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Hedy Lamarr – The Strange Woman
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, who later under the name of Hedy Lamarr was to have the kind of Hollywood career everyone dreams of, was a student of Max Reinhardt, the wife of a munitions manufacturer, and the cause of a European scandal in her “first life.”
Ecstasy – A scandal and at the same time the temporary end of her film career
Her film appearance in 1933 in a nude role in the Austrian-Czech film Ecstasy by Gustav Machatý was a tremendous scandal in cinema history.
But the actress disappears from public life at the age of 19 when she marries the Austrian munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl, who tries in vain to buy all existing prints of the scandalous film. He hides his young wife away for safekeeping. Lamarr endures four years of married life in a golden cage before she leaves her husband and emigrates to the United States in 1937.
On the ship to America – A contract with MGM
Louis B. Mayer gives her a contract but insists that she changes her name first. MGM markets her as the most beautiful woman in the world. It isn't long before the rising star Hedy Lamarr finds a place in the MGM firmament. In her promising Hollywood debut “Algiers” she stars with Charles Boyer as 'Pepe Le Moko.' Her 'exotic' sex appeal makes headlines. In the following productions the studio tries to turn her into a really big star with roles alongside Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, James Stewart, and William Powell. Hedy Lamarr is considered the brunette answer to the super famous “Hollywood bombshells”. Among her most popular films are Boom Town (Jack Conway, 1949) and Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949); the critics are less than enthusiastic, her break into big time stardom never comes. Hedy Lamarr goes down in history as the most beautiful woman in the world, her movies leave no mark. From a film history point of view the movies she made outside of Hollywood remain the most interesting – Ecstasy by Gustav Machatý, The Strange Woman by Edgar Ulmer and Experiment Perilous by Jacques Tourneur. The Strange Woman seems to be the programmatic precursor of the biography of Hedwig Eva Kiesler.
Strange – misunderstood by many
She tries to make her sphere of activity go beyond the inflexible “star mold.” As a Jew who converted to Catholicism she is both sensitive to and aware of the political developments taking place in Europe. From her years of being married to the munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl she has heard a lot about information systems and is quite aware of the problem of the vulnerability of radio communications. When she by chance meets the avant-garde composer George Antheil, the so-called “enfant terrible of music,” at a party in Hollywood in 1940, she not only finds someone who shares her weariness of the world of superficial beauty, but for the first time someone who understands her idea of frequency hopping. Lying on the living room rug Lamarr and Antheil use a box of matches and its contents to fashion a device for the radio control of torpedoes that wouldn't be susceptible to interception or jamming. They invent a torpedo guidance system using 88 frequencies – analogous to the 88 keys of the piano and patent their invention.
A life of beauty, a hideous end
In 1958 her Hollywood career is over, she has plastic surgery done numerous times in the years to follow. She wants to stay the most beautiful woman in the world, her “look” is copied by many actresses and serves as a source of inspiration for a number of fictional characters (Catwoman, Disney’s Snow White, the replicant in Blade Runner).
She is arrested repeatedly for shoplifting. She sues people and companies alike, including Mel Brooks for using her name in Blazing Saddles (1974) and the software company Corel Corporation for using her photo for the cover of one of its products.
She avoids public appearances, only maintains contact with a few confidants via the telephone. She was married six times, had three children (two of her own – a son and a daughter, and an adopted son with John Loder). In 2000 she dies at the age of 85, lonely and forgotten. |
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