Heritage - Hedy Lamarr, the Dishonored Lady behind our WiFi

Hedy Lamarr: Frequency Hopping in Hollywood

Hedy Lamarr, born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, November 9th, 1914 in Wien, was known as the most beautiful woman in film and one of the most controversial at all. Hedy Lamarr is known to be the first nude in film, and who portrayed an orgasm - it was in the film `Ekstase / Ecstasy´. Hedy Lamarr´s beauty but was too her challenge. Because of her beauty, Hedy Lamarr´s interlectual capabilities had been underestimated, if ever regarded.

by Earl of Cruise

Hedy Lamarr as Sandra Kolter in `Ziegfeld Girl´ - Source: MGM, colouring artist unknown

Hedy Lamarr´s image - the Beauty Queen

The `Strange Woman´, a title of one of Hedy Lamarr´s movies, was so much more than being a simple beauty. With the composer George Antheil, Hedy Lamarr developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers, at the beginning of WW II.

Hedy Lamarr Movie star, inventor of WiFi, her potential success far beyond Hollywood
Source: YouTube

In a German TV show at ZDF broadcast system a feature about famous inventors aired, that nobody knows about, in the TV series `HISTORY´. Among them Hollywood legend Hedy Lamarr. I was flabbergasted back then, and got intrigued. I came across Hedy Lamarr the first time, when reading about her, escaping on board NORMANDIE in 1937 from a control freak and jealous husband, who was an Austrian weapon magnate with close ties to the Nazis - Friedrich Mandl. Mandl, Hedy Lamarr's first husband, reportedly spent US $ 280,000.00 (US $ 5.19 million in 2017 Dollars) in an unsuccessful attempt to suppress the film by purchasing every existing print of her film `Ecstasy´.

As the wife of Mandl, with his more than traditional view about the role for a wife, and especially that of such a beauty, Hedy stoped filming. Mandl spoiled her with any sort of luxuries, but treated her as a beautiful gem, that is shining and spreading his fame. Hedy Lamarr, then Hedwig Mandl, accompanied her husband even during talks about war technology. Hedy Lamarr listened, noticed and learned, outwardly being the bored beauty ...

The film `Ekstase / Ecstasy´ was produced in Europe, late Czechoslovakia, and did not confirm to the ridiculous Hays Code. The condemnation but made the film famous. `Exstasy´ became a box office hit with back then US $ 1.5 million, despite being first condemned and Hedy Lamarr´s image was set in stone - The exotic European Beauty. Hedy Lamarr´s fate, similar to that of Frances Farmer, who did not wanted to be pressed into the image frame of Hollywood, and "revolted".

Still from Ekstase - Source: TV SPIELFILM

Although Hedy Lamarr was dismayed and now disillusioned about taking other roles, the film gained world recognition after winning an award in Rome. Throughout Europe the film was considered an artistic work, while in America it was considered overly sexual and received negative publicity, especially among women's groups and evangelicals.

Hedy Lamarr, a 1940s and early 1950s film idol, was joint winner of a scientific award for her work on radio waves -

Photograph: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Hedy Lamarr behind the our modern communication system?

Hedy Lamarr starred in biblical blockbusters, which were more Hollywood drama stories than biblical.

She was billed as an unknown but well-publicized Austrian actress, which created anticipation in audiences. Mayer hoped she would become another Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. According to one viewer, when her face first appeared on the screen, "everyone gasped ... Lamarr's beauty literally took one's breath away."

Hedy Lamarr as Delilah in the Cecil B DeMille’s 1949 biblical blockbuster - Photograph: Allstar

Although Hedy Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she had a seperate room filled with scietific books. Here Hedy Lamarr worked in her spare time on various hobbies and inventions, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. The beverage was unsuccessful; Hedy Lamarr herself said it tasted like Alka-Seltzer.

Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr Story

Now a Susan Sarandon coproduced film will tell how her scientific work pioneered modern communications. This film tells how Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr helped to invent WiFi, or stating it simple us becoming `Homo Sapiens Mobilphone´.

Hedy Lamarr´s story really is an extraordinary one, and ripe for the telling - the Lamarr, a glamorous and beautiful Hollywood leading lady is in the summit of the film industry. But yet treated as a sexual trophy and repeatedly undervalued intellectually. But Hedy Lamarr´s scientific knowhow leads to a breakthrough in military technology and opens up the way for contemporary communications methods, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

But at first Hedy Lamarr´s and George Antheil´s invention, even recognized to be patented, was rejected by the US Navy ... Do I hear: "This is a Navy job!" .. ? ... Again arrogant and incompetent US Navy - how can an actress, yes beautiful, invent anything useful, nor vital to the war effort, even? And then, this beauty is a foreigner, from Austria ... and isn´t Austria part of our enemy?

Never the less the U.S. Navy explored their frequency-hopping device, but found implementing it impractical.

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Never judge a book by its cover!

The remarkable life of  Hedy Lamarr, known for her beauty - both Snow White and Cat Woman were based on her iconic image, with a scandalous personal life and raunchy screen persona - considered the most beautiful woman in the world by her Hollywood peers in the 1940s and 50s - is now the subject of a documentary, co-produced by the actress Susan Sarandon, and narrated by Diane Kruger, which received its British premiere in London on Wednesday, Movember 11th, as part of the Jewish Film Festival: `Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr Story´ follows the career of young Hedwig Kiesler from her childhood in pre war Wien, where she got the typical education of an upper class girl, on to her escape, disguised as a maid, from her rich first husband. At the age of 16 she escaped from her girls college in Switzerland to become an actress. The documentary is using news footage and interviews with Hedy Lamarr’s children from her six marriages. For the first time director Alexandra Dean traces Hedy Lamarr’s journey to London and later to Los Angeles, transitting the Northatlantic on board NORMANDIE. On board NORMANDIE and previously in Paris, Hedy Lamarr met Louis B. Mayer,  they arranged a future film contract. And in Hollywood Hedy Lamarr became a star after appearing with Charles Boyer in the film `Algiers´. But at the centre of the new documentary is Hedy Lamarr´s more than little known life as a successful inventor. This was Hedy Lamarr´s biggest role as the inventor of frequency hopping during the war that slipped under the radar. The documentary pays tribute to Hedy Lamarr whose brilliant mind rivaled her looks, and gave us the basis for the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies that keep us connected today.

Hedy Lamarr - MGM Promotion photo

Very often it seems to me, that Hedy Lamarr is looking in her films and photographs a bit bored. As if she is subchallenged, especially as she knew of her lacking acting skills.

But Hedy Lamarr was taken seriously by her father, and fostered from childhood onward her thirst for knowledge, and supported his daughter.

Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil were granted a patent in 1942, that ended in 1959. Hedy Lamarr wanted to contribute to war and help for the downfall of Hitler and his Nazi regime. Relatives of Hedy Lamarr still lived in Europe. Hedy did help her mother to escape from Europe. 

But the concept "spread spectrum" was not forgotten. With better technology in the 1950s, and experiences in WWII, other engineers began exploring similar devices, developing a "spread spectrum" technology for encrypted communications. And during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in the early 1960s secure messages were exchanged using concepts first championed by Hedy Lamarr.

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. declassified "spread spectrum" technologies, making them available for commercial use.

The concept "spread spectrum" by Hedy Lamarr helped develop is what makes modern day Wi-Fi possible

In 1997 when the Electronic Frontier Foundation bestowed a pioneer award on Hedy Lamarr for her part in inventing "spread spectrum" technology, it noted that the technology was used "in the products of over 40 companies manufacturing items ranging from cell phones to wireless networking systems." In the 20 years since, one imagines that number has greatly increased.

Hedy Lamarr was never really credited with being the secret inventor of devices that led to secure WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS communications - that is, until 1997 by Electronic Frontier Foundation and now with the new film.

TFW you're 3000% done with glam photo shoots and are inwardly planning a new radio frequency system for torpedoes - Source: Night and the Diva @NitrateDiva

According to her son, his mother Hedy would have for any problem a solution ...

Hedy Lamarr finally was recognized for her brain and intellectual capacity

And Hedy Lamarr was some kind of universal genius, or so ... Among the few who knew of Lamarr's inventiveness was aviation tycoon Howard Hughes. Lamarr discussed her relationship with Hughes during an interview, saying that while they dated he actively supported her "tinkering" hobbies. He put his team of science engineers at her disposal, saying they would do or make anything she asked for. On one occasion, Howard Hughes was trying to modify his aircraft designs to make planes fly faster. He asked her for ideas; "He relied on me," Hedy Lamarr said.

Hedy Lamarr began studying the aerodynamics of birds and the shapes of fish, afterward presenting him with sketched ideas to make wings on planes less square and more efficient. "I showed it to Howard Hughes and he said, 'You're a genius,'" Hedy said.

Sometimes it need a bit more than time, encouragement and realization any woman is so much more than only a beauty.
Hedy Lamarr for long reduced only to her beauty, at the end of the 1990s finally was recognized for her brain and intellectual capacity.
In Austria, November 9th Hedy Lamarr´s birthday is now the Inventors Day!

Hedy Lamarr, actress and inventor - Source: Legacy.com

Extraordinary Women "Hedy Lamarr" (2011)
Hedy Lamarr was known as the most beautiful woman in film and one of the most controversial.

Source: YouTube

Human beauty is fading too fast to last.