Posted on 11/13/2015 10:42:10 AM PST by SkyPilot
If you were on Google earlier this week -- and let's face it, you were -- you may have spotted a Google Doodle which celebrates the life of one of Hollywood's most iconic actresses.
Hedy Lamarr, an actress of the golden age of cinema, would have been 101 years old this week, although simply calling her an actress might be something of a misnomer. As well as appearing in films, Lamarr also applied her incredible intellect to a series of scientific and technological endeavors, which eventually earned her a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and practically every household in America.
Even as an actress, Lamarr broke ground and took cinema in new, and sometimes controversial, directions. While working in Germany in the early 1930s, Lamarr (then named Hedy Kiesler) appeared in the Czech/German film, Ecstasy, which caused quite a stir at the time.
Although often inaccurately referred to as the first film to feature nudity, Ecstasy did probably feature the first cinematic scene of sexual intercourse and the first portrayal of female orgasm -- the latter of which confused many of the more naive and incredulous husbands in the world at the time. The film caused her career in Europe to skyrocket, with influential director Max Reinhardt naming her the "most beautiful woman in Europe," a view shared by many.
The film was particularly seized upon by censorship and religious groups in America. The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned it as morally objectionable, while Joseph Breen of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America claimed it was "highly — even dangerously — indecent." Due to this, Ecstasy was only released in America in 1940, and then only on a limited basis. Which version you could see, largely depended...
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I was a kid when Blazing Saddles came out. I didn’t get the joke because I’d never heard of Hedy Lamarr.
She was a Jew, but raised and a practising Catholic. She had to hide being Jewish of course! It was one of the reason she had to escape Europe (that and she had a controlling maniac for a first husband). She lived the last part of her life in seculsion, but I hope she did have a relationship with Christ. I would love to meet her in heaven.
Before she was 10, she could speak 4 languages (German, Hungarian, Italian, and English). She played the piano and wrote poetry. She preferred reading philosophy and science textbooks instead of novels.
Other interesting trivia here:
Her relationship to Jesus is her business.
She was a beauty who wanted to kill nazis. That’s good enough for me.
Here is the other famous clip. She goes swimming, and her horse runs off with her clothes.
I think I read somewhere that she said the director stuck a pin in her behind to make the orgasm shot in the Ecstasy film.
The implementation technology lagged far behind the idea.
Oh My. She was what... 15 or 17 years old there. Perky little thing!
Hedy’s Folly is a terrific book about her scientific accomplishments.
I think she claimed in her autobiography that she earned somewhere between $20 - $25 million by the early '60's, and blew every last penny.
She was arrested for shoplifting a few times when she was broke.
I read when I was a teenager . Excellent book .
Wow! Talk about brains and beauty!!!
Also was Jewish and helped save her mother from the holocaust.
Probably married 6 times because a strikingly pretty woman whose brain was 10 times as fast as any of her husbands may have trouble communicating...Attracted to her looks, but once she started to converse, she intimidated them.
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Huh!?
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