Hedy Lamarr

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Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr AKA Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler

Born: 9-Nov-1913
Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
Died: 19-Jan-2000
Location of death: Altamonte Springs, FL
Cause of death: Natural Causes
Remains: Cremated (ashes scattered in the Vienna Woods, Austria)

Gender: Female
Religion: Roman Catholic [1]
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Bisexual
Occupation: Actor, Inventor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Actress, invented frequency hopping

Long-time MGM actress Hedy Lamarr is best-known for starring roles opposite Charles Boyer in Algiers and Victor Mature in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah. She grew up in Austria, started working in film at 17, and at 19 made her first fame with scandalous full frontal nudity in the exquisite German romance Exstase (Ecstasy). According to legend she later met Louis B. Mayer in London and he brought her to America, where she launched a long career in Hollywood.

In 1942, working with composer George Antheil, Lamarr came up with the idea now known as spread-spectrum or frequency hopping, to make wartime radio transmissions more secure from eavesdropping and defend radio-guided torpedoes from jamming. Lamarr and Antheil spent months designing a system of synchronized switching -- based on player piano rolls -- between 88 different frequencies, and submitted it to the National Inventor's Council, a federal wartime agency overseen by Charles F. Kettering. Kettering was enthusiastic about the idea, but Navy officials deemed it too technically daunting. Technology similar to what Lamarr and Antheil described was later developed for the military, and first used successfully (without piano rolls) in 1962, three years after Lamarr's patent had expired. The concept is also used in wireless internet transmission and cellular phones.

[1] Born Jewish.

Father: Emil Kiesler (banker)
Mother: Gertrud Lichtwitz
Husband: Fritz Mandl (munitions manufacturer, arranged marriage, m. 10-Aug-1933, div. 1937)
Husband: Gene Markey (writer and producer, m. 5-Mar-1939, div. 1940)
Husband: John Loder (actor, m. 27-May-1943, div. 17-Jul-1947)
Daughter: Denise Loder Deluca (b. 29-May-1945)
Son: Anthony Loder (b. 1-Mar-1947)
Son: James Lamarr (b. 1939, adopted)
Husband: Teddy Stauffer (m. 1951, div. 1952)
Husband: W. Howard Lee (m. Dec-1953, div. 1960)
Husband: Lewis J. Boies (m. 4-Mar-1963, div. 21-Jun-1965)
Boyfriend: Jorge Guinle (d. 2004)
Slept with: Adolf Hitler (c. 1934, per 2008 biography)

High School: Vienna, Austria

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
EFF Pioneer Award 1997
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6247 Hollywood Blvd (motion pictures)
Endorsement of Liggett Group Chesterfield cigarettes
Shoplifting Los Angeles, CA Jan-1966, acquitted
Shoplifting Casselberry, FL Aug-1991, guilty, one year probation
Naturalized US Citizen
Austrian Ancestry Paternal
Hungarian Ancestry Maternal
Jewish Ancestry
Risk Factors: Smoking

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Female Animal (22-Jan-1958)
The Story of Mankind (8-Nov-1957) · Joan of Arc
My Favorite Spy (17-Dec-1951) · Lily Dalbray
Copper Canyon (22-Sep-1950)
A Lady Without Passport (3-Aug-1950) · Marianne Lorress
Samson and Delilah (31-Oct-1949) · Delilah
Let's Live a Little (9-Dec-1948)
Dishonored Lady (16-May-1947) · Madeleine Damien
The Strange Woman (25-Oct-1946)
Her Highness and the Bellboy (11-Jul-1945) · Princess Veronica
Experiment Perilous (18-Dec-1944) · Allida Bederaux
The Conspirators (17-Oct-1944) · Irene Von Mohr
The Heavenly Body (29-Dec-1943) · Vicky Whitley
Crossroads (23-Jul-1942) · Lucienne Talbot
Tortilla Flat (21-May-1942) · Dolores Sweets Ramirez
White Cargo (1942) · Tondelayo
H.M. Pulham, Esq. (3-Dec-1941) · Marvin Myles
Ziegfeld Girl (25-Apr-1941) · Sandra Kolter
Come Live With Me (29-Jan-1941) · Johnny Jones
Comrade X (13-Dec-1940) · Theodore
Boom Town (30-Aug-1940) · Karen Vanmeer
I Take This Woman (2-Feb-1940) · Georgi Gragore
Lady of the Tropics (11-Aug-1939) · Manon DeVargnes
Algiers (28-Jun-1938) · Gaby
Ecstasy (20-Jan-1933)

Official Website:
http://www.hedylamarr.com/

Author of books:
Ecstasy and Me: My Life as A Woman (1966, memoir)

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