The late Canadian TV host Brian Linehan was famous for Hollywood celebrities responding to his probing questions during interviews with wide-eye astonishment, before injecting: “How did you know that?”

The answer now lies on the fourth floor of Bell Lightbox: the Brian Linehan Foundation Research Room.

The facility, unveiled Monday, houses Linehan’s extensive archival records, created and compiled during year of preparing to interview on radio and TV a who’s-who of Hollywood and Canadian acting royalty.

And George Anthony, who chronicled Linehan’s life in his 2007 book Starring Brian Linehan: A Life Behind the Scenes, says the Canadian host did much of his research at the local library, well before Google was invented.

“People tell me, ‘If I had his research, I’d be Linehan.’ Well, he did his research at the Toronto Reference Library,” he said.

Not surprisingly, the Linehan research facility at Bell Lightbox contains an extensive collection of newspaper clippings taken from local newspapers.

Anthony remembers once asking Linehan where he got a choice quote from Sally Fields for a memorable interview with the Hollywood actress.

“There was a long pause at the end of the phone, and then Brian said: ‘From a March 25th story you wrote!,'” said Anthony, a long-time entertainment journalist before becoming a CBC programmer.

Also present at Monday’s inauguration of the Brian Linehan research room was Michael Levine, head of the Brian Linehan Foundation, Canadian Film Centre head Slawko Klymkiw and founder Norman Jewison, and Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival.