• Comment: Hi! Thanks for writing a draft about an interesting topic. I think she is notable due to 1) reasonably prominent role in several notable movies 2) clearly some newspaper coverage at the time 3) patents. However, some points:
  1. The text also exists at Everywiki - can you explain? If you copied it from there that's not OK, it's copyvioIf you posted this text there that's OK.
  2. The section on the senate hearings is confusing - please rewrite so we understand FLores' role from the beginning - it starts with someone else and we don't yet know who he is.
  3. Several references are not fully referenced. The newspaper articles should have dates and pages - where did you find these?
  Thanks for writing about an interesting topic - I hope you can revise the draft. Lijil (talk) 13:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Iris Maria de la Trinidad Flores (1921-2016) was an inventor and actress born on 8 August 1921 in San Jose, Costa Rica. She was a film actress, known for Ride the Pink Horse (1947),^[1] Women in the Night (1948),^[2] and South of Monterey (1946).^[3] In 1952, she held a U.S. patent for a brassiere she had co-invented with Juliet Kellard. Starting forty years after the patent was published, a variety of patents cited her 1952 patent. The latest published patent citing her work was published in 2016.^[4] She later developed other patents in the fashion industry in the 1950s.

She is the great-granddaughter of the former president of Costa Rica, the late Rafael Yglesias Castro and the great-great granddaughter of José María Castro Madriz, the first president of Costa Rica.^[5][6]

Flores had acted in both films from Mexico and the United States. In 1943, she was in the Mexican film Tres Hermanos, which starred Abel Salazar, was directed by José Benavides, and with music composed by Max Urban. The screenplay was co-written by Salazar and Benavides.^[7]

Also in the 1943, she was in the U.S. musical comedy film Thank Your Lucky Stars by David Butler. The film was a musical that also functioned as a fundraiser for the Hollywood Canteen, which was a former entertainment venue based in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California for military personnel during World War II.^[8] Flores was in the Good Night, Good Neighbor scene. The title of the scene was a play on the official U.S. Good Neighbor Policy (Política de Buena Vecindad) of cooperation with Latin America, which was encouraged by President Hoover and President Roosevelt at that time.^[9][10] For the musical number scene, Flores was joined with the following cast members:^[11]

• Esperanza Dominquez, daughter of Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez who was President of El Salvador at that time.
• Maruca Sacasa, daughter of Dr. Juan B. Sacasa who was the former President of Nicaragua and the former ambassador from that country to the United States.

Flores had worked with Johnny Weismuller in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946), and Gilbert Roland in both South of Monterey and The Gay Cavalier.^[12]

Flores held the following patents and/or patent assignments:

The Boetschi scarf patent was an ornamental design,^[13] and the brassiere patent was an invention in structure and manufacturing. The brassiere patent differentiated itself from prior technology which supported the cups of the brassiere from above and, instead, supported the cup where "the support is effective down to and including the lower edge of the brassiere". The brassiere patent is described as the following in the patent document:^[14]

The invention also has for its objects to provide such means that are positive in operation, convenient in use, easily installed in working position and easily disconnected therefrom, economical of manufacture, relatively simple, and general superiority and serviceability.

Similar to actress/inventor Julie Newmar, both were actresses who had later developed four patents for applications to women's fashion. For Newmar, it was acting as a key character in a variery television shows (Batman, My Living Doll) in the 1960s to developing the four patents, one being a design patent, in the 1970s.^[17][18] For Flores, it was from a time of portraying various character in 1940s cinema to being the inventor, co-inventor, or assignor to four patents.

Forty years after the 1952 brassiere patent was published, it was cited in the following variety of patent applications:^[19]

Like the scarf patent, the 1954 combination skirt, cape, and blouse patent was also an ornamental design. It was assigned to composer and Broadway producer Michael P. Grace II.

The 1956 Brassiere shaper was assigned by the inventor Flores to the assignor Sarong Incorporated, which had manufactured the Sarong brand of brassieres and was the assignor of multiple patents from various countries.^[20][21] Sarong was the company that had applied for the patent. It is classified by the U.S. Patent Office as Machines, appliances, or methods for manufacturing corsets or brassieres (A41C5/00).^[22] This patent was later cited by International Playtex for their patent for the construction of knitted brassiere blanks and brassieres.^[23]

In the 1950s,Flores spoke before a Senate subcommittee because she knew Gerard David Schine, who was a chief consultant the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate. Schine had been drafted into the U.S. Army as a private, while employed at the subcommittee at the same time. Flores was asked by the subcommittee about Schine's work schedule when he left the military base on weekends.^[24] The Senate hearings addressed if a member of the Senate subcommittee sought special privileges while in the U.S. Armed Forces.^[25] However, McCarthy suspected that the Army had been drafted Schine in order to interfere with the investigation of if there were members of a communist party in the Department of Defense. McCarthy's subcommittee actually wanted to establish that Schine, who served on the subcommittee, was working for the subcommittee on administrative issues on the weekends and so on when he had time away from the Army. Although Flores was an actress and speaking before the McCarthy committee, the hearing was only for her testimony on a work schedule someone employed by the subcommittee who was employed in the U.S. Army at the same time.

In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings requested for Flores to be interviewed about her knowledge of U.S. Army Private Gerard David Schine. When asked about her occupation, she replied that was an inventor and that she had sold her brassiere invention to I. Newman and Company.^[a] She also mentioned that DuPont has been working with her on the device, with a staff member from the multinational chemical company and a brassiere designer the company had hired.^[27] The interview with Flores at the hearings had gained national attention in the newspapers of that time.^[28][29][30]

On October 4, 1946, she married merchandising broker Frederick Tillinghast III. However, they were later divorced on October 15, 1948.^[12] The majority of her films were from the time she had been married to Tillinghast III, as shown in the Filmography of this article.

On February 8, 1958, she was married to composer and music publisher Rudolph Edward Schirmer in New York City.^[6][b] While they were married, Schirmer wrote Hymn to the Americas (Himno a las Americas in Spanish), which was for a four-part chorus of mixed voices with a soprano solo and piano accompaniment. The Spanish text was written by his brother-in-law, the brother of Flores, and the former Vice Consul to the Government of Costa Rica, Fernando Flores. It was performed by the Washington National Symphony at the Fourth Inter-American Music Festival in 1968.^[32] Their daughter is Liane Schirmer. They were later divorced in March of 1970.^[33]

In 1942, Flores participated in the United Nation Victory Banquet with assisting the American Women's Voluntary Services Victory Bond Booth by leading a family heirloom sword to lead the salute the United Nations. With her was her brother, Fernando Flores, who was Vice Consul of Costa Rica at the time, Mrs. Eastman Markell, Roscoe Moss, Joan Marsh, and Mrs. Frank Willard. The event took place at the Town and Country Shopping Center, which is now the Farmers Market in Los Angeles.^[34]

After her completed divorce from Schirmer in 1970, Flores went by the name of Iris Schirmer after the divorce. She had national attention when in 1975, as a landlady, she sued British musician Elton John for damages to her Beverly Hills, California home after he had completed his rental of the home. The case was tried in Los Angeles Superior Court.^[35][36]

Good Night, Good Neighbor film clip from Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)