Silhouette/HBO Timeline

Ursula Zandt
Biographical Information
Real Name	Ursula Zandt
Alias	Silhouette
Gender	Female
Date of Birth	September 4, 1917
Date of Death	May 27, 1946
Affiliation(s)	Minutemen (formerly)
Occupation(s)	Costumed Adventurer
Status	Deceased
Familial Information
Spouse(s)	Dawn DeCarlo† (lover)
Father	Gregor Zandt†
Appearances
Comic	Watchmen (flashback)
TV Series	Watchmen (flashback)

Ursula Zandt, also known as Silhouette, was the first female costumed adventurer and a member of the Minutemen. Active with the team throughout 1940s, she was expelled when her homosexuality was discovered and was murdered shortly after.

Biography

Early life

Ursula Zandt was born in Katzenbühl, Austria on September 4, 1917 to a wealthy aristocratic Jewish family. Her father, Gregor Zandt, was a smart and well-respected doctor who invested the family's money in gold and diamonds to ensure long-term financial security for him and his family. Zandt had a close relationship with her aunt Emma. In 1925, Zandt broke her leg while skiing and was placed under the care of her father. When she was fifteen years old, Zandt, while visiting New York City, heard a police officer whistling at her. Furious, she ran across the street and slapped the officer, resulting in her arrest. In 1935, she and her family left Austria after it was taken over by the Nazis. They moved to New York City and blended into upper-class Manhattan society. After her parents died, Ursula developed a wild streak.

Costumed career

Joining the Minutemen

In 1939, Silhouette made her debut when she exposed a crooked publisher who was trafficking child pornography, and gave a punitive beating to the entrepreneur and his two lead cameramen. Her act of heroism made the headlines, with the article mentioning the brutal beatdown she gave to the perpetrators involved. Her actions garnered the attention of the Minutemen, which she later joined.

Tensions in the Team

During her time with the Minutemen, Zandt never told the team her real name or much about her personal life with the exception of her favorite aunt, Emma, and had a difficult time connecting with the other members. Zandt had an unfavorable view toward Sally Jupiter and vice versa; they would often make snide comments toward one another. As a Jew, she was greatly offended by Hooded Justice's supposed pro-Hitler stances, but Larry Schexnayder, the team's manager, managed to sweep the incident under the rug. Despite her aloofness with the team, she managed to get along with both Mothman and Nite Owl, and was even close to Schexnayder.

Fighting the Liquidator

In December 1945, Silhouette joined up with Dollar Bill and Mothman to apprehend a serial killer known as the Liquidator. A high speed chase ensued, leading the combatants all the way to upper Manhattan. While crossing the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey, Liquidator struck another car, which immobilized his vehicle. The heroes caught up to the killer and began to attack him. During the fight, Silhouette grabbed Liquidator and sent him spinning off the bridge and into the icy waters below. Mothman glided down and attempted to rescue the plummeting villain, but it was too late.

Expulsion and Death

In 1946, the National Regaler revealed that Zandt was in a romantic relationship with a woman named Dawn DeCarlo. To minimize the Minutemen's P.R. damage, Larry Schexnayder persuaded the group to expel her. She was unanimously voted out.

Six weeks later, Zandt and DeCarlo, were found murdered in their apartment by the Liquidator, who had survived his fall, in a brutal vengeance.

Legacy

In an interview with Probe magazine, Sally Jupiter admitted that while she didn't like Zandt as a person, she reflects that she and the others who voted her out shouldn't have done that because it wasn't fair or honest since she wasn't the only gay person in the group, and yet they threw her out just the same. In an interview on The Martha Edwards Show, Hollis Mason expressed regret for the way he acted the day he voted Zandt out from the team.

Silhouette's acts of heroism as well as her sexuality reveal and subsequent death were detailed by Mason in his book Under the Hood. The titular character of the 1977 black mask film Sister Night was based on the Silhouette. On October 1985, Rorschach wrote about Zandt in his journal regarding her expulsion from the Minutemen and her eventual demise at the hands of the Liquidator. In 1987, Martha McCormick published a biography on Zandt titled Run for the Shadows: The Story of Ursula Zandt.

In 2019, the hit television series American Hero Story: Minutemen aired, dramatizing all the known information about Zandt's time with the Minutemen until her expulsion from the team.

Trivia

• In ''It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice", Silhouette is only member of the Minutemen to be excluded from the intro to American Hero Story, a show-within-a-show featured in the HBO series, possibly as an allusion to the character's expulsion from the team for her homosexuality.