree. The studio is in a pleasant neighborhood near Music Row. It features the obligatory studios, sound booths and a control room, along with a full-sized kitchen, living room area and offices for both Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. It’s very nice but not pretentious, which also pretty much described our hosts for the day.

The pair arrived a couple of hours before the filming started, without fanfare and without a publicist or entourage. They were casually dressed, carrying their on-camera attire in clear-plastic covers, as if fresh from the dry cleaners. Other than a makeup artist and a staff worker or two, they had no else at the studio. For musical artists working at this level, it was a remarkably drama-free day. While Yearwood was in makeup, Brooks sat at a table with our film crew, tapping on a laptop, sipping coffee and amiably passing the time.

His deep roots are in country and western (it really used to be called that, kids) and he demonstrates that in this clip. In one sequence, he walked us through his musical influences, giving a cappela impressions of  Merle Haggard, George Straight and Hank Williams Sr. and how they influenced his singing style. He used “Two of a Kind” as an example. It was something to see.

In this brief video, we also place how his music fits into the Library’s collections of American music that stretches back to the foundation of the country. And don’t forget to check out the Gershwin concert Sunday at 9 p.m. on your favorite PBS station.

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Free to Use and Reuse: Cherry Blossoms

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The Washington Monument rises above the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin. Photo: Carol Highsmith. Prints and Photographs Division.

It’s peak cherry blossom season in D.C., that gorgeous week or two every year when the Tidal Basin and many neighborhoods around the city are filled with delicate clouds of pink. And delicate they are — even a soft breeze lifts a shower of petals from their branches into the air, fluttering, until they tumble to the ground.

Travel restrictions being what they are, the festivals are canceled for this season. So we decided to bring a splash of that color to you. The images are from the Library’s Free to Use and Reuse sets of copyright free photographs, prints, drawings, woodcuts and whatnot. There are millions of them and they’re yours for the taking — print them out as big or small as you wish, use them for wallpaper or screensavers. In the past few months, we’ve highlighted classic movie theaters, genealogy, maps of discovery and exploration and so on.

The drive to plant cherry blossom trees in and around D.C. started in the 1880s. Eliza Scidmore, a prominent writer (whose brother was a diplomat in Asia) visited Japan in 1885, and, upon her return, urged the government to import and plant the trees in D.C.  The idea was rejected, but Scidmore would eventually become the first female board member of the National Geographic Society and kept up her campaign. Several people imported trees to the region over the years, though, and these were very much admired.

In 1912, the mayor of Tokyo, Yukio Ozaki, gave more 3,000 trees to Washington as a symbol of international friendship. The first two of these were planted during a ceremony on March 27 along the north bank of the Tidal Basin. Like more than 1,000 others, these were of the Somei Yoshino varietal, marked by their light pink color.

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A sculpture of a Japanese lantern is set among the cherry blossoms along the Mall. Photo: Carol Highsmith. Prints and Photographs Division.

In Japan, cherry-blossom viewing has been around for centuries. Below, a woodcut from the 19th century shows a young girl remembering a festival on the bank of the Sumida River. The first trees were planted there in the 18th century and the area — in Tokyo — is still a prime tourist spot. The girl is holding a doll that commemorates the Hinamatsuri, or Girls Day Festival. These type of  prints were often used as frontispieces of novels and literary journals of the era and reflect the soft beauty of the trees they depict.

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A 19th-century Japanese woodcut shows a young girl, holding a doll, remembering a cherry blossom festival. Prints and Photographs Division.

So. We’re sorry if you missed the blossoms in D.C. this year. But they’re here every spring, and we invite you back as soon as conditions permit.

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Cherry blossom trees flanking the Tidal Basin with the Jefferson Memorial in the distance. Photo: Carol Highsmith. Prints and Photographs Division.

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National Recording Registry: It’s Victor Willis, Mr. “Y.M.C.A”!

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Victor Willis, center, in his role as the cop with the Village People. Copyright 2019.  Courtesy of Harlem West Entertainment.

Victor Willis, Mr. “Y.M.C.A.” himself, has just come upstairs from his home gym in San Diego and grabbed the telephone. Couple miles on the treadmill, pushups, weights. He’s 68, the founder and lead songwriter of the Village People and, until the coronavirus shutdowns, had 50 or 60 shows lined up this year.

“We were booked all through the year, all over the world,” Willis says.

The voice coming down the line is energetic, upbeat. Despite the postponed gigs, he’s in a good place after decades of turmoil. He’s happily married, wealthy and won a landmark copyright case a few years ago to obtain 50% royalties on the Village People hits that he co-wrote, which is all of them. He also regained control of the group’s name and performing rights.

But the cherry on top? “Y.M.C.A.” is a member of this year’s class of the National Recording Registry. That’s right, kids – that infectious stand-up-and-boogie disco classic, complete with a singalong chorus and over-the-top enthusiasm for a single-sex gym and fraternal living facility – is now in the official time capsule of American history.

”I had no idea when we wrote ‘Y.M.C.A.’ that it would become one of the most iconic songs in the world and a fixture at almost every wedding, birthday party, bar mitzvah and sporting event,” goes his official statement.

But where did the song come from? How did a giddy tribute to the Young Men’s Christian Association, a religious non-profit founded in 19th-century London, become one of the most instantly recognizable songs in late 20th-century America?

For this, we need to go to the disco-crazed days of winter 1978-79, specifically to New York City’s nightclub and bar scene. “Saturday Night Fever,” set in Brooklyn, had rocked the world year before. Studio 54 reigned supreme for the city’s celebrities. Donna Summer and the Bee Gees ruled pop music. Manhattan’s Greenwich Village was a hotbed of gay life and fashion.

Willis  was a singer in the city’s theater scene. A native of San Francisco, the son of a Baptist preacher, he’d come to the Big Apple in the early ’70s. He didn’t live in the Village but at 63rd and Broadway, in the old Empire Hotel, just a couple of blocks west of Central Park and north of Columbus Circle. This was around 1972. Money was tight.

Over the next few years, he joined the prestigious Negro Ensemble Company and was an original Broadway cast member of “The Wiz,” playing lead roles as an understudy.

By the late ’70s, he agreed to sing lead and background vocals for an unnamed concept band that was the brainchild of Jacques Morali, a French record producer. Morali was gay and loved the flamboyant personalities he’d see at Village nightclubs. He eventually called his project the “Village People,” although Willis was the only person in the group, wasn’t gay and still didn’t live in the Village. (It’s show biz, people!)

Session musicians played on the recordings in lieu of an actual band. But “San Francisco,” one of the first songs, was a club hit. To boost the stage show, Willis and Morali rounded up dancers to play send-ups of the gay New York club scene – the biker, the cowboy, the soldier, the construction worker, the Native American chief. Willis began writing lyrics for new songs, including “Macho Man,” a parody of male sexuality. Morali did the music.

Onstage, Willis played the cop or, sometimes, the Navy officer. Offstage, he’d just married a young actress he’d met while they were both in “The Wiz.” Her name was Phylicia Ayers-Allen. Six years later, after they divorced, she would marry football star Ahmad Rashad, star as Clair Huxtable in “The Cosby Show” and become a pop-culture icon all her own.

But in 1978, Willis and Morali were churning out material for a third album. They needed a hit. Willis found his mind wandering back to his youth.

Growing up in San Francisco, his family’s modest home was just a few blocks from the Buchanan Street Y, in the northern part of the city. Willis and his friends went there to work out, goof around and play in basketball leagues. They had a lot of fun.

He had leaned on the Y again in New York. The West Side Y – 5 West 63rd — was two blocks from his old place at the Empire Hotel.

So he put pen to paper. He imagined a kid, not much different than himself, maybe 20, 21 years old, sitting on the corner of 63rd and Broadway, in front of the Empire. He saw it now from a slightly older perspective, as a guy who could offer advice to a kid like that.

“I imagined somebody coming in town and, you know, maybe having blown all their money or couldn’t afford to go to the five-star hotels,” he says. “They were just sitting there not knowing which way to go with their life. So that was the first line.”

Young man, there’s no need to feel down 

I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground

I said, young man, cause you’re in a new town

There’s no need to be unhappy

The hard times for a young actor in New York were no joke. Though the song would later be seen as camp gay comedy, he was not intentionally writing double entendres.

“There were times that I felt, you know — the expression was being ‘down and out with the blues.’ And so I would go to the Y to pick myself up.  I’d go back home and get ready to get back to my life.”

Thus, in the song taking shape in front of him over the course of a few weeks, he wrote:

Young man, I was once in your shoes

I said I was down and out with the blues

I felt no man cared if I were alive

I felt the whole world was so tight

This thing wasn’t supposed to be a downer, though. This was glitter-ball dance music. And so, remembering his teenage years in San Francisco, he jotted down a simple truth:

It’s fun to stay at the YMCA

It was so much fun, in fact, that he repeated the line. Suddenly, a chorus.

Willis, remembering it now: “I would write one draft and then, when I was on the road, I can’t tell you exactly where, I would right another draft. The final draft that I did I remember was in Vancouver just before going to do a concert.”

Morali added the music. Horace Ott, a music-industry veteran with a long resume of hits,  added the  horn and string arrangements, giving the song the punchy blasts that heralded the chorus. It  was done.

“Y.M.C.A” dropped on Nov. 13, 1978. It blew up in January and February of 1979. But for all we remember it today, it never hit No. 1 – it stayed stuck at No. 2, at first behind “Le Freak,” by Chic, and then was leap-frogged by Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”

That year, seven of the top 10  songs of the year were disco. Two years later, at the end of 1981, none were.

Disco was dead, baby, but “Y.M.C.A.” was just getting started.

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Mystery Photo Contest: The Lady in the Hat Revealed!

Cary O’Dell at the Library’s National Recording Registry runs our Mystery Photo Contest. In this guest blog, he’s back with the story of  a mystery solved. If you’d like to take a crack at some of these, see the links below. 

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The Lady in the Hat is a a mystery no longer.

Well, it took four years…but we solved another Mystery Photo Contest entry!

This one has been known as The Lady in the Hat, for obvious reasons (that feather!). But she’s a mystery no longer, and her real name is….well, hang on.

Careful readers will recall that several years ago the Library’s Moving Images section received a huge collection of film, TV and music industry photographs. Publicity stills, most of them, head shots and glamour poses. Nearly all of them were properly identified and we dutifully filed them away. But there were others. The unlabeled, the unidentified, the completely unknown…mystery photos! Not only were these faces of yesteryear not familiar, the pictures had no dates, locations or titles.

To identify them, we tried reverse-image searches on the internet. Consulted databases. Passed the pictures around the office. Nothing.

So we turned to you, gentle readers!

We’ve posted pictures on several blogs over the years, asking you to help. We’ve received hundreds of guesses, tracked down the best hunches and have been able to name a few. Just last year, cult film fan Joe Bob Briggs and his fans identified Esther Anderson, a Jamaican model, actress and filmmaker, who once starred in “A Warm December” with Sidney Poitier. (See both of the previous links to try your hand at more mystery solving.)

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Esther Anderson, the Jamaican actress and filmmaker, in a photo included in the Mystery Photo Contest.

The Lady in the Hat proved a bigger mystery, though.

We had some very good guesses (Louise Fletcher, Susan Oliver, Lola Albright, Shirley Bonne, Marina Vlady), but none were correct.

Until now, that is. She was hiding in plain sight, a recurring but infrequent guest star in a television series that everybody of a certain ages remembers.

Here’s how it happened: Like many film and TV fans, I belong to Facebook groups devoted to old movies and vintage television shows.  There, a few weeks ago, someone posted a photo of the British actress Janette Scott.  She’d been in more than 30 movies in the 1950s and 1960s, things like “No Highway in the Sky,” starring James Stewart, and “As Long as They’re Happy,” in which she starred opposite James Buchanan. Looking at her picture, I noticed a resemblance to the lady with the funky hat. And the more I searched for Janette’s images, the more I became convinced that this mystery had been solved.

Never shy, I tracked down her address (she’s back home in England) and mailed her a copy of the photo with a short cover letter. Impatient, I also called her son, the singer James Torme (his dad was Scott’s ex-husband, the late Mel Torme). When I got him on the line, I emailed him The Lady in the Hat photograph.  I was very excited. “IS THIS YOUR MOM?!” I all but shouted.

He opened the attachment, took one look and said — lickety-split and without hesitation – “No.”

AARRGGHH.

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The full contact sheet that came to the Library with no identifying material.

But then, a week or two later, someone posted a picture from “Hogan’s Heroes,” the goofy CBS sitcom that ran from 1965 to 1971. Remember? The world’s most incompetently run Nazi prisoner of war camp? Col. Klink? Sgt. Schultz? “I know nnootttthhiiinnggg!”

Well. Every few episodes in the first season, Col. Klink’s secretary would show up, the lovely Helga. She was even a clandestine love interest for the show’s hero, played by actor Bob Crane.  (In real life, they had a relationship, which was included in Paul Schrader’s 2002 film, “Auto Focus.”)

I thought, “You know…”

The actress was Latvia native Zinta Valda Zimilis. She and her family fled Soviet occupation during World War II, made it through Nazi Germany and eventually to the United States. Once in Los Angeles, she went by the stage name of Cynthia Lynn. She had a 14-year film career of mostly television guest spots in the likes of “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “Mission: Impossible” in addition to “Heroes.” Her last role, according to the Internet Movie Database, was a tiny one in “Harry O” in 1975.  Her character was just called “Chick.”

She then apparently left the business at age 39. She wrote memoir of her youth in Europe when “Auto Focus” came out and died on March 10, 2014, in Los Angeles. But it turns out her daughter, Lisa Brando, is very much alive. (Lisa also had a famous dad — Marlon Brando. This was getting weird.)  I tracked down her email address and sent her The Lady in the Hat photo with the standard query.

She soon emailed me back. I opened it, fingers crossed. This is what she wrote: “WOW!!!  YES!…That’s my mother!  I have never seen these before.  THANK YOU so much!”

 

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Ladies and gentlemen…Cynthia Lynn.

Actually, I think I was a little more excited than Lisa. The Lady in the Hat, revealed at last! Plus, it felt even better to send her a picture of her mom she hadn’t known of before.

Four years and a mystery put to rest. At the Library of Congress? All in day’s work.

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