Posted on 12/20/2011 9:27:15 PM PST by Tex-Con-Man
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Hedy Lamarr avoided the celebrity party circuit, preferring small gatherings with close friends. At home she set up a drafting table and devoted her downtime to inventions, including a bouillon-like cube that when mixed with water would produce an instant soft drink. It was at a dinner at the home of the actress Janet Gaynor in 1940 that she met George Antheil.
According to Antheil’s autobiography, “Bad Boy of Music,” Hedy requested the meeting because she had read one of his Esquire articles about glands. This was Hollywood, and the most beautiful woman in the world was concerned about her breast size. Could Mr. Antheil help? A friendship began that evening, kindled by the encounter of two imaginative and inventive minds...
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What drew Rhodes to the twin story of the Bad Boy of Music and “the most beautiful woman in the world” was their invention of a radio-controlled “spread spectrum” torpedo-guidance system, for which they received a patent in 1942.
That a glamorous movie star whose day job involved hours of makeup calls and dress fittings would spend her off hours designing sophisticated weapons systems is one of the great curiosities of Hollywood history. Lamarr, however, not only possessed a head for abstract spatial relationships, but she also had been in her former life a fly on the wall during meetings and technical discussions between her munitions-manufacturer husband and his clients, some of them Nazi officials. Disturbed by news reports of innocents killed at sea by U-boats, she was determined to help defeat the German attacks. And Antheil, arguably the most mechanically inclined of all composers, having long before mastered the byzantine mechanisms of pneumatic piano rolls, retained a special genius for “out of the box” problem solving.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The first, written in the late 80's, was The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
The second was written after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the author had access to Russian archives and the surviving Russian physicists. It carried the history of Nuke development through the early hydrogen bombs. It was titled Dark Sun.
Agreed, with Dana Wynter coming in a very close second.
Oh yes. She died earlier this year.
The story of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil is one that most wireless engineers and geeks know by heart. Had Hedy Lamarr not met George Antheil, we would not have had spread spectrum until just before the Cuban Missile crisis.
As it is, she never received a dime for her invention and the Navy had no clue what to do with it!
Beauty and brains and a talented actress. Sadly, she died penniless and alone in central Florida about 10 years ago.
She deserved better. Thank you, Hedy. Your contribution to science and engineering has provide a LOT of work for a LOT of people!!
Actually, he said, “I got that.”
. Classic beauty, unlike the stars that we have now.
There is very, very little class today.
Gene Tierney was the one for me.
Nice the author finally got around to mentioning her patented invention of spread spectrum communications - a stunning accomplishment.
The 30’s and 40’s produced many gorgeous women.
Ah, Delilah. One of the most beautifully scored movies ever. Not a bad plot either.
Shop regularly at a Publix supermarket that they caught Hedy shoplifting at. Disfigured by bad plastic surgery later in life and became virtually a recluse, so I hear. So sad.
In her/our day she was promoted as the most beautiful woman in the world. At the time I agreed, then came Elizabeth Taylor.
Yes, the same strain. I thought Vivien Leigh fit in there, too. All with an ethereal edge.
A friend of mine works for a major manufacturer of electronics/telecommunications devices. She said that even today they use some of the ideas of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil..
Like Milt Romney.
100% agree. I was born in the 70s fwiw.
Sadly reminiscent of another hugh star of the 40’s, Betty Hutton, who disppeared and was later found working as a cook in a rectory.
She only recently passed away in 2007.
I knew when I read the article title that someone would post a Hedley remark. Probably one of the funniest movies ever made!
And a movie that could never be made in today's America.
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