A couple of quotes attributed to her :"Any girl can
be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."; "I must quit marrying men who feel
inferior to me. Somewhere there must be a man who could be my husband and not
feel inferior. I need a superior inferior man."
2nd
quote you will perhaps read with her marriage chronology : Married: Fritz Mandl
(m.1933 – d.1937), Gene Markey (m.1939 – d.1940), John Loder (m.1943 – d.1947),
Teddy Stauffer (m.1951 – d.1952), W. Howard Lee (m.1953 – d.1960), Lewis J.
Boies (m.1963 – d.1965). Once in
Hollywood, she officially changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and starred in her
first Hollywood film, and continued opposite the most popular and talented actors
of her time. The
doodle is an animation telling the story of Ms Lamarr's life, set to a
soundtrack created by composer Adam Ever-Hadani. In a nod to her Hollywood
career, it is in a movie format, and attempts to capture the look and feel of
1940s fashion illustrations and film posters.
If this
is what is written perhaps to some of us at least, no further reading ! – but –
she deserves to be known more, for, she was not just a pretty face.
In addition to her film accomplishments, she patented an idea called the
"Secret Communication System" in 1942, which later became pivotal to
both secure military communications and mobile phone technology. Ms Lamarr had
some background in military munitions, and when World War II broke out she was
keen to help the Allied war effort. In particular, she wanted to solve the
problem of enemies blocking signals from radio-controlled missiles.
During her first
marriage, Lamarr developed an interest in applied
science, and bored by her acting career, utilized this knowledge as an
inventor. At the commencement of World War II, keen to aid the Allied
war effort, she identified jamming of Allied radio communications by the Axis
as a particular problem, and with composer George Antheil, developed spread
spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat it. Though the US Navy did
not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of her work are now
incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA and Bluetooth technology.
Lamarr wanted to
join the National Inventors Council, but was reportedly told by NIC member
Charles F. Kettering and others that she could better help the war effort by
using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. Lamarr participated in a war bond
selling campaign with a sailor named Eddie Rhodes. In the 1990s, Lamarr and
Antheil got the recognition they deserved for their invention. They received
such awards as the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award and the BULBIEª
Gnass Spirit of Achievement Bronze Award, given to individuals whose creative
lifetime achievements in the arts, sciences, business, or invention fields have
significantly contributed to society. In addition, her technological contributions
have been featured on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel. Lamarr and
Antheil were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
Google blog reads :
We love highlighting the many good stories about
women’s achievements in science and technology. When the story involves a 1940s
Hollywood star-turned-inventor who helped develop technologies we all use with
our smartphones today… well, we just have to share it with the world. Today on
Google’s homepage we’re celebrating Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-born actress Hollywood once dubbed “the most beautiful
woman in the world.” Lamarr’s own story
reads like a movie script: bored by the film industry and feeling typecast, Lamarr was more interested in helping the
Allied war effort as World War II broke out than in the roles she was being
offered. She had some background in
military munitions (yes, really), and together with a composer friend, George
Antheil, used the principles of how pianos worked (yep, pianos) to identify a
way to prevent German submarines from jamming Ally radio signals. The patent
for “frequency hopping” Lamarr co-authored laid the groundwork for widely-used
technologies like Bluetooth, GPS and wifi that we rely upon daily.
It’s
no wonder, then, that Lamarr has kind of a mythical status at Google, Sketching
storyboards on a yellow notepad helped me figure out how to show Lamarr in very
different scenarios—movie star by day, inventor by night—which we then animated
and set to the awesome soundtrack created by composer Adam Ever-Hadani.
A book by Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes rewrote America's memory of Lamarr. ‘Hedy's Folly: The
Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, The Most Beautiful Woman in
the World’ chronicled her life and the
inventive side that is not often mentioned. Today’s doodle on her is seen around the world except for the UK, Mexico and
parts of the Middle East and Africa !
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
9th Nov. 2015.
