Few Hollywood stars of the 1940s matched Lamarr’s fame or beauty. Yet behind her glamorous image was an inventor whose work would eventually influence some of today’s most widely used wireless technologies.
Lamarr co-developed frequency-hopping technology during World War II to prevent enemy forces from intercepting or jamming radio-controlled U.S. torpedoes. Although the U.S. military did not immediately adopt the invention, the underlying concept later became a foundation for secure wireless communications, helping pave the way for technologies including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.
“The brains of people are more interesting than the looks I think,” Lamarr said in 1990, 10 years before her death, as quoted by Forbes.
A colorized publicity portrait of actress Hedy Lamarr for MGM Studios. Photo from Instagram
From Vienna to Hollywood
Born Hedwig Eva Kiesler in Vienna, Austria, in 1914, Lamarr was the only child of a wealthy secular Jewish family. Her father, a bank director, and her mother, a concert pianist, encouraged a well-rounded education that included ballet, piano and horseback riding.
Her father also nurtured her curiosity about how things worked. During walks around Vienna, he explained how streetcars operated and how electricity was generated. At age five, Lamarr reportedly took apart a music box and successfully reassembled it.
Despite her interest in science and engineering, social expectations of the time favored marriage and domestic life over technical careers for women. Praised more for her appearance than her intellect, she turned to acting and appeared in her first Austrian film in 1930. Her early roles cast her as an “innocent-but-seductive Viennese beauty,” according to National Geographic magazine.
Seeking broader opportunities, Lamarr moved to Berlin, studied acting and landed the leading role in the 1933 film “Ecstasy,” directed by Gustav Machaty. The controversial film quickly made her internationally famous.
That same year, at age 19, she married Austrian arms manufacturer Fritz Mandl. Although Lamarr felt trapped by Mandl’s jealousy and controlling behavior, accompanying him to meetings with military officials and scientists exposed her to discussions about weapons and communications technology.
The marriage soon deteriorated, and Lamarr escaped in 1937, fleeing Austria before emigrating to the U.S. During her voyage from London to New York, she met MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a Hollywood film contract and renamed her Hedy Lamarr after silent-film actress Barbara La Marr.
Actress by day, inventor by night
Lamarr quickly became one of MGM’s biggest stars, appearing in numerous films throughout the 1940s. “Any girl can be glamorous,” she once said, as quoted by History.com. “All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”
Despite her success on screen, she devoted much of her free time to inventing. Between film shoots and late into the night, she worked on scientific ideas and experiments.
In an audio recording featured in the 2017 documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story,” by American director Alexandra Dean, Lamarr described how naturally ideas came to her. “I don’t have to work on ideas,” she says. “They come naturally.”
Her most influential invention emerged during World War II. Working with avant-garde composer George Antheil, who described Lamarr in his 1945 memoir as “an intellectual giant,” she developed a “Secret Communications System” that rapidly switched radio frequencies, making it much harder for enemies to detect or jam signals controlling torpedoes.
In 1942, Lamarr and Antheil received a patent for the system and presented it to the U.S. Navy, according to The Guardian. The military classified the invention and stored it for the remainder of the war instead of putting it into use. Lamarr was advised that she would make a greater contribution to the war effort as a pinup rather than as an inventor, entertaining troops, promoting war bonds and selling kisses.
The two returned to their careers, unaware that their invention would eventually transform wireless communications.
Late recognition
In the 1950s and 1960s, frequency-hopping technology was adopted for secure military communications, including communications with submarines and U.S. warships. It later became widely used in wireless communications, helping lay the foundation for technologies including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
As her Hollywood career faded, Lamarr retired to Florida, where she continued experimenting with new inventions, including a more driver-friendly traffic light. It was not until she was in her 80s that a group of engineers realized the “Hedwig Kiesler Mackay” listed on the frequency-hopping patent was the Hollywood actress Lamarr.
“Hedy didn’t want money, but she did want recognition,” Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who wrote a biography about Hedy, said. “and it really angered her that nobody gave her credit for this important invention.”
Dean said the lack of recognition reflected Hollywood’s limited expectations for female stars. “From Hedy they absolutely wanted glamour,” Dean said in an interview. “They wanted somebody to stare at in the movie theaters that would help forget all their troubles.”
Lamarr died in 2000 at age 85.
By then, the scientific community had begun recognizing the importance of her work. She and Antheil received several honors, and Lamarr was later inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which noted that the pair “never profited from their invention during their lifetime.”
Dean said it remains unknown whether Lamarr realized how important her invention would become because, as she said in a 2018 interview, “She never talked about that part of her life.”
Lamarr wrote in her 1966 autobiography, “Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman,” that she believed her creativity was rarely appreciated in a world focused on her appearance.
“The unfortunate thing is, I am always way ahead of time. And that is a handicap to me.”