Hedy Lamarr, "The World's Most Beautiful Woman" and overlooked inventor, was born in Vienna in 1914. She was born into a wealthy Jewish family, but had to escape with her mother to America when Austria fell to the Nazis. It is reported that she put "Hebrew" as her race on her naturalization forms, due to the quota system involving Jewish immigrants escaping Europe. After an American film education, she moved to Czechoslovakia and had a starring role in the controversial film Ecstasy, which was considered "overly sexual" and received backlash. There, she married an Austrian arms dealer with whom she played the "arm candy" while at dinners with powerful international leaders. Hedy was also known to tinker, and had a great interest in inventing. She invented small household items such as a similar to tab to modern-day Alka-Seltzer and an attached trash container for tissue boxes.
A few years later, after divorcing her husband, Lamarr moved to Paris to pursue her film career. There she starred in several movies during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She even got a deal with MGM that included several hundred thousand dollars and was a significant boost for her career. While working on a movie set, she met George Anthiel, a professional inventor. Together, they invented a "Secret Communications System" that allowed one to hop between frequencies to help American torpedos to take down German U-Boats. This was also helpful because while similar technology had already been invented, this new method was impossible for enemies to jam. She pitched it to the government, but they took no interest. Infuriated, Lamarr went to Inventors Court because she thought that the US acting too cavalier when thousands of fellow European refugees were being killed in the Atlantic ocean due to U-Boats.
And though she was ignored during her time, Hedy Lamarr's invention of the "spread-spectrum" was rediscovered during the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1950s. They then thanked her for her invention and implemented it into ships. Her invention was critical and pathed the way for modern-day essentials such as wireless phones, bluetooth, and GPS. It also may have helped the Allies win the war sooner if they had implemented Lamarr's critical invention.
I've heard of Hedy Lamarr before, but I never realized that she was anything other than an actress. I find it really interesting that, although her technology could have been immensely useful to the Allies, they never implemented it until the Missile Crisis a decade or two later. This makes me wonder two things: first of all, did they take no interest in her work because she was a woman, and sexism was still very prevalent in the world, especially concerning war? And also, were there other inventions that the Allied powers took no interest in, that could have helped their war effort as well?
ReplyDeleteI also never knew that she was more than an actress. I find it very interesting that she had this whole other side to her that wasn't fully appreciated until after the war was over. One of my questions is what about her invention sparked the interest of people AFTER the way, but not during it? Also, you talk about how she worked with George Anthiel and I'm curious as to how they worked together and what specific contributions did Hedy Lamarr make? Did her fame influence anything with this invention?
ReplyDeleteWow I had never heard of Hedy Lamarr before and I am very surprised the US government would turn away an invention that would allow them to detect the German U Boats. I really like this because Hedy Lamarr is someone who would probably be overlooked in history just because nobody would listen to her, but she was also really interesting because of how modern and progressive she seems between her divorce, being an inventor, and actually going to pitch it to the government to use for their military.
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