Ursula Zandt, also known as The Silhouette, was the first female costumed adventurer and a former member of the Minutemen.
Contents
Biography
Early Life
Ursula Zandt was born in Austria on September 4, 1917 to a wealthy aristocratic Jewish family. She and her family left Austria after it was taken over by the Nazis.
Costumed Career
In 1939, the Silhouette made the headlines after exposing a crooked publisher who was trafficking child pornography,[1] as told in Hollis Mason's book Under the Hood. The article stated that she gave a punitive beating to the entrepreneur and his two lead cameramen.[2]
Expulsion and Death
In 1946, the press revealed that she was living with another woman in a lesbian relationship.[3]
Laurence Schexnayder persuaded the group to expel her to minimize the P.R. damage. She was voted out 4 to 2 (even Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis voted against).
Weeks later, she and her lover were found murdered by the Liquidator in a brutal vengeance killing in that motel.
Rorschach added in his journal that she 'retired in disgrace, murdered by a minor adversary seeking revenge.'[4]
Personality
Induced from Sally Jupiter's comment much later, it appears that she never told the group her real name, it was only revealed to the press after her death. As a Jew, she was greatly bothered by Hooded Justice's pro-Hitler stance, but Laurence Schexnayder managed to sweep the incident under the rug.
In an interview with Probe, Sally Jupiter admitted that she didn't like Ursula as a person, and she wasn't easy to get along with. Even though she had voted to expel her along with everybody else, she reflects that they shouldn't have done that because it wasn't fair or honest since she wasn't the only gay person in the group, yet they threw her out just the same.[5]
Appearances
- "This Extraordinary Being" (photograph)
References
