{"id":13627,"date":"2011-11-29T21:21:12","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T21:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=13627"},"modified":"2011-11-29T23:48:05","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T23:48:05","slug":"hedy-lamarr-movie-star-inventor-richard-rhodes-hedys-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/11\/29\/hedy-lamarr-movie-star-inventor-richard-rhodes-hedys-folly\/","title":{"rendered":"Hedy Lamarr &#8211; Movie Star Inventor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Hedy-Lamarr-in-colour.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13628\" title=\"Hedy Lamarr in colour\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Hedy-Lamarr-in-colour.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hedy_Lamarr\">Hedy Lamarr<\/a> was the one of the most glamourous actress of her day who just happened to pioneer a form of wireless communication that led to Bluetooth and wi-fi.<\/p>\n<p>A new book by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Rhodes\">Richard Rhodes<\/a> called <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/snyHG2\">Hedy&#8217;s Folly<\/a><\/strong> charts the incredible story of how a huge Hollywood star helped pave the way wireless technology which we now take for granted.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Kean of Slate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/arts\/books\/2011\/11\/richard_rhodes_hedy_s_folly_reviewed_what_was_the_source_of_hedy_lamarr_s_inventive_genius_.single.html\">makes a good analogy in his review<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Imagine that, on Sept. 12, 2001, an outraged Angelina Jolie had pulled out a pad of paper and some drafting tools and, all on her own, designed a sophisticated new missile system to attack al-Qaida. Now imagine that the design proved so innovative that it transcended weapons technology, and sparked a revolution in communications technology over the next half-century.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Slate have also done this video montage:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Dr9L03Hw9MY?hd=1\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rhodes has written a diverse set of non-fiction books, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Looking-America-Writers-Richard-Rhodes\/dp\/0140054502\/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3\">essays on America<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Write-Reflections-Richard-Rhodes\/dp\/0688149480\">writing itself<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Masters-Death-Richard-Rhodes\/dp\/1903985560\/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_6\">the SS<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_James_Audubon\">James Audubon<\/a> and\u00a0the definitive history <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Making_of_the_Atomic_Bomb\">The Making of the Atomic Bomb<\/a>\u00a0which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.<\/p>\n<p>But who was Hedy Lamarr?<\/p>\n<p>She was an Austrian-American actress who became a major star at MGM during their <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer#MGM.27s_golden_age\">golden age<\/a> of the 1930s and 1940s.<\/p>\n<p>Her American debut was in Algiers (1938) and amongst her films in this period included Boom Town (1940), White Cargo (1942) and Tortilla Flat (1942).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hYN27_JDDMU\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"410\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, she bore a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8DWS_tmSCFU\">remarkable resemblance to Vivien Leigh<\/a>, the star of arguably MGM&#8217;s most iconic film Gone With the Wind (1939).<\/p>\n<p>But it was after leaving MGM in 1945 that she had her biggest success playing Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Samson_and_Delilah_(1949_film)\">Samson and Delilah<\/a> (1949), which was the biggest hit of that year.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Rotd6t_BAhc\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"410\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But she was more than just a pretty actress and her life reads like the most outlandish of movies.<\/p>\n<p>After growing up in Vienna, she absorbed a lot of information on long walks with her father and his detailed explanations of how &#8211; then modern &#8211; technologies like printing presses actually worked.<\/p>\n<p>After an unhappy marriage to an arms manufacturer for the Nazis, she escaped to London after learning that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louis_B._Mayer\">Louie B Mayer<\/a> of MGM was scouting for actresses.<\/p>\n<p>She then turned down his original offer before getting on the same boat as him back to the US and by the time it docked she had secured a better contract.<\/p>\n<p>In what reads like a real-life super hero(ine) story, she then set about inventing things in her spare time rather than drinking or going to night clubs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Cover-of-Richard-Rhodes-Hedys-Folly.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-13629\" title=\"Cover of Richard Rhodes Hedy's Folly\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Cover-of-Richard-Rhodes-Hedys-Folly-263x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"263\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>She was obsessed with creative ideas throughout her life: sugary cubes that would mix with water and a \u201cskin-tautening technique based on the principles of the accordion\u201d were just some of those she came up with in between takes.<\/p>\n<p>As a Jewish emigre she was deeply affected when in 1940, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/German_submarine_U-48_(1939)#Fourth_Patrol_.2824_Jan_1940_-_26_Feb_1940.29\">Nazi U-boats hunted down and sank a cruise ship<\/a> evacuating British schoolchildren to Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy-seven children were drowned in the attack.<\/p>\n<p>She decided to do something but instead issuing a press release about world peace through the MGM press office, she sketched out a revolutionary radio guidance system for anti-submarine torpedoes.<\/p>\n<p>Her neighbour, the avant garde composer <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_Antheil\">George Antheil<\/a>, had already experimented with automated control of musical instruments.<\/p>\n<p>Their ideas contributed to the development of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Frequency_hopping\">frequency hopping<\/a>: if you could shift around radio frequencies used to guide torpedoes, then it would make it very difficult for the Nazis to detect or jam them.<\/p>\n<p>They got a patent and then promptly gave it to the US Navy, who were interested but perhaps not too receptive to being outsmarted by a Hollywood actress.<\/p>\n<p>Although others had pioneered the concept, such as Polish engineer Leonard Danilewicz, it was still incredible that an A-list actress and her musican neighbour were doing this as a past-time.<\/p>\n<p>Instead Lamarr was encouraged to use her fame to sell war bonds, raising around $25 million, which is $340 million in today&#8217;s money.<\/p>\n<p>(If you&#8217;ve seen <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flags_of_Our_Fathers_(film)\">Flags of Our Fathers<\/a>, there&#8217;s a whole sequence devoted to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_propaganda_during_World_War_II\">war bond efforts<\/a>, only in that film it involved soldiers from the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima\">Battle of Iwo Jima<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"400\" height=\"386\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/v2\/?i=142664182&amp;m=142828809&amp;t=audio\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"opaque\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"base\" value=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\" \/><embed width=\"400\" height=\"386\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/v2\/?i=142664182&amp;m=142828809&amp;t=audio\" wmode=\"opaque\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" base=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>However, after the war the Navy did revive the idea when they developed a sonar buoy to detect enemy ships: the basic concept was used to disguise radio signals as they were transmitted from the\u00a0buoy\u00a0to aircraft overhead.<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps the lasting legacy is the application of frequency hopping in modern computing technologies.<\/p>\n<p>As the computer revolution gathered pace over time, frequency hopping and Lamarr&#8217;s ideas came of age.<\/p>\n<p>Gradually engineers discovered that it could be usefully applied for modern computing devices that use radio frequencies in what is termed &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spread_spectrum\">spread-spectrum broadcasting<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>Devices such as mobile phones and wi-fi routers all have to avoid intereference when communicating with one another and use a form of frequency hopping.<\/p>\n<p>The original patent had lapsed after the war but in 1997 the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation\">Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> gave Lamarr an award for her contribution.<\/p>\n<p>Their press release in March 1997 <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/awards\/pioneer\/1997.php\">featured this killer line<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;In 1942 Lamarr, once named the &#8220;most beautiful woman in the world&#8221; and Antheil, dubbed &#8220;the bad boy of music&#8221; patented the concept of &#8220;frequency-hopping&#8221; that is now the basis for the spread spectrum radio systems used in the products of over 40 companies manufacturing items ranging from cell phones to wireless networking systems&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So the next time you use a Bluetooth headset or log on to a wi-fi router, think of the actress and the musician who played a part in making it possible.<\/p>\n<p>&gt; Buy Richard Rhodes&#8217; book on <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/snyHG2\">Amazon UK<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0385534388\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=slatmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=0385534388\">Amazon US<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.richardrhodes.com\/\">Richard Rhodes<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; Find out more about <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hedy_Lamarr\">Hedy Lamarr<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Frequency_hopping\">Frequency\u00a0Hopping<\/a> at Wikipedia<br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/awards\/pioneer\/1997.php\">EFF press release from March 1997<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hedy Lamarr was the most glamourous actress of her day who also invented a form of wireless communication in her spare time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[2350],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}