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
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 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.

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)

    High School: Vienna, Austria

    EFF Pioneer Award 1997
    Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
    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)
    My Favorite Spy (17-Dec-1951)
    Samson and Delilah (31-Oct-1949)
    Her Highness and the Bellboy (11-Jul-1945)
    Experiment Perilous (18-Dec-1944)
    The Conspirators (17-Oct-1944)
    The Heavenly Body (29-Dec-1943)
    Crossroads (23-Jul-1942)
    Tortilla Flat (21-May-1942)
    White Cargo (1942)
    H.M. Pulham, Esq. (3-Dec-1941)
    Ziegfeld Girl (25-Apr-1941)
    Come Live With Me (29-Jan-1941)
    Comrade X (13-Dec-1940)
    Boom Town (30-Aug-1940)
    I Take This Woman (2-Feb-1940)
    Algiers (28-Jun-1938)
    Ecstasy (20-Jan-1933)

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

Author of books:
Ecstasy and Me: My Life as A Woman (1966, with Leo Guild and Cy Rice)

Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile

Copyright ©2008 Soylent Communications