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FROM CELLULOID TO CELLPHONE
Hedy Lamarr: Screen Star and Wireless Techology Innovator
By Kris Kosach, for ABC News Now / Tech & Science
April 21 — She was considered one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, but Hedy Lamarr never wanted to be known as just a pretty face. The same woman who said, "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid," was actually quite smart, some would say brilliant. In fact, she is credited for patenting a technology that is used every day. Hers is a story that is something right out of … well … Hollywood, but true nonetheless.
The Naked Truth
Almost from the beginning, Hedy was a topic of conversation. In 1938 a teenage Lamarr, then known as Hedwig Kiesler, starred in the Czech film Ecstasy. The film caused an international scandal thanks to a scene where the young chanteuse runs around a forest entirely nude. The studios quickly blacklisted Hedy, but as the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad press. Before long everyone knew her name.
A Kept Woman Finds Freedom
Upon the insistence of her parents, Hedy wed a prominent Austrian munitions tycoon by the name of Fritz Mandl. Mandl took his teenage bride everywhere, including prominent business meetings with his biggest client, the Nazi Party. Despite their Jewish heritage, Mandl was a Nazi sympathizer. Lamarr, on the other hand, could not have loathed the regime more. Still, Lamarr, on the arm of her husband, would attend Nazi business meetings. There she absorbed the knowledge that would later inspire her own ideas about technology.
Meanwhile, Lamarr was sensitive to the changes in her environment and felt there was no future for Jews in Europe. One night, while Fritz entertained clients, Hedy slipped her personal maid a sleeping pill and silently slipped out a window never to return.
She made her way to London where she eventually met Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn. Under the agreement that she never do another scandalous film, Goldwyn changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and brought her to Hollywood. Lamarr flourished in Hollywood. The raven-haired beauty starred in several films and became a fixture on the social scene.
Mother of Invention
It was at a party at Janet Gaynor's house, Lamarr met composer George Antheil. The two got to talking about the ongoing war and their own ideas about how to support the allied troops against Germany. On April 11, 1942 Antheil and Lamarr, using her married name Hedwig Markey, submitted what they called their Secret Communications System to the U.S. Patent office.
The system was designed to keep radio-controlled torpedoes from being jammed and steered off course by the enemy. The idea employed a pattern of random frequencies set by a torpedo transmitter and picked up by a corresponding receiver. The device was impossible to jam because even if the enemy could intercept part of the message, they had no way of knowing what the next part would be.
Hedy utilized her personal knowledge of Nazi technologies while the composer Antheil used his expertise in player piano methods. In fact, the code used to program the torpedos was based on the same idea of paper rolls used in player pianos.
When the U.S. military received a copy of the patent, they took one look at the words "player piano" and immediately passed on the idea. The Secret Communications System sat on a shelf for 20 years until the patent expired.
A New Day
In 1962, the U.S. military began looking back at old communication ideas in an effort to inspire new ones. They came across Lamarr and Antheil's patent, but this time, the reception was quite different. In time, the U.S. government began to implement the idea of "frequency hopping" in classified communications services and networks.
When they declassified the technology a few years later, private enterprises began to take notice. By the late '70s, systems that employed frequency hopping began to appear commercially in early radio communication gear.
Today, frequency hopping is the basis for 900-MHz cordless phones, select garage door openers, cell phones and even wireless Bluetooth systems being developed for computers and personal electronics gear.
A Hedy Situation
How much did Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil receive for their idea? Not a dime. Rumors persist about her bitterness toward the situation, but quotes that would substantiate that claim are scarce if any.
In 1997, a Canadian company sought out Lamarr, then a reclusive senior living in Florida. In exchange for the original patent, it gave her an undisclosed number of shares in the company.
Also that year, Lamarr had become something of a cult icon to tech enthusiasts who were well aware of her invention that helped lead the way to better wireless communication. She's remembered for saying: "Films have a certain place in a certain time period. Technology is forever."
In recognition for her part in the high-tech world of communications, she was awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation's prestigious Pioneer Award in 1997. Although Lamarr's son accepted the award on her behalf, she addressed the audience by phone saying words one might expect to hear from a screen legend.
Her response: "It's about time." Lamarr died in 2000.
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