Henry Louis Gates Jr: I'm Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Welcome to "Finding Your Roots".

In this episode, we'll meet comedian Fred Armisen, singer/songwriter Carly Simon, and actor Christopher Walken.

Each wants our help in solving a deep family mystery.

Carly Simon: I would want to ask her why she withheld so much information, and is it that she didn't know herself.

Christopher Walken: You know, this is stuff that I'm hearing for the first time.

Fred Armisen: This is so insane.

Why hasn't anyone told me this?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: To solve these mysteries, we've used every tool available... Genealogists combed through the paper trail their ancestors left behind, while DNA experts utilized the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets hundreds of years old.

And we've compiled everything into a book of life.

Christopher Walken: Oh my god.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: A record of all of our discoveries.

Carly Simon: Wow, that is amazing!

Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing!

Christopher Walken: Oh, look at that, there's a story there.

Fred Armisen: I had no idea.

You know, this changes my life.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: My three guests are about to learn the true identities of some of their closest ancestors.

Along the way, they'll also learn a fundamental fact about human nature: that who we are is as much about how we choose to define ourselves, as it is about our biological origins.

♪ (theme music plays) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Henry Louis Gates Jr: Christopher Walken is a living legend.

I've been a fan for more than four decades, ever since his Oscar-winning performance in "The Deer Hunter" as a psychologically scarred prisoner-of-war.

A performance that still haunts me today.

The role typified the kind of intense and strange characters for which Chris has become famous, but that's not how he sees himself.

Christopher Walken: Sometimes I get sent a script, and I say, uh, "Yeah, okay, I like that," and then a couple of weeks later, I'll get the script back, and they'll have changed the part.

They'll have made it eccentric, you know, and I call that "Walkenizing" it.

I say, "You know, they've 'Walkenized' the script, and really, all I want is to play the part they sent me."

I recognize so many things from when I was a kid.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Talking to Chris, I immediately realized that he is far gentler than the characters he often plays on screen, and his life story is surprisingly wholesome.

He grew up working alongside his brothers in his family's bakery in Queens, New York, taking orders for pies and cakes.

His parents were both immigrants.

As were many of their customers and to hear Chris tell it, this experience is what truly shaped him.

Christopher Walken: You know, I grew up in this part of New York that had this mix of cultures and languages and food.

You know, I've been told that I have a curious, uh, cadence in my speech, and I wonder if it's maybe because I grew up listening to people whose, whose, for whom English was not their first language.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah, I think there's something to that.

Christopher Walken: Yeah, my friends were all the sons of, uh, and daughters of, um, people who came from other places, Italian, German, Polish, Greek.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: In a sense, Chris' acting career, also stems from his parents' immigrant experience, his mother Rosalie came to America dreaming of a career on stage.

She ended up shifting those ambitions to her children and Chris went to his first audition when he was just five years old.

But it would take time for his talents to emerge.

Christopher Walken: My mother was smitten with show business.

In those days, TV was getting started, early '50s, and there were 90 live shows from New York every week.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Wow.

Christopher Walken: And they used a lot of kids.

There'd be these Christmas shows, Easter shows, you know, Thanksgiving and we did a lot of shows.

My youngest brother was the most popular.

He worked the most, and my older brother Ken, he worked, and I didn't get that many jobs.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Why not?

Christopher Walken: If they gave me a line, I would forget it.

I was always very nervous.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: When did you, uh, crossover?

Christopher Walken: I never crossed over.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You made a zillion films.

Christopher Walken: I know.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You've, like, won every award you can win.

Christopher Walken: It's, it's just a kind of defiance.

Carly Simon: ♪ You walked into the party, ♪ ♪ Like you were walking onto a yacht.

♪♪♪ Henry Louis Gates Jr: My next guest is singer-songwriter, Carly Simon.

Carly's string of hits started in 1971 with her self-titled debut album and it's never stopped.

Carly has one of the most lyrical voices that I've ever heard, so I was surprised to learn that her talent surfaced almost by accident.

Like Christopher Walken, she was not a natural performer.

Carly Simon: I was very shy, and I developed a stammer when I was about six.

And talking was very hard for me.

And so, when I found out that singing was a much easier route, I just took advantage of that.

And the whole family did as well.

We all sang, and our household became an opera, that was an ongoing thing.

And even when we were washing the dishes, it was, ♪ "Don't forget the forks over there, ♪ ♪ And shine them while you're at it."

♪♪♪ Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's great, that's cool.

Carly's career flowed out of those family sing-alongs.

♪ ["Wynken Blynken and Nod" Simon sisters performing].

♪ In the early 1960s, when she was still in college, she and her older sister Lucy formed a folk music duo and began performing in Greenwich Village.

Carly told me that even though she felt painfully shy on stage, the experience was thrilling.

Carly Simon: I would be bringing my guitar down from Sarah Lawrence, and Lucy was at nursing school, and we'd meet down on Bleecker Street.

There was such an eclectic group of people in the village.

People like Dylan and Tom Paxton and Joan Baez.

And the great thing about it is everybody was unself-conscious about sharing their songs, and there was a lot of teaching.

You know, "Here, look at this chord, you just play E, E, A," you know, it was just a lot of sharing.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's the golden age.

Carly Simon: Oh my god, in so many ways.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Unfortunately, the golden age didn't last.

In 1967, Lucy got married and the Simon sisters came to an end.

Reluctant to perform on her own, Carly decided to become a songwriter for hire and recorded an album of demos to market her writing talents.

But the sound of her voice was too powerful to ignore.

Her demos found their way to the head of Elektra Records, who persuaded her to open for the up-and-coming singer Cat Stevens.

It was a "star is born" performance and Carly's solo career was launched.

Carly Simon: I couldn't get out of it, but that was one of the great experiences of my life, was getting ready for that, and just the, the power, the energy of that, of that cannon that went off and thrust me in front of a, an audience.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Our third guest is comedian Fred Armisen.

A fixture on "Saturday Night Live" for more than a decade and co-creator of the hilarious series "Portlandia", Fred is a master of impersonation.

From Prince to Barack Obama.

From a feminist bookstore-owner to Saddam Hussein.

Fred has a chameleon-like ability to transform himself into well, just about anyone.

And he's remarkably sympathetic to each of his creations.

Fred Armisen: When I do characters I make sure that I like them, who they are.

I'm not making fun of them or being mean to the character, so I try to put a positive spin on it.

I try to make them likable and I try to make sure that I like the character.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: So, how did you wrap your head around Saddam Hussein and his likability factor?

Fred Armisen: There's something, I apologize for this, lovable about dictators.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Uh-huh, I understand that.

Fred Armisen: They're so transparent in how broken they are with the medals that to me they seem like little kids.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Fred is so engaged with his characters that I was surprised to learn that he didn't actually set out to be a comedian.

Growing up, he wanted to be a musician.

He played drums all through his childhood and in his early twenties, he formed a band called "Trenchmouth" he even signed a record deal.

He seemed to be on a path to musical success.

There was just one problem: nobody was listening.

Fred Armisen: My band didn't get far at all.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Do you think the name "Trenchmouth" might've contributed to that?

Fred Armisen: Oh, please, don't get me started.

I mean, we really, really played to nobody.

And it was very frustrating and I felt very disillusioned being in the music industry.

I was just like bands would just pass right by us.

All these bands were huge and I felt like I was getting nowhere.

Hello there, I'm Fred.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Out of frustration, Fred picked up a video camera and discovered his calling.

Fred Armisen: Thank you very much.

I started making these videotapes where I was interviewing other bands and I did different characters.

And I'd fool people.

This is Fred from Hofstra University.

You having a good time?

Man: (bleep) off.

Fred Armisen: Right.

And I would show that videotape at these clubs, this was sort of pre-internet and more people would turn out for that than ever did for music.

So it was made clear to me that that's what I should be doing.

And one job after another just immediately started happening and within four years I was on "Saturday Night Live."

I guess every... Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's amazing.

Fred Armisen: Every door just opened in a way that I couldn't even imagine.

To this day, I just can't believe my luck.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mm-hmm.

Fred Armisen: It just took me many years to have overnight success.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's a great way to put it.

Fred Armisen: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: After meeting my guests, I was struck by how idiosyncratically they had built their careers.

Success had not come easily and each had been forced to reinvent themselves several times.

As I turned to their roots, I learned that they were not the first members of their families to do this.

Indeed, each had close ancestors who embraced radical life-changes, in some cases, leaving their relatives wondering who they really were.

It was time for us find out.

I started with Christopher Walken.

His mother Rosalie was an immigrant from Scotland but Chris told me that he knew almost nothing about her life there.

Christopher Walken: I think that she did have a powerful attachment to the old country.

She had a very strong Scottish accent, which she never lost.

My father worked at losing his accent, but my mother, uh, she was very Scottish.

And proud of it.

But she never went back.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Really?

Christopher Walken: No.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Why do you think she didn't?

Christopher Walken: I don't know.

I, my, my feeling was that it was a hard time, and she didn't want to revisit that.

I don't know.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: So, your mom started over and said, "Tabula rasa, let's write a new story."

Well, let's see what story she wrote.

Would you please turn the page?

You have any idea where that is, Chris?

Christopher Walken: No.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's where your mother grew up.

Christopher Walken: Oh, Glasgow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's known as the Parkhead neighborhood of Glasgow's east end.

That was her 'hood, and she never talked about it?

Christopher Walken: No, and I've heard, uh, from other people that it was a tough part of town.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Tough was the right word for it.

Rosalie grew up in Glasgow's industrial center.

A place where gangs roamed and poverty was widespread.

Understandably, she was desperate to get out.

In 1930, when she was just 22, Rosalie boarded a ship and headed for New York City on her own.

She left her roots behind, completely.

Though Chris knew Rosalie's mother because she visited America, he does not even know the name of her father, his own grandfather.

Christopher Walken: The man I called my grandfather was a charming guy.

He was full of tattoos.

And he had, I think it was the king and queen tattooed on his back, and he would take his shirt off, and he would do this, and it seemed like the king and the queen were laughing.

And he was my grandfather, but I understood that he wasn't really my grandfather.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Walken: But who her father was, was never mentioned.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Your mom never talked about that?

Christopher Walken: No.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Our search for Chris' grandfather began in the national archives of Scotland, where we faced an immediate roadblock.

Christopher Walken: "Rosalie Russell.

Born: 1907, May 16th."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's your mother's birth record.

Christopher Walken: And it says "illegitimate," which does not surprise me.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yes, she was illegitimate.

Without a father's name, it's extremely difficult to build a family tree.

I was worried that we had hit a dead end before we'd even begun.

But then one of our researchers uncovered something unusual.

In 1935, just months before she married Chris's father in New York, Rosalie requested that a new birth certificate be issued back in Scotland.

And this new certificate contained the name we were looking for.

Christopher Walken: "Name, surname and rank or profession of father: Joseph Egen, leather merchant."

I, I have never heard of, uh, Joseph Egen before today.

And my mother never used that name, never heard it.

She was always Russell.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: But she had a re-registration in 1935 to add this name.

Christopher Walken: So, it must have been important to her.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It must have been very important.

Christopher Walken: It's interesting that she never shared that with anybody.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Why do you think your mother never told you her own father's name?

Christopher Walken: I don't know.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Well, I have an idea.

Will you please turn the page?

Chris, that is Joseph Egen.

That's his mug shot.

Christopher Walken: Ah, he looks like a tough customer.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He does.

Christopher Walken: Look at his hands.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah, look at his head.

Christopher Walken: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You see your mom in that face?

Christopher Walken: I do, the eyes and uh, something about the mouth.

He's a boyo.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: A boyo?

Christopher Walken: Yeah, that's, a boyo, you know?

He's a roughneck.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Oh, I never heard that word before.

Christopher Walken: Yeah, that's a Scottish, "Ah, he's a boyo."

(Laughs).

Christopher Walken: Joseph Egen, hmm, Grandpa.

(Laughs).

Well, what'd he do?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: We're gonna find out.

According to court records, in 1883, Chris's grandfather was arrested for receiving and reselling stolen goods.

He was given a five-year sentence and sent off to a place known as Pentonville Prison, just outside of London.

It was a harsh sentence.

Although it's hard for us to believe today, Pentonville had been designed to reform inmates through a set of policies similar to what we now call "solitary confinement."

This meant that for up to nine months, Joseph was likely confined to a 12 by 8 foot cell and he was forbidden to speak to anyone, except the prison's guards and chaplains.

Ultimately, he was transferred to another prison, in Dorset, England, where he served out his sentence performing manual labor.

After his release, Joseph struggled financially for the rest of his life.

It wasn't difficult to imagine why Chris's mother kept her father's identity a secret.

Christopher Walken: Well, this is a revelation.

I mean, just to know that he existed is fascinating.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You never know what you're gonna find on a family tree.

Christopher Walken: Yeah, and maybe, you know, she didn't want to discuss that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mmm, do you think that had anything to do with why she never talked about it?

Christopher Walken: Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, not only why she never talked about it, but why she got on a boat in her 20's and went to America all by herself.

(Inaudible) Henry Louis Gates Jr: Like Chris, Carly Simon came to me with a mystery.

Carly Simon: When we asked her about her background, she would say, "When I die you will find nothing but nothing."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah, I read that.

Growing up, Carly was very attached to her maternal grandmother, whom she called "Chibie."

And yet she knows virtually nothing about Chibie's life story, because Chibie kept her past a secret, even refusing to be photographed.

Indeed, this is one of the very few surviving images of her.

Carly Simon: She lived with us for many years.

And she was the go-to person in my life, when, whenever I was, I was sad or anything.

I was so very close to her, and she thought I was so funny, and she laughed at me all the time, and she just, she just gave me such a good feeling about myself.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You wrote in your memoir that Chibie was very, very mysterious, and she wrapped her life in, in veils and stories and mythology.

Carly Simon: Yes, yes.

She always wanted to remain completely private.

She never shared any of her, of her past with us.

It was always a mystery, and she kept it a mystery.

And she stopped us short whenever we asked any questions about her.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: No one in Carly's family knew why Chibie was so guarded.

But everyone seemed to love telling stories about her.

Carly had heard that Chibie was born in Valencia, Spain, the illegitimate daughter of the king and his Moorish slave, then was sent to a convent in England to be educated, then raised by a foster family on the island of Cuba.

They were wonderful stories.

There was just one problem, we couldn't find one record to support any of them.

But we knew that, in her youth, Chibie had been married to Carly's grandfather, a man named Frederick Heinemann.

Knowing his name allowed us to find Chibie's marriage license, in the archives of New York City.

And suddenly: the truth began to emerge.

Please read the transcribed section.

Carly Simon: "Bride's birthplace: Cuba.

Father's name: Joseph Ollright.

Mother's maiden name: Maria P.

Baez."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Have you ever heard those names before?

Carly Simon: No I've never seen the name "Ollright" before.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Did you know that she was born in Cuba?

Carly Simon: I thought that she was born in Valencia.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: On her marriage license, Chibie's name is listed as "Elma Marie Ollright."

The name "Ollright" proved to be a crucial clue.

It led us to the passenger list of a ship that arrived in New York City from Cuba on April 20, 1892, the ship was carrying a family that shared a last name similar to Ollright.

Carly Simon: "Sunsia Oliete, 21 years old, spinster.

Lauriana Oliete, 19 years old, spinster.

Ofelia Oliete, 4 years old, child."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Now, we believe that the name Ollright, which you hadn't heard before, which your grandmother used on her marriage record, is an anglicized version of the name that you see here.

Carly Simon: An off-spin of Oliete?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yes, which means that this is Elma's family, the Olietes, that is their name.

Carly Simon: Oh, my goodness, my goodness.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And the four-year-old girl that you just read, Ofelia, is Chibie.

Carly Simon: No, Ofelia, 1892.

Ofelia, Oliete.

My god, this is thrilling!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: We don't know when Chibie stopped using "Ofelia" and started using "Elma."

But the passenger list helped explain some of the fanciful stories surrounding her past.

Now, according to family stories, the illegitimate Chibie was given to a woman named Asuncion, right?

Carly Simon: Right, right.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Now, see the name Sunsia?

Carly Simon: Mm-hmm.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's an abbreviation of the name Asuncion.

Carly Simon: Wow, my god.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Asuncion was on the boat with her.

And while the family relationships aren't explicitly listed on this passenger record, it seems that Maria is the matriarch of the group, right, and that would mean that Sunsia or Asuncion was Chibie's older sister.

Carly Simon: This is such an eye-opener.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine you'd actually see a record like this?

Carly Simon: No, no.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: To see Chibie's family all laid out by name, her siblings, the moment they entered the United States?

Carly Simon: No, this is completely fascinating.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: At this point, we thought our work was done.

It seemed that Maria Oliete was Chibie's mother and Asuncion was her sister.

But there was a hitch... On the passenger list, Maria is 50 years old, while Chibie is four.

And other documents suggest that their age gap may have been even wider.

In the 1900 census, we found Maria, Chibie, and Asuscion living together in an apartment in New York City.

Maria is listed as 60 and Chibie is just 11.

Look at those ages.

If this census document is correct, Maria had Chibie when she was around 49 years old.

Carly Simon: Wow, yeah, she would've been 49.

So, that's, that's possible, but unlikely.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mmm.

Carly Simon: God, wow, okay.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: We had no idea what to make of this.

Could Chibie have been adopted like the family stories said?

Was Asuncion actually her foster mother?

Or could Asuncion have been her birth mother?

There were no further records to guide us.

Our only hope was DNA.

We found three women who descend from Maria and we compared their DNA to Carly's, the results were fascinating.

Carly is closely related both to Maria and to one of Maria's daughters, a woman named Lauriana Oliete.

Lauriana was a passenger on the same ship that brought Maria and Chibie to America and it is possible that Lauriana was Chibie's birth mother.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Okay Carly, your DNA is telling us that Chibie's mother could be either Maria or Lauriana.

Carly Simon: And we don't know?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: We don't know.

But here is the deal: Lauriana was just shy of 15 when Chibie was born.

Maria was about 49.

So, what do you think?

Could Maria have raised Chibie as her own daughter, as often happened, to protect Lauriana's reputation?

Carly Simon: Yeah, I, I'd go for that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You go for that?

Carly Simon: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Okay, would you please turn the page?

Carly Simon: Yes, oh.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Guess who that is?

Carly Simon: Oh my god, it's... Henry Louis Gates Jr: Lauriana.

Carly Simon: Oh my god!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: What's it like to see this?

Does she look like Chibie?

Carly Simon: Maybe the nose.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And that's the Oliete nose.

Carly Simon: That's the Oliete nose.

This is amazing, this is just incredible.

Fred Armisen: That's as far as I go.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Like Carly and Chris, Fred Armisen had questions about one of his grandparents: his father's father.

These questions would lead to us to a startling story.

Fred's father was born in Germany in 1941, the child of a young German woman and a professional dancer from Japan, a man named Masami Kuni.

The couple never married and did not stay together long.

Indeed, Fred's father did not even meet Kuni until he was an adult and Fred himself had very limited contact with his grandfather.

Fred Armisen: I met him, I want to say maybe four or five times.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: What did your father say when he's taking, did he say, "I'm taking you to meet your grandfather?"

Fred Armisen: Yeah, or, or "Kuni's coming."

I really enjoyed meeting him.

He was really, really intense.

I know that he was a choreographer, that he traveled.

Uh, I think he had a school in California maybe?

That's as far as I know.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Wow.

Fred Armisen: And because we didn't all grow up in one place, it's just so spread out that it, I feel like it's, it's been hard to get any deeper than that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Our search for Kuni began in Tokyo, where he attended college and launched his career.

Fred knew his grandfather had been a dancer and a choreographer.

But Kuni was much more than that.

Take a look at the left page.

Our researcher took those photographs of an exhibit at the Kuni Memorial Room in Tokyo.

Fred Armisen: What's the Kuni Memorial Room?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That is in honor of your ancestor.

Fred Armisen: No.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yes, there's dance notes that your grandfather made, tickets to his performances that were sold, even scripts, Fred, that he wrote for plays.

There is a living museum there in honor of your grandfather.

Fred Armisen: Oh my god.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And you had no idea?

Fred Armisen: No, of course I didn't.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He was amazingly famous.

Fred Armisen: Why hasn't anyone told me this?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: As it turns out, Kuni's fame was just the first of many revelations in store for Fred but the next one was much darker.

We wanted to know how Kuni found his way from Japan to Nazi Germany, where he had a brief affair with Fred's grandmother, we found letters, photographs, and magazine clippings showing that Kuni actually lived in Germany for almost a decade.

And that the Nazis were his clients.

There's your grandfather, Masami Kuni, dancing in Nazi Germany.

The top photo is him performing in Berlin on May 30th, 1937.

The bottom photo is of him giving a kabuki performance in Vienna, we think, in the early 1940s.

Fred Armisen: Incredible.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Fred, they were paying him to be a performer.

Fred Armisen: Uh, uh, you, the logic that the Nazis paid someone from, you know, another country or.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah, to perform.

Fred Armisen: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You had no idea?

Fred Armisen: Well, no idea, but I, I did surmise that he was there for a, a business reason.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And Japan and Germany, as you know, were allies against the United States.

Fred Armisen: Yes, so I could see that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Sure.

Fred Armisen: But I just imagined he was teaching at some school.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: The wartime alliance between Japan and Germany helps explain why Kuni was welcomed and in some sense sponsored, by the Nazis.

Nonetheless, the extent of his involvement was unexpected.

We learned that he even volunteered to entertain combat troops.

Fred Armisen: "Intellectual dancer, Kuni Kasami, has applied to the German Propaganda Ministry to visit and entertain German troops fighting on the frontlines of the war."

Because, you know, soldiers love dancers.

"Anyone can appreciate heroic soldiers fighting for their homeland.

As a resident of Germany, I think it's important to offer encouragement to German soldiers.

German officials said this was the first time a foreign national has applied to visit frontline troops."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: In essence, your grandfather traveled around occupied territories putting on performances for German soldiers.

Fred Armisen: Wow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's what he was being paid for.

What do you think about that?

Fred Armisen: What do I think about that?

Um, I just can't imagine what a bizarre occupation that must be.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Oh, yeah.

Fred Armisen: I, it almost seems unbearable.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It was a discomforting discovery, but there was more to the story.

We uncovered an explanation for Kuni's actions, buried in the archives of the United States Office of War Information.

Fred Armisen: "Dr.

Ejiri, Domei's chief in Berlin, is using as a special agent, a certain Dr.

Kuni, who is an interesting type of agent.

He's a Japanese dancer and appears from time to time in the different capitals of Europe, always being charged with special duties which he covers by his profession.

He is one of the most clever agents they have."

Who's "they"?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's a good question.

The American officer who wrote the report believed that your grandfather was a spy gathering information on southern European and Turkish affairs.

Fred Armisen: How much information could a dancer in theaters get for the Japanese?

Like, "I have a special report, there are 300 seats in this one theater.

The dressing room has a mirror."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: But remember, it's what he's doing off the stage.

Fred Armisen: Okay.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He's a prominent person.

Fred Armisen: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Obviously he, he was dashing.

It's a perfect cover.

Fred Armisen: You're right, you're right.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: If you think about it that way, right?

Fred Armisen: And it's one way in that isn't a, a soldier I suppose that is what espionage is all about.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: This report, filed at the end of World War II by an American agent in Istanbul, is the only evidence we have of Kuni's work as a spy.

But it forced us to rethink the motivations behind his actions.

So, we went from the story of him just entertaining these Nazis, which is quite unsavory for us.

Fred Armisen: Yes.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And now.

Fred Armisen: He's spying.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He's an agent, Dr.

Kuni.

Fred Armisen: God.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Now, this has been a pretty amazing story.

Where are you with this?

Fred Armisen: Where am I with this?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah.

Fred Armisen: This is so insane.

There's so much, there are so many layers and layers and levels of the story that you could almost tell me anything.

You could tell me that he helped design Disneyland.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah.

Fred Armisen: Do you know what I mean?

Like, this is like, if this ended with you saying that he was a famous Japanese dancer I, I'm good, and then this, this "clever agent"!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mmm!

Fred Armisen: I can't believe it!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It's like a movie.

Fred Armisen: It is like a movie.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: My guests now had the answers they had been looking for.

They had finally uncovered the secrets harbored by their grandparents.

But our journey wasn't over.

There were still unexplored branches on their family trees, still more secrets to be revealed.

For Christopher Walken, this meant turning our attention to his father's side of the family.

Christopher Walken: Oh, there he is.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Your father Paul Walken.

How are you like your father?

Christopher Walken: Well, I think I am a lot like my father.

My father was, I would say, the word is shy.

He was very involved with his work, his business.

He loved it, but he was a quiet man.

I never knew much about what he thought, you know, politics or.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Paul's business was the Walken family bakery, which opened in Astoria, Queens, in 1929.

He bought the space less than a year after immigrating to America from Germany and just days before the stock market crash that plunged his new country into the Great Depression.

Not exactly the ideal time to start a business.

But Paul saw it as an opportunity.

Christopher Walken: My father always said that he was so happy that he came to America at a time when, because of the crash, there was this level playing field.

That he came to America, uh, when everybody was having a hard time.

He knew he was gonna be having a hard time, but when he got here, so was everybody else.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Wow, that's interest, I hadn't thought of it that way.

Christopher Walken: Yeah and my father really is an example of, you know, you work hard, you do well.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Paul was more than a hard worker, he was also a savvy businessman, as the Depression dragged on, his shop prospered, providing stability for his growing family.

Christopher Walken: This is amazing.

I remember this so well, that, that handle on that front door.

I remember having to look at it like this, you know, reach for it, and then through the years, it was down here.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: How long did they own that bakery?

Christopher Walken: I think my father had that bakery for over 60 years.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Gee whiz.

Christopher Walken: Yeah, my brother ran it somewhere into the '90s, 60 years plus.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Hmm, wow.

Chris knew that his father had learned his trade from his family back in Germany but he wanted to know more.

We were able to show him the place where the tradition began, a bakery in the town of horst, started by his great-grandfather the first Walken baker!

Would you please turn the page?

Do you recognize that?

Christopher Walken: Oh, look at that, "Backerei Wilhelm Walken."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Have you ever seen that before?

Christopher Walken: No, no.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That is your family's bakery, man, back in Germany.

That photograph was taken in 1912, Chris.

Christopher Walken: Gee, with the cakes in the window.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Do you recognize anyone in that photo?

Christopher Walken: Well, I guess my father's here.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yes.

That's your father Paul on the left of his father.

He was only nine years old at the time, and he's pictured alongside his four brothers, and he's already learning the family trade.

Christopher Walken: It looks like he has the building.

He has his bakery on the bottom, and he has his name on the building.

It's interesting.

My father insisted, as soon as he was able, on having the building that his bakery was in.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Good move.

Christopher Walken: So that you could live upstairs.

There's that tradition, I think, in Europe, of living above the store.

And uh, that's what this looks like.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah, you don't have to pay rent.

Christopher Walken: And you always got an eye on things.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah, right.

Paul and his brothers, Anton and Wilhelm, eventually took over the family business, working together until Paul immigrated to America.

He was the only member of his family to come to the United States and Chris wanted to know what happened to the relatives that stayed behind in Germany.

The story that we found unfortunately was very grim.

In 1939, Paul's younger brother, Alfons Walken, joined what was known as "the reserve police."

At the time, Germany's reserve police were under the control of Heinrich Himmler, the notorious leader of the SS.

And Himmler soon put them to use.

Over the course of the war, Alfons' battalion committed atrocities all across eastern Europe, traveling in the wake of Hitler's armies, rounding up Jews for transport to extermination camps or simply murdering them on the spot.

Chris' father never spoke about his brother's service during the war.

But Chris wasn't completely surprised by it.

Christopher Walken: Well, I knew that my father, where he was from, he knew he had a big family, that they were all still in Germany.

That there must have been, all those men, at that particular time.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yeah.

Christopher Walken: That there must have been soldiers.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mm hmm.

Christopher Walken: So, it's not a surprise, but the details are new.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Walken: What you've done is named something that I suspected.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: I've been thinking about Alfons' life and your father's life.

They're both bakers.

One gets on a boat and comes to New York, the other one stays at home.

In many ways, they're like mirror images.

Christopher Walken: Absolutely.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And yet their fates were so radically different.

Christopher Walken: Nobody knew what horror was coming, but he got away.

The place that he chose to live, that part of New York, everybody was from someplace else.

And I think he maybe sought out and found, uh, uh, a community, where, differences were not so different.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And this life that had to be haunted by these ghosts... Christopher Walken: Yeah.

And how, uh, alike my father and mother are in that respect.

I see them sitting in their own countries, young people, thinking, "I got to get out of here," you know?

"I'm out of here."

And uh, that's something about all this that really is clear to me now, that both of them, because that was very much part of their lives, I could feel it.

You know, they were in America.

It was almost like, um, you know, you escape the burning building.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: We had deconstructed many of the myths surrounding Carly's grandmother Chibie, by showing that her roots could be traced directly to Cuba.

Now we headed to Cuba to see what we could uncover about those roots.

We had our work cut out for us.

Almost all Cuban vital records prior to 1880 are stored in individual churches.

And few have been digitized.

So researching a person's ancestry is extraordinarily labor intensive and there is absolutely no guarantee of success.

But in Carly's case, luck was on our side!

We knew that Chibie had sailed to New York from the province of Holguin and there, we unearthed the baptismal record of Maria Baez, the woman who had brought Carly's Cuban family to America in the first place.

Maria is either Carly's second or third great-grandmother.

And we learned something startling about her.

Carly Simon: "Solemnly baptized Maria Patrociana de Jesus, legitimate daughter of Vicente Baez and Maria de Leiba, pardos libres."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: "Pardos libres" is a description of their status in society.

You know what "pardos libres" means?

Carly Simon: Free person?

Free.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Free mixed-race people.

Carly Simon: Oh, wow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Maria and her parents, Vicente Baez and Maria Leiba, were mixed race.

What's more, the notation that they were free means that they probably descend from slaves.

Carly Simon: This is unbelievable, and totally out of the realms of what I thought.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: And all this stuff had been sleeping in archives in the church that nobody had ever looked at.

Nobody had any reason to look at it.

Carly Simon: Incredible, this is why Chibie said "You'll find nothing," because she couldn't find anything.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: She couldn't find, and she had things that she was hiding.

Carly Simon: Mmm-hmm.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Slavery was an essential part of the Cuban economy, scholars estimate that Cuba imported nearly a million Africans over the course of the slave trade, that's about two and half times the number that were shipped to the United States.

And while we couldn't identify Carly's enslaved ancestor by name, the paper trail clearly suggested that she's descended from one, to find out if this was true, we tested her DNA, which revealed a significant amount of sub-Saharan African ancestry.

Carly Simon: 10% African.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Carly, 10% is roughly equivalent to the amount of DNA you inherit from a great-grandmother of full African ancestry.

We have never tested a white person as Black as you.

Carly Simon: Can't wait to call my sisters and my brother and tell them this!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Do you think that Chibie's big mystery was the extent of Black ancestry?

Carly Simon: Yes, I think that's what she hid behind.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's the thing that she was hiding the most.

Carly Simon: Mmm-hmm.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: But she came to this country at a time when Jim Crow.

Carly Simon: Yup.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: When the law punished you for being Black, and who wanted those limitations?

So that could have been the demon that Chibie was fleeing, the demon of race as defined by American racial codes that she was leaving behind.

Carly Simon: Mmm, I was sure that that was it.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: We had already uncovered the astonishing story of Fred Armisen's grandfather Masami Kuni, the Japanese dancer who seems to have led a double life in Nazi Germany.

Now we set off to trace Kuni's roots, hoping to identify Fred's more distant ancestors.

We came upon a shocking detail in a Japanese newspaper, a detail that would totally alter Fred's understanding of his own origins.

Fred Armisen: "1933, turning to the world of dance, the debut performance of rising dancer Kuni Masami, original name, Pak Yeong-In... At the Nippon Seinenkan marks the opening act of the season."

So he has an original name.

Pak Yeong-In.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Kuni Masami's original name was Pak Yeong-In.

It's a Korean name.

Fred Armisen: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Not a Japanese name.

Fred Armisen: So am I Korean?

No!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You're Korean, not Japanese.

Fred Armisen: Well, that changes ev... Many, many things.

I was going to say everything, I mean, I guess everything.

I'm a quarter Korean?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: How does it make you feel?

Fred Armisen: You understand that I tell people that I have interviews with where I say I'm a quarter Japanese.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: 'Cause you thought you were a quarter Japanese, but genetically you're a quarter Korean.

Fred Armisen: I'm not Japanese at all.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: The story of Kuni's name change is bound up in the complex history of his homeland, in 1910, Korea was annexed by Japan and its people became second class subjects of the Japanese empire.

The situation was tense from the start.

Soon it became much worse.

In 1923, a massive earthquake hit Tokyo and Japanese newspapers began running largely invented reports of Koreans looting and raping amidst the devastation, retaliation was swift and brutal.

More than 6,000 Korean people were murdered.

At the time, Fred's grandfather was attending high school in Japan.

It couldn't have been an easy time to be Korean.

Can you imagine being a teenager and knowing that you could be killed if people mistook you for one ethnicity over another?

And these tensions between Japanese and Koreans exists till this day.

It's the same old story, man, we know from every culture.

You have another and you demonize the other, you punish them, right?

Fred Armisen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so where did he get the name from?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He began passing, quote unquote, just as he was trying to launch his professional career.

Fred Armisen: It's a stage name.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: A stage name.

Fred Armisen: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: By the time he went to Berlin in about 1936 he had assumed a Japanese identity.

He goes, "I'm Japanese."

There you go, that's the story.

Fred Armisen: Okay.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Does it change the way you think about your grandfather, and does it change the way you think about yourself?

Fred Armisen: It definitely, it changes the way I think about myself um, just because I think we all assign qualities to nationalities.

So the fact that I love Japanese food, I just assumed it's like, well, it's because I'm part Japanese.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: You like kimchi?

Fred Armisen: Uh, I guess I'll have to now.

But this is incredible, incredible.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Researchers told us that Kuni's family came from the Ulsan region in Korea, we were delighted, to learn that Fred still has relatives who live there.

And they helped us fill in crucial details about Fred's grandfather.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Your grandfather was a member of a family that was in the Korean upper class.

Fred Armisen: Wow!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: His father was named Pak Nam-Geuk.

And according to the Pak family, Pak Nam-Geuk espoused western ideas and practices so he sent his sons to study in the most developed parts of the Japanese empire.

Fred Armisen: Ahhhh.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: So in a sense, you are who you are, Fred Armisen, because almost 100 years ago a man named Pak Nam-Geuk decided to send his son off to school.

Fred Armisen: Thank you, Pak, for sending him to school, and then he became a dancer.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He became a dancer, changed his name.

Fred Armisen: Went to Germany.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Met a beautiful German girl and they had an affair.

Fred Armisen: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It's an amazing story.

Fred Armisen: It's an incredible story.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Yep.

Fred Armisen: I can't believe it's taken this long in my life to, to know such, such a huge part of my genetic makeup.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: But the story wasn't over yet.

I still had more to share.

Fred's Korean relatives gave us a copy of a book, known as a "Jokbo", which contained their family's genealogy.

It allowed us to trace the Pak clan back centuries.

Would you please read the translation?

Fred Armisen: "Cheon-Do born in 1685 married an An from Suncheon."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Those are your fifth great-grandparents on your Pak family tree.

Fred Armisen: What?

Fred Armisen: I never in my life would imagine that seeing anything from the 1600's in Korea, I cannot believe that I have anything to do with anything in deep Korean history.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Scholars confirmed that Fred's family Jokbo was accurate as far back as his fifth great grandparents but the book itself went much further than that, it took us all the way back to the mythical progenitors of the Pak family line!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Fred, it goes back 63 generations.

Fred Armisen: What?

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Back to 69 BC.

Fred Armisen: What are you talking about?

How does this exist?

How does that happen?

So in 69 BC they were like, "You guys, we have to start a Jokbo."

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It's been passed down generation to generation.

All the way back to Pak Hyeokgeose and he's said to be the founding monarch of Silla, one of the three kingdoms of ancient Korea.

Fred Armisen: Okay.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He's so legendary that he even appears on a postage stamp.

This is your mythological clan progenitor.

Fred Armisen: Okay, okay.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It's an overwhelming amount of information.

Fred Armisen: It's overwhelming.

I, I have so many phone calls to make um, to my family.

I can't thank you enough for this.

It changes the way, not only, aside from how I think about myself, but also the world.

Uh, it's astounding.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: This marked the end of my search for the roots of Fred, Carly, and Chris, it was time to present them with their full family trees.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: These are the ancestors of Fred Robert Armisen.

This is an amazing family tree.

Fred Armisen: Yes, this is, ah, this means the world to me.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Each had seen family mysteries resolved... Each had met ancestors they never knew existed.

Christopher Walken: This is of course a revelation, and you know, I can't wait for my brothers to see this.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: This is Chibie's side all over here.

Carly Simon: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: Going back to deep roots in Cuba.

We never had anyone who we could trace back to Cuba this far.

Carly Simon: That's incredible.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: It had been a deeply moving journey and for Fred Armisen, it wasn't over, in the weeks after we met, Fred traveled to Tokyo, to visit the museum dedicated to his grandfather.

Fred Armisen: Unbelievable, my name is Fred Armisen.

Woman: How do you do?

Fred Armisen: How do you do?

Nice to meet you, beautiful!

This is a perfect place.

Woman: Yes.

Henry Louis Gates Jr: He walked through the studio space where Kuni had once danced, saw for himself the vital surviving record of his grandfather's art and came face to face with the memory of this mysteriously compelling man.

Fred Armisen: I think that I have a lot more in common with him than I ever imagined.

His esthetics, I love the way things look.

I feel exactly matched with him.

It makes sense to me that he's my grandfather.

Just seeing his face, and seeing him in his costumes.

I felt very, very directly connected to him.

More than ever.

That's my grandfather!

Henry Louis Gates Jr: That's the end of our journey.

Please join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of "Finding Your Roots".

Narrator: Next time, on "Finding Your Roots", three celebrated actors whose families helped shape America.

Mary Steenburgen.

Mary Steenburgen: Wow, what a crazy story.

Narrator: Ted Danson.

Ted Danson: Wow, I love this.

Narrator: And William H. Macy.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: This is the deed of purchase for the island of Nantucket.

William H. Macy: I knew we owned that thing!

Narrator: Family heroes, scoundrels and rule breakers.

Ted Danson: it gives you compassion for America.

Narrator: On the next "Finding Your Roots".