In the real world of dark alleys and safe houses or the imaginary world of Hollywood, spies ply their trade with a variety of gadgets.

Now the CIA and Hollywood are marking more than a half-century of life imitating art - and vice versa - with the largest ever display of spy artifacts, both real and imagined.

The exhibit, "Secrets from the CIA, KGB and Hollywood," opened Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Los Angeles. The gadgets on display range from the whimsical to the deadly, from the shoe phone made famous in the U.S. television show Get Smart to a Russian KGB umbrella used to shoot poison darts of a kind once used to assassinate a Bulgarian dissident in London.

The exhibit also includes such items as the tarantula that threatened the fictional spy James Bond in the film Doctor No, leather pants worn by fictional spy Emma Peal in the British television series The Avengers, and a 19th century spy camera designed to be strapped to a pigeon.

Danny Biederman

CIA officials say the purpose of the exhibit is to highlight the role of the intelligence service in national security. But the blend of fact and fiction also reveals how much Hollywood and real world spies have influenced each other.

Danny Biederman, a Hollywood screenwriter whose collection of spy show memorabilia make up a large part of the display, is not surprised. After all, says Biederman, many people who do intelligence work grew up watching spy shows.

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