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One of the best known actresses of the mid-20th century revolutionized weapons systems and helped create cell phones.
Hedy Lamarr; born Hedwig Eva Kiesler into a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna, Austria on November 9th, 1914.
As an only child, Lamarr received a great deal of attention from her father, a bank director and curious man, who inspired her to look at the world with open eyes. He would often take her for long walks where he would discuss the inner-workings of different machines, like the printing press or street cars. These conversations guided Lamarr’s thinking and at only 5 years of age, she could be found taking apart and reassembling her music box to understand how the machine operated. Lamarr’s mother was a concert pianist and introduced her to the arts, placing her in both ballet and piano lessons from a young age.
Lamarr was privately tutored from age 4, a proficient pianist and danbce by age 10 and could speak 4 different languages. She did no go to college but at age 16, she enrolled in Max Reinhardt's drama school in Berlin, Germany.
The brilliant mind of Hollywood legend Hedy Lamarr (7:34)
PBS NewsHour - YouTube
“The brains of people are more interesting than looks ”
The striking movie star may be most well-known for her roles in the 1940s Oscar-nominated films ‘Algiers’ and ‘Sampson and Delilah.’ But it is her technical mind that is her greatest legacy, according to a new documentary on her life called ‘Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.’ The film chronicles the patent that Lamarr filed for frequency-hopping technology in 1941 that became a precursor to the secure wi-fi, GPS and Bluetooth now used by billions of people around the world.
LaMarr’s life story is indeed remarkable. She married her first husband in 1934 at age 19. Unhappily married to an affluent, domineering munitions manufacturer, LaMarr fled their home by bicycle in the middle of the night.
Work Experience
She emigrated to the U.S. in the lead up to World War II and caught the eye of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer on the ship from London to New York. LaMarr spoke little English but talked her way into a lucrative contract to act in Hollywood films. The Viennese beauty soon settled into life in Beverly Hills and socialized with luminaries including John F. Kennedy and Howard Hughes, who provided her with equipment to run experiments in her trailer during her downtime from acting. It was in this scientific environment that LaMarr found her true calling.
“Inventions are easy for me to do,’ the Austrian accented LaMarr says in ‘Bombshell.’ “I don’t have to work on ideas, they come naturally.”
Frequency Hopping
Frequency Hopping
How Hedy Lamarr developed a secret communications system (2:20)
American Masters PBS - YouTube
In 1940 Hedy Lamarr met George Antheil at a dinner party, with humour, intelligence and confidence in common they became friends quickly. Known for his writing, film scores, and experimental music compositions, he shared the same inventive spirit as Hedy. Antheil recalled Hedy saying that she did not feel very comfortable, sitting there in Hollywood and making lots of money when things were in such a state. After a marriage and divorce to man who bought and sold ammunition, which she had heard many conversations over the dinner table about. Being the bright engineer she was, she identified a problem which needed to be solved and engineered just the solution.
Hedy came up with an extraordinary new communication system used with the intention of guiding torpedoes to their targets in war. The system involved the use of “frequency hopping” amongst radio waves, with both transmitter and receiver hopping to new frequencies together. Doing so prevented the interception of the radio waves, thereby allowing the torpedo to find its intended target. After its creation, Lamarr and Antheil sought a patent and military support for the invention. While awarded U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 in August of 1942, the Navy decided against the implementation of the new system. The rejection led Lamarr to instead support the war efforts with her celebrity by selling war bonds. Happy in her adopted country, she became an American citizen in April 1953.
Meanwhile, Lamarr’s patent expired before she ever saw a penny from it. While she continued to accumulate credits in films until 1958, her inventive genius was yet to be recognized by the public. It wasn’t until Lamarr’s later years that she received any awards for her invention. The Electronic Frontier Foundation jointly awarded Lamarr and Antheil with their Pioneer Award in 1997. Lamarr also became the first woman to receive the Invention Convention’s Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. Although she died in 2000, Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the development of her frequency hopping technology in 2014. Such achievement has led Lamarr to be dubbed “the mother of Wi-Fi” and other wireless communications like GPS and Bluetooth.
Hedy Lamarr and Howard Hughes' Relationship (2:41)
American Masters PBS - YouTube
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