Pinup girl: Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born in 1913 in Vienna (Austria). Since she was a little girl she was noticed because of her intelligence. She began to study engineering when she was only 16 but three years later she started her artistic career by the hand of the director Max Reinhardt. She acted in films such as "Geld auf der Strasse" (1930) directed by Georg Jacoby, "Symphonie der Liebe" (1933) or "Ekstase" (1933) by Gustav Machatý film in which she became worldwide famous because of her beautiful nude.

Very soon Hedy married Fritz Mandl an important arms manufacturer. He tried in vain to buy all the prints of the film "Ekstase" because he was very jeaulous and authoritarian. This Austrofascist man became almost Hedy's master and she had to leave behind her promising career as an actress. So she continued her engineering studies and went with his husband to meetings with bussiness partners and technical experts in wich she learned a lot about military technology. Some of these meetings acted as guide to devise and patent together with George Antheil in the 40's decade an early version of frequency hopping. This idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections.

In the meantime some people said that Hedy lived a romance with her charwoman and thanks to her main help she could run away from her husband in 1937. First she went to Paris (France) and then from this city she travelled to London (England) where she met Louis B. Mayer. He chose Hedy Lamarr as her artistic name for paying tribute to the actress Barbara Lamarr who was a Mayer's old lover and died in tragical circumstances in 1926.

Hedy rebuilt her artistic career in Hollywood with a big success thanks moreover to her glamourous and seductive beauty. She acted in films such as "Algiers" (1938) directed by John Cromwell, "Boom Town" (1940) by Jack Conway, "Ziegfield Girl" (1941) by Robert Z. Leonard in which she shared stage acting by the side of Lana Turner and Judy Garland, "White Cargo" (1942) by Richard Thorpe, or "Tortilla Flat" (1942) by Victor Fleming.

In 1949 she had the main role in the film "Samson And Delilah" directed by Cecil B. DeMille. But since 1950 her career went into decline and she appeared in not many films. "My Favorite Spy" (1951) directed by Norman Z. McLeod and "The Story of Mankind" (1957) by Irwin Allen were two of the most famous. Because of her artistic trajectory she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hedy Lamarr had an intense love life and also had troubles with justice when she was accused of shoplifting. She finally died in 2000 at the age of 86 in Altamonte Springs, Florida, but her ashes were spread by her son Anthony Loder in the Wienerwald of Vienna according to her mother's wishes.