| Hedy Lamarr |
in Dishonored Lady (1947) |
| Birth name |
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler |
| Born |
November 9 1913(1913--)
Vienna, Austria |
| Died |
January 19 2000 (aged 86)
Orlando, Florida, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) |
Fritz Mandl (1933-1937)
Gene Markey (1939-1941)
John Loder (1943-1947)
Teddy Stauffer (1951-1952)
W. Howard Lee (1953-1960)
Lewis J. Boies (1963-1965) (separated 1964)
|
| Children |
James Lamarr (b. 1939)
Denise (b. 1945)
Anthony (b. 1947) |
Hedy Lamarr (November 9 1913 – January 19 2000) was an Austrian-born American Jewish actress and communications technology innovator. Though known primarily for her great
beauty and her successful film career, she also co-invented the first form of spread
spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication.[1]
Early life and education
Lamarr was born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. While married to her first husband, Friedrich Mandl, aka Fritz
Mandl Budde, an arms manufacturer, she became educated technically in her husband's business. Mandl was 13 years older than
Lamarr.
Movie career
After her flight from Mandl, she met Louis B. Mayer in London. After he hired her, at his insistence she changed her name to Hedy Lamarr, choosing the
surname in homage to a famously beautiful film star of the silent era, Barbara LaMarr,
who had died of a drug overdose in 1926.
Lamarr had already appeared in several European films, including Ecstasy
(1933), A Czech film, in which she played a love-hungry young wife of an indifferent old husband. Closeups of her face in orgasm,
and long shots of her running nude through the woods, gave the film notoriety. (In reality, the looks of passion were looks of
pain, as the director poked her with a pin to get the desire effect.) (Robert Osbourne, TCM) Mandl bought up as many copies of
the film as he could possibly find, as he objected to her nudity, as well as "the expression on her face."
In Hollywood, she was usually cast as glamorous and seductive. Her many films include Algiers (1938), White Cargo (1942), and
Tortilla Flat (1942), based on the novel by John
Steinbeck. In 1941 she was cast alongside two other Hollywood beauties, Lana Turner and Judy Garland in the musical extravaganza
Ziegfeld Girl.
Her biggest success came as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) with Victor Mature
as the Biblical strongman. Samson and Delilah was the highest-grossing film of 1949.
Lamarr became a naturalized citizen of the United
States on April 10, 1953.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hedy Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd.[2]
Frequency-hopped spread spectrum invention
Hedy Lamarr (under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey) and composer George
Antheil received U.S. Patent for their Secret Communication System on August 11, 1942. This early
version of frequency hopping used a piano
roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided
torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam.
This idea was controversial and ahead of its time and technology. The technology was not implemented until 1962, when it was
used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba,[3]
after the patent had expired. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil (who died in 1959) made any money from the patent. Perhaps due to this
lag in development, the patent was little-known until 1997, when the Electronic
Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr an award for this contribution.[1]
Lamarr's frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices
ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. The technology in particular that is often attributed to her and
George Antheil is CDMA.[4]
Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council but she was told that she could better
help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. She once raised $7,000,000
at just one event.
Death
Lamarr died in Altamonte Springs, Florida (near Orlando) on January 19, 2000.
Legacy
In 2003, the Boeing corporation ran a series of recruitment ads
featuring Hedy Lamarr as a woman of science. No reference to her film career was made in the ads.
In 2005, the first Inventor's Day in German-speaking
countries was held in her honor on November 9, on what would have been her 92nd birthday.
Marriages
Briefly engaged to the actor George Montgomery in 1942,[5] Lamarr was married to:
- Friedrich Mandl (1900–1977), married 1933–37; chairman of Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik, a leading armaments firm founded by his father, Alexander Mandl. Mandl,
although partially of Jewish descent, was a supporter of political fascism, although not Nazism.
- Gene Markey (1895-1980), screenwriter and producer, married 1939–41; son (adopted in
1941, after their divorce), James Lamarr Markey (b. 1939).[6] When Lamarr and Markey divorced — she claimed they had only spent four evenings alone together in
their marriage — the judge advised her to get to know any future husband longer than the four weeks she had known Markey.
Previously, he was married to actresses Joan Bennett and Myrna
Loy.
- John Loder (born John Muir Lowe, 1898–1988), actor, married 1943–47; two
children: Anthony Loder (b. 1947) and Denise Loder (b. 1945). Loder adopted Hedy's son, James Lamarr Markey, and gave him his
surname. James Lamarr Loder later challenged Hedy Lamarr's will in 2000, which did not mention him. He later dropped his suit
against the estate in exchange for a lump-sum payment of $50,000.
- Ernest "Ted" Stauffer (1909-1991), nightclub owner, restaurateur, and former bandleader, married 1951–52.
- W. Howard Lee (1909–1981), a Texas oilman, married 1953–60. In 1960, he married film star Gene
Tierney.
- Lewis J. Boies (b. 1920), a lawyer, married 1963–65. They were divorced after Lamarr claimed he had threatened her with a
plastic baseball bat and wiffle ball.
Filmography
Trivia
- Cecil B. DeMille is said to have gathered the 1,900 peacock feathers that Lamarr
wore on her 18-foot-train dress in the film Samson and Delilah
(1949) himself, having followed molting peacocks on his ranch for the previous 10 years, until he had collected enough feathers
to have the garment made.
- According to My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959), the autobiography of actor and adventurer Errol Flynn, he went out of his way to meet Lamarr because he had heard of her outstanding beauty and wanted
to hear more of her personal life. "She had been married to the fabulously rich Fritz Mandel, a munitions magnate. The story was
that he used to lock up all her jewels, and he used to lock her up too. Her husband let her wear one or two jewels at a time, but
never all together, and the jewels were in his safe all the time. One night he was having over a very famous Nazi guest, Prince
von Staremberg, the leader of the Austrian Fascists. Mandel was doing a lot of business with him. Hedy asked her husband if she
could wear all her jewels that night because she wanted to impress the prince and so be of some help to Mandel in his business
relation. Her jeweled entrance caused a sensation. From her fingers up to her shoulders in ice, red ice, blue ice, emeralds,
rubies, diamonds. She must have weighed half as much as the late Aga Khan. As the dinner went on, Hedy developed a sick headache
and excused herself just for a moment, to go to the bathroom. But she never came back for coffee. Next thing she was in America —
in Hollywood — jewels and beauty and talent and all. Now, with Niven prodding me, I didn't know how to get around her to ask her
to tell me about her private life, but it sounded intriguing when David repeated, 'See if she'll talk about that night she
couldn't stand it anymore and made a getaway.' Hedy and I talked for a while. I started leading up to it in a diplomatic way, and
finally got out the words, 'Where is Mandel now?' At which, from this beautiful creature, came the growl, 'That sonofabitch!' She
spat and walked off."[7]
- In 1965 Lamarr made headlines for being arrested for shoplifting; charges were eventually dropped. This situation played out
again in 1991.
- According to her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me (1966),
once while running away from Friedrich Mandl, she slipped into a brothel and hid in an empty
room. While her husband searched the brothel, a man entered the room and she had sex with him so she could remain hidden. She was
finally successful in escaping when she hired a new maid who resembled her; she drugged the maid
and used her uniform as a disguise to escape.[9] Lamarr
later sued the publisher claiming that many of the anecdotes in the book, which was described
by a judge as "filthy, nauseating, and revolting," were fabricated by its ghost writer, Leo
Guild.[10][11]
- In an interview included in the DVD release of Blazing Saddles (1974),
Mel Brooks claims that Hedy Lamarr threatened to sue the producers. He says she believed the
film's running "Hedley Lamarr" joke infringed her right to publicity. In one scene, one character
even warns another that Hedy would sue. Brooks says they settled out of court for a small sum.
- In the song "Feed Me (Git it)" from Little Shop of Horrors (1986),
Audry II lists a date with Hedy Lamarr as part of his offer to Seymour in exchange for food.
- In 1998, a vector illustration of Lamarr's face was used by Corel Corporation on the packaging and in the publicity for its CorelDraw
8 software. Lamarr retained Attorney Michael McDonnell and sued Corel for
damages relating to unauthorized use of her likeness. The case was resolved in 1999 and settled out of court for an undisclosed
sum, under terms that allowed Corel five years of exclusive rights to the image.[12]
- In the video game Half-Life 2, Doctor Isaac
Kleiner keeps a debeaked headcrab he calls 'Lamarr' and at some points in the game calls
'Hedy'. The same headcrab appears in the ending sequence of the game.
Quotes
- "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." [1]
- "It is easier for women to succeed in business, the arts, and politics in America than in Europe." [2]
- "Films have a certain place in a certain time period. Technology is forever".
See also
References
- ^ a b Electronic Frontier Foundation (11 March 1997). Movie Legend Hedy Lamarr to be Given Special
Award at EFF's Sixth Annual Pioneer Awards. Press release. Retrieved on
2007-07-04.
- ^ Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Hollywood Walk of Fame
directory. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/biography/lamarr.html
- ^ http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~jones/cscie129/nu_lectures/lecture7/hedy/lemarr.htm
- ^ "Hedy Lamarr Engaged: Screen Star, 27, to Be Bride of George Montgomery,
25", The New York Times, 25 March 1942, p. 23
- ^ "Hedy Lamarr Adopts Baby Boy", The New York Times, 5 November 1941, p.
30
- ^ Errol Flynn, My Wicked, Wicked Ways (New York: Cooper Square Press,
2003), pages 255-256
- ^ Hedy at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Hedy Lamarr, with Leo Guild and Cy Rice, "Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a
Woman", NY: Bartholomew House, 1966
- ^ "Hedy Lamarr Loses Suit to Halt Book," The New York Times, 27 September 1966, p. 74
- ^ "Lamarr Autobiography Prompts Plaigarism Suit," The New York Times, February 1967, p. 18
- ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/1998/12/02/corel_settles_in_lamarr_pic/
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