Did you know that besides being an actress and one of the most beautiful women in the world, Hedy Lamarr was also an expert mathematician and inventor?
Hedy Lamarr was born in 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, to a wealthy Jewish family. It was her mother, Gertrud, a pianist, who introduced her to the wonders of the stage. «One day,» Hedy recalled, «mother promised me a nice present if I were good. The present was a visit, my first, to the theatre. I saw a stage play for the first time. I was thrilled and speechless. I don't remember the play, its title of anything about it. But I never forgot the general impression. School held but one interest from then on. I took part in school plays and festivals. My first big part came in Hansel and Gretel.» The first film she saw that had the same effect on her was Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), released when she was thirteen.
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| Hedy Lamarr photographed at the age of six years old (c. 1920). |
In the late 1920s, while taking acting classes in Vienna, Hedy found employment as a script clerk at Sascha-Film, Austria's largest production company at the time. Soon, she was cast by director Georg Jacoby in a small role as an extra in Money on the Street [Geld auf der Straße] (1930), the first sound picture made in Austria. In August 1931, she moved to Berlin, where she filmed The Trunks of Mr. O.F. [Die Koffer des Herrn O.F.] (1931) and No Money Needed [Man braucht kein Geld] (1932), both of which were successful.
In early 1932, Hedy left Berlin to work on a film called Ecstasy [Ekstase] (1933), shot by renowned Czech director Gustav Machatý. Her role was that of a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage, who abandons her much older husband and has a passionate love affair with a virile engineer. Although hailed by some European critics as a «masterpiece,» the film was highly controversial upon release, as it included a nude scene and a close-up of Hedy's face in the throes of orgasm. As a result, Ecstasy was banned in Germany and in the United States, where it was condemned by the Hays Office as «highly, even dangerously, indecent.»
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| Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy. She was credited as «Hedy Kiesler,» her birth name. |
The success and notoriety of Ecstasy led to more work for Hedy, notably in the comic operetta Sissi, about the life of Empress Elizabeth of Austria. The play was acclaimed by critics, who described the young actress as «wonderful, tender and really attractive [...] a delightful Sissi.»
Playing the coveted role of Sissi confirmed Hedy Lamarr as a rising star in Vienna's film and theatre world and brought her throngs of admirers. They sent roses to her dressing room and tried to get backstage to meet her. One such admirer was Friedrich «Fritz» Mandl, who diligently pursued Hedy throughout 1933. One night after Hedy's appearance in Sissi, Mandl showed up backstage and presented her with his card. Next, he appealed to her parents for their support in his marriage plans. The Kieslers gave their blessing, and the couple married in Vienna in August 1933. Mandl was 33 years old and Hedy was three months away from turning 19.
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| Hedy Lamarr in costume during her appearance in the play Sissi. |
Fritz Mandl was one of Europe's most prominent military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer, who had close ties to the fascist government of Italy, as well as to the Nazi regime of Germany. According to Lamarr's alleged autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler attended Mandl's lavish parties at their castle home in Schwartau. As his wife, Hedy was forced to accompany Mandl to his business meetings with scientists and other professionals involved in military technology. These conferences ultimately introduced her to the field of applied science and awakened her latent talent in the scientific field.
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| Hedy Lamarr in publicity stills for Algiers and Boom Town. |
By the time the United States entered World War II, Hedy Lamarr had divorced Mandl and become an established actress in Hollywood. She signed a contract with MGM in 1937 and quickly stunned audiences with performances in films such as Algiers (1938), her American debut, and Boom Town (1940), with Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert and Spencer Tracy.
Like so many other European émigrés working in Hollywood, Hedy threw herself into the war effort. Between filming, she served in the Hollywood Canteen, a club co-founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield that offered free food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen. «I worked constantly at the Canteen and I worked hard,» Hedy remembered. «Some
nights I signed so many autographs I thought my arm would drop off, but
I couldn't resist those boys, and, in the end, I was able to dance with
pleasure.» She also actively participated in the national war bonds drive, taking part in the Stars of America tour along with other actors, including Greer Garson, Irene Dunne and Ronald Colman. Hedy visited sixteen cities in ten days and is credited with selling $25 million in bonds. However, she wanted to do more to help the war effort; she wanted to use her interest in science to aid in the fight against the Axis Powers.
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| LEFT: Hedy Lamarr with American servicemen while working at the Hollywood Canteen. RIGHT: Hedy Lamarr at a war bond rally in Washington, D.C., in 1942. |
Although Hedy had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she dabble with various hobbies and ideas in her free time. These included a traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. During the war, she learned that the military had proposed radio-controlled torpedoes, but these could easily be jammed and rerouted by the enemy. Hedy thought there might be a way to prevent the torpedo's radio guidance system from being intercepted, and discussed her ideas with her friend, pianist George Antheil.
Hedy had previously explained to Antheil that she felt uncomfortable sitting in Hollywood when Europe was in such need. She told him she knew a great deal about munitions and secret weapons, and was even considering leaving MGM and heading to Washington, D.C., to offer her services to the newly established Inventors Council. Antheil suggested that she could do more for the war effort by staying in Hollywood, and the two soon started working on a frequency-hopping system, which they called «Secret Communications System.»
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| LEFT: Portrait of George Antheil (1900-1959). RIGHT: Hedy Lamarr (centre) with George Antheil to her right and his wife, Böski, to the left. |
In the early 1940s, Lamarr met the avant-garde composer and Nazi opponent George Antheil at a party and they became friends. Antheil also wanted to do anything he could to help the war effort and soon they started working on what they called the "Secret Communications System." I'm not understood in this kind of matters, but this is what I could gather from how the invention worked. Lamarr and Antheil were able to develop a mechanism that used identical piano rolls to manipulate radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception, forming an unbreakable code that prevented classified messages from being intercepted by the enemy. They wanted to use this with radio-controlled torpedoes, which were important in the naval war, but could easily be jammed and rerouted. Lamarr and Antheil submitted their patent in 1941 and were awarded U.S. Patent 2,292,387 for the "Secret Communication System" on August 11, 1942. Although this earlier version of frequency-hopping could potentially help win the war, the invention was dismissed by the U.S. Navy and was never implemented during World War II.
It was only in 1962 that Lamarr and Antheil's invention was implemented, when the U.S. military used it on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis after the patent expired. This idea of frequency-hopping would later serve as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as cell phones, fax machines, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Sadly, Lamarr and Antheil received little credit for their invention during their lifetime, but they were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
If you're interested in learning more about the "Secret Communication System," you can read a detailed description of the invention by clicking here.
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SOURCES:
Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film by Ruth Barton (The University Press of Kentucky, 2010)
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SOURCES:
Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film by Ruth Barton
http://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp
http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~jones/cscie129/nu_lectures/lecture7/hedy/lemarr.htm
http://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp
http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~jones/cscie129/nu_lectures/lecture7/hedy/lemarr.htm
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