Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, Jim West's blue suit, Agent 007's gun, Emma Peel's leather pants and John Steed's bowler hat are among the 400 items selected from Danny Biederman's SPY-Fi Archives to be exhibited in "The Incredible World of SPY-Fi" opening aboard the Queen Mary April 7, 2007. The exhibit is expected to inexplicably dematerialize in September.
"About the same time the Queen Mary was making her way to Long Beach on her Last Great Cruise in 1967, TV spy shows were capturing Americans' imaginations," commented Queen Mary President and CEO Howard Bell, "so this exhibit, capturing four decades of our favorite spies and their impressive gadgets, is perfect for our eclectic year-long celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Queen Mary's arrival in Long Beach."
Get Smart, The Wild Wild West, The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, James Bond and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were among Hollywood's interpretations of the Cold War, the CIA and the whole intriguing world of intelligence. Among those caught up in the "spy fiction" craze was Danny Biederman-now a Hollywood screenwriter, author and consultant specializing in movie and TV spy fiction-who realized at an early age that collecting spy show memorabilia was safer than actually being a spy.
Today, Biederman's collection contains more than 4,000 items and spans 50 years-from the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock spy thriller North by Northwest," to such recent fare as Austin Powers and Alias. Whether it was a ten-foot-long storyboard from I Spy, James Coburn's secret agent wardrobe from Our Man Flint, or Dean Martin's gas-spewing camera from the Matt Helm movies, Biederman grabbed it before it could be lost or destroyed.
"I salvaged these historic artifacts from the darkest, dustiest corners of old Hollywood soundstages and studio back lots," Danny Biederman explained. "The amazing stories and offbeat trivia that accompany the pieces have been just as fun to collect, and really bring the items to life in this exhibit."
It's not an every day occurrence to get up close to something as deadly as Dr. No's tarantula or a Mission: Impossible self-destructing tape, but thanks to Danny Biederman, it will be possible in this unique new exhibit aboard the Queen Mary.
RMS Foundation staff, along with Pancho Barnes Enterprises (which recently produced the Lights! Camera! Glamour! Exhibit of the work of George Hurrell for the Queen Mary's Sun Deck Gallery) are producing this exhibit in conjunction with Danny Biederman. Previous venues for exhibits from the SPY-Fi Archives include The Pentagon, The Strategic Air Command, the National Atomic Museum and, appropriately enough, the Central Intelligence Agency. In fact, the forward to Danny Biederman's book, The Incredible World of SPY-Fi (Chronicle Books), was written by the former Director of the CIA's Office of Technical Service, Robert W. Wallace.
Admission for the SPY-Fi exhibit is included in the Queen Mary First Class Passage ticket at $27.95 for adults, $24.95 for seniors and military and $16.95 for children 4-11. First Class Passage also includes the Self-Guided Shipwalk Tour with the Ghosts & Legends Show and two, one-hour historic guided tours. For those who only wish to visit the new exhibit, the ticket is $10.00 per person. Secret agents with proper ID will be admitted free. Attraction hours are 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. daily with the box office closing at 5:30 p.m.
Located at the south end of the 710 Freeway at 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, CA 90802, the Queen Mary has emerged as a favorite attraction, hotel, meeting facility, world-class entertainment destination, unique spot for dining and shopping - and one of the world's most haunted sites. For more information, call (562) 435-3511 or go to
www.spyfiarchives.com.
Danny Biederman is an internationally recognized expert in pop spy fiction. He is the author of the book, The Incredible World of SPY-Fi (Chronicle Books) and writer/director of the TV special, Hollywood SpyTek (Discovery).
One of the world's top James Bond experts, Mr. Biederman has served as a special consultant to MGM Studios for the Bond property, including as an expert witness in the high-profile MGM vs. Sony Thunderball legal case. He is producer/director of the 007 documentary, A Spy for All Seasons, and author of The Best of Bond, James Bond (EMI Publications) and The 007 Collection (Warner Bros. Books).
Mr. Biederman has directed dozens of award-winning featurettes and written hundreds of articles for such publications as Playboy, Los Angeles Magazine, American Cinematographer, The Los Angeles Times, and others. He was a writer/editor for the best-selling People's Almanac and Book of Lists series and penned scripts for network TV series including Paramount's The Renegades and the NBC spy adventure, Gavilan. He has also consulted on the world of pop spies for American Movie Classics, Landmark Theaters, American Cinematheque, Taft Entertainment and MGM.
Danny Biederman has lectured on the subject of James Bond and cinema/TV spies at the C.I.A., the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, The International Spy Museum, The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, and the Department of Defense's top-secret N.R.O.
His SPY-Fi Archives, consisting of more than 4,000 amazing pieces of famous screen props and wardrobe from espionage movies and TV shows, is the world's largest collection of fictional spy artifacts. Exhibits from the Archives have been touring the United States since 2000. Danny Biederman lives in Los Angeles with his children Illya, Moriah Flint and Bond - all named for fictional spies.
For more information, go to
www.queenmary.com or
www.spyfiarchives.com
