?Who is Hedy Lamarr, the Hollywood babe whose invention was the foundation of modern wireless communications systems
January 19th marks the anniversary of the passing of Hedi Lamarre, who was famous for her enchanting beauty, which was her ticket into the world of Hollywood art in its golden age.
But in addition to that beautiful face and strong feminine presence, Lamar had a sharp intelligence and the ability to innovate, which enabled her to invent a technology that is still used to this day in many modern scientific applications.
What is the story of Lamarr, who fled Europe to become a brilliant movie star in America, and who tried to change the course of World War II with her invention, but because of her beauty and fame, and perhaps just because she was a woman, she was not taken seriously?
International fame and notoriety
Lamarr, whose real name was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was born in the Austrian capital, Vienna, to a well-off Jewish family, in 1914.
She was passionate about acting and theater since her childhood, and was also passionate about technology and inventions from an early age, to the point that she was able to disassemble her music box and put its parts back together when she was five years old.
Lamarr received acting lessons in Vienna, and as a teenager she participated in small roles in some films and plays in Austria and Germany.
But it was her starring role in the film "Ecstase" (Czech in Czech, "Ekstase" in German) by Czech director Gustav Macati at the age of eighteen that gained her international fame and notoriety at the same time.
The film was considered in most European countries a creative work of art, and won an award at the Venice (Venice) Film Festival. But the Pope of the Vatican condemned it, and it received negative reactions in the United States because Lamar appeared naked in some scenes, and her face appeared in a scene with sexual connotations.
Lamar in the controversial Czech film "Ecstase".
Lamar then participated in many theatrical roles in Vienna, especially the play “Elizabeth, Empress of Austria,” which achieved great success and gained her heroine many admirers.
One such admirer was the industrial magnate, Friedrich Mandel, who called him the "Henry Ford of Austria." Mandel owned a huge ammunition factory and had strong ties to the Nazi and fascist regimes in Germany and Italy, respectively.
In 1933, she married Lamar Mandel, who was about 15 years older than her, despite the opposition of her parents because of his connections to Hitler and Mussolini, and lived a luxurious life in a huge castle.
By 1937, Lamarr could no longer bear life with her husband, who was very jealous of her, as well as life in Vienna, amid the increasing persecution of Jews, so she decided to flee from both and travel to London, where she stayed for a few months with relatives.
"The most beautiful woman in the world"
In London, she met Louis B. Mayer, head of the famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio, who was constantly going to Europe in search of new talent.
Mayer made her an offer to work with MGM, persuaded her to change her name to distance herself from the reputation she had acquired as an "ecstasy girl," and told her what he told other Jewish actors at the time: not to talk about their religion.
Mayer's wife, who greatly admired her, suggested that she change her name to Hedy Lamarr, after the famous silent film heroine Barbara Lamarr.
Mayer took her to Hollywood in 1938, and began promoting her as "the most beautiful woman in the world."
Lamarr began her career in Hollywood with the movie “Algiers” (“Algeria”), which achieved great success and attracted attention to her beauty from the first scene in which she appeared on the silver screen.
Lamar's pictures were published on all the covers of art magazines, and many women in Hollywood began to imitate her hairstyle and the way she applied cosmetics, and many men sought to get close to her - and apparently among them was John Kennedy, whom Lamarr said she had dated before he became president of America. .
She later participated in many successful films, such as Boom Town, White Cargo, Comrade X, and Ziegfeld Girl .
Hedy Lamarr in a scene from "Comrade X" with Clark Gable
Mayer restricted Lamarr to roles that focused on her beauty and femininity, which bored her, even though she worked long hours, sometimes up to 16 hours a day.
Lamar the inventor
Lamar found solace in her favorite hobby, inventing, which she practiced after working at the studio.
She met aircraft designer Howard Hughes, and a romantic relationship developed between them, as well as their shared love of science and inventions. Lamar admired Hughes's mind, and would go to his factory and watch how airplanes were designed and manufactured.
Lamar mentioned in a press interview conducted with her in 1990 that Hughes was trying at that time to increase the speed of his planes and that she helped him do that, as she suggested that he change the design of the wings, after she studied pictures of the wings of birds and the fins of fish that are famous for their speed.
In her spare time, Lamarr invented a few things, including a pill that dissolved in water to turn it into a soft drink, but her invention was not successful because of the bad taste of that drink - according to Lamarr herself.
By the early 1940s, the Axis forces were making significant advances on several fronts, and Britain, with its conventional weapons, was finding it extremely difficult to fend off advanced German weapons.
Naval boats needed to control anti-ship and anti-submarine torpedo missiles and sometimes change their course, and thus communication between them and those missiles was necessary. But wireless communication is not secure, and the enemy can monitor its frequency and jam it.
Lamar says she suggested to famous aircraft designer Howard Hughes an idea that helped him increase the speed of his planes
Lamarr had the idea of devising a secret method of communication that could not be jammed: instead of using a single frequency, he proposed using many frequencies that were constantly changing in sync with each other and therefore could not be jammed, a technique he called "frequency hopping."
“The idea for this invention came to me when I was thinking of creating something that would help bring some balance to Britain,” Lamar said in a newspaper interview in 1990.
Rejection and ridicule
Lamar did not know how to implement this idea, which experts later described as genius, so she sought the help of an innovative music composer named George Antheil.
Antheil was not an engineer, but he was an expert on how pianos worked and how to tune them. Antheil proposed using two small piano-like cylinders that would begin rotating at the same time and in the same frequency pattern to produce a kind of secret code that would enable ships to communicate with torpedoes.
The two presented the idea to the US National Inventors Council, which considered it genius, and advised them to contact Professor Sam McEwen, who designed the electronic component of the invention.
The patent was registered in the names of Hedwig Kiesler Markey (Lamarr's name during her second marriage to screenwriter Gene Markey) and George Antheil in August 1942.
The late 2017 documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” notes that Lamarr and Antheil donated their invention to the National Inventors Council, which in turn gave it to the US Navy.
The film quotes Antheil as saying that the Navy rejected the invention and ridiculed the idea of “putting piano records on board torpedo shells.”
The film indicates that Lamarr wanted to continue developing the invention after the Navy rejected it, but Antheil was not enthusiastic.
Perhaps Lamarr then realized that the only way she could help was to use her beauty and fame - those were the only qualifications society allowed her to use at the time.
Lamar was able to sell war bonds to finance the American forces worth about $25 million (the equivalent of about $343 million today), according to the documentary, and she also participated in parties to entertain the soldiers - even though she had not yet obtained American citizenship.
To make matters worse, later in 1942, the US government confiscated the patent as “a property of an enemy alien.”
“I don't understand, when they used me to sell war bonds, I wasn't a citizen of an enemy country, and when I invent something for this country, I become a citizen of an enemy country,” Lamarr asked disapprovingly in a 1990 interview.
Hedy Lamarr with Spencer Tracy in the movie “I Take This Woman,” which she starred in shortly before she invented the “frequency hopping” technique.
"Hollywood broke my heart"
The films shown to it during this period were of the "C" type, designed by the MGM studio to entertain and entertain soldiers.
Lamarr wanted more challenging roles, but realized she would not have the same status as actresses like Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. "They think I'm a bad actress. Hollywood broke my heart," Lamarr said later.
Trying to break free from the constraints of MGM and Louis B. Mayer, she decided to produce her own films - something that was not welcomed at the time. She produced two films, The Strange Woman in 1946, and Dishonored Lady in 1947, but they did not enjoy commercial success.
Her most prominent role was the role of Delilah in the film Samson and Delilah, which was a huge success in 1950 and won two Oscars.
Lamarr's star quickly began to decline, and the roles she played later achieved little success.
On a personal level, she was unhappy in none of her six marriages, none of which lasted long, and she lost a lot of money in the production of her 1954 epic film, “Loves of Three Queens.”
She underwent many plastic surgeries, many of which failed, and the media began mocking her appearance after she was described in her youth as the most beautiful woman in the world.
Lamar lived in isolation during the last three decades of her life, and the only way to communicate with her son, daughter, and friends was by phone, until she passed away on January 19, 2000.
Lamarr was confined to one-dimensional femme fatale roles
A forgotten legacy and late recognition
In 1990, journalist Fleming Meeks conducted a telephone interview with Lamar after hearing about her invention during a conversation between his father, an astrophysicist, and a friend of his father, an expert in the field of secure communications.
Meeks spoke with Lamarr five times by phone, and his Forbes article was the first time Lamarr's invention was mentioned in the media.
Meeks kept the tapes on which he recorded the dialogue, which the makers of the documentary " Bombshell " made great use of.
Lamarr stated in those recordings that the US Navy used her technology before the patent rights expired, yet Lamarr did not receive any money for it.
This is supported by what the designer of the “Sonobuoy” floating device used to detect submarines wrote, stating that the US Navy gave him Lamar’s patent before the expiration of his rights, and that he used its technology in designing the device and in designing surveillance drones.
Those working in the communications industry were among the first to pay attention to the story of Lamar’s invention, as he had already begun to use “frequency hopping” technology in GPS, broadband technology (Wi-Fi), Bluetooth wireless communications, and even in the satellite industry. Industrial and military industries.
In 1997, the US Navy, military giant Lockheed Martin, and satellite manufacturer Milstar decided to give Lamar an award in recognition of her genius idea. Her son received the award on her behalf, and he said that his mother felt very happy.
Lamar wanted to be remembered as someone who contributed to the service of humanity, and now she is finally getting some recognition.
Alexandra Dean (left), director of the documentary "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story," poses with American superstar and executive producer of the film, Susan Sarandon, during a special screening of the film in London.
The documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, which was primarily written, directed and produced by female actors, played a major role in introducing this aspect of Lamarr's life and personality.
Perhaps the story of Hedy Lamarr is similar to the stories of many women in the fields of science, engineering, technology, and sports, who were not taken seriously, and many other women who were placed by society in the mold of the beautiful female who is not good at anything at all, and is not expected to be good at anything at all, except to be a female. beautiful.
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