Museum director works on Tyler Perry movie

SANDUSKY — Look closely in the credits for "The Six Triple Eight," a new World War II movie, and you'll spot the name of Molly Sampson, the Sandusky Maritime Museum's director and former Findlay native. Sampson's longtime historical reenactment hobby helped her win her current job running the museum. And it also got her a gig as a historical consultant for the new movie. "The Six Triple Eight," written and directed by Tyler Perry, is based on the true story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of the Women's Army Corps, an all-female auxiliary unit in the U.S. Army during World War II. The 6888th, meanwhile, was the only Women's Army Corps unit comprised primarily of Black women sent overseas during the war. The unit was sent to Europe and tasked with eliminating a huge backlog of undelivered mail sent to Americans fighting the Nazis in Europe. The delay in the mail was considered a big problem for morale. The unit was given six months to eliminate the backlog of millions of pieces of mail and finished the job in just three months. The new star-studded movie, featuring Kerry Washington, Oprah Winfrey, Sam Waterston and Susan Sarandon, becomes available on Netflix on Dec. 20. Sampson, 35, explained that since childhood, she's been involved in the living history movement. She started and built up the largest Women's Army Corps reenactment group, which counts members from all over the world. That made her well-known among historians and museum officials dealing with the Women's Army Corps. "I kind of became the go-to expert," Sampson said. During the pandemic, when Sampson was working for Visit Findlay, the Sixth Cavalry Museum in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, contacted her to offer her a job. The museum, which knew Sampson from her Women's Army Corps reenactment work, wanted to put together an exhibit on the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Sampson was ready for a change, so she took the job and moved to Georgia, devoting months of hard work to the new display. The exhibit opened in February 2021. It was a nice item on Sampson's resume, and she believes it helped her get hired in May 2021 as the new director of the Sandusky Maritime Museum. Meanwhile, Tyler Perry, the prolific actor and filmmaker, had run across an article about the 6888th Battalion and realized it would make a good movie. Perry and his staff were working on the movie as Sampson settled into her new job in Sandusky. The movie's production designer, Sharon Busse, and a member of Busse's team traveled from Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta to the exhibit at Fort Oglethorpe. Busse learned that Sampson had put together the exhibit. Sampson got a phone call in summer 2022 explaining that the movie needed a historical consultant and asking if she would be interested. "I said yeah, that sounds really cool," said Sampson, who had to sign a strict nondisclosure agreement promising not to tell anyone about the film. Working remotely — she never visited the set — Sampson worked on various historical details, annotating proposed Women's Army Corps uniform costume designs, offering suggestions for corrections to early versions of the script and answering various questions, such as what the interior of a Women's Army Corps barracks would look like. She also fact-checked press releases about the movie for accuracy. Many of her suggestions were adopted, although Sampson regrets that some of the mistakes with the uniforms didn't get fixed. It's probably not something that most people would notice, she admits. Sampson worked with costume designers and other people involved with the production but never interacted with Tyler Perry. Sampson did several months of work, on some days getting as many as 10 emails. She said she was well-paid for her work. She couldn't make it to the movie premieres in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, but will watch the movie with friends when it shows on Netflix. And if Hollywood producers call for help in depicting the Women's Army Corps in other World War II movies, Sampson says she's ready to go to work. "There's some really cool (Women's Army Corps) stories that might be a great movie," Sampson said.