npr:

Virginia Hall is one of the most important American spies most people have never heard of.

Her story is on display at the CIA Museum inside the spy agency headquarters in Langley, Va. — but this is off limits to the public.

“She was the most highly decorated female civilian during World War II,” said
Janelle Neises, the museum’s deputy director, who’s providing a tour.

So why haven’t more people heard about Hall? A quote from Hall on the agency display offers an explanation: “Many of my friends were killed for talking too much.”

But now — more than 70 years after her wartime exploits in France, and almost 40 years after her death — Virginia Hall is having a moment. Three books have just come out. Two movies are in the works.

British author Sonia Purnell wrote one of the books, A Woman of No Importance, and she explains the irony in the biography’s title:

“Through a lot of her life, the early life, she was constantly rejected and belittled,” said Purnell. “She was constantly just being dismissed as someone not very important or of no importance.”

Hall was born to a wealthy Baltimore family in 1906, and was raised to marry into her own privileged circle. But she wanted adventure. She called herself “capricious and cantankerous.” She liked to hunt. She once went to school wearing a bracelet made of live snakes.

‘A Woman Of No Importance’ Finally Gets Her Due

Photo: Courtesy of CIA