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Hedy Lamarr: Movie Star and Technology Pioneer
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1 Hedy Lamarr was a Hollywood film star who became known as "The Most Beautiful Woman in Films." Yet her contributions to the world included more than just movies. The beautiful actress was extremely intelligent and became a pioneer in wireless communications.
2 Lamarr was born in Vienna, Austria, on November 9, 1913. Her parents gave her a far less glamorous name: Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Lamarr accomplished a great deal as a child. She was gifted in mathematics. Her father, a banker, encouraged her to ask questions and learn as much as possible. She became fluent in many languages as a child and continued to learn new languages as an adult. She could speak and read Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, and Yiddish. Lamarr also studied ballet and took piano lessons.
3 Lamarr began acting as a teenager. She starred in German films. She married Fritz Mandl, a successful Austrian businessman, when she was 19, but the marriage was not a happy one. Mandl was fifteen years older and wanted a wife who would stay at home. He didn't want Lamarr to act anymore. Bored, Lamarr sat through many business dinners with her husband's German clients, who often discussed radio technology. Lamarr learned a great deal about this technology and the problems the Germans were having with torpedoes, a type of missile, which her husband helped to build. She listened carefully to the scientists.
4 At this time, life in Austria was tense. The Germans were preparing for war and Mandl was building weapons for them. Lamarr, whose family was Jewish, saw the danger of living under German control. She left her husband and traveled to London, England, where she filed for divorce. There she met a movie industry executive, Louis B. Mayer, who was in charge of MGM Studios. As they crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a ship to the United States, Mayer signed the young actress to a movie contract. He gave her a new, glamorous name and helped Lamarr move to Hollywood. Her first American film was Algiers in 1938. Audiences quickly became fans of the glamorous Austrian. In 1939 she married Gene Markey, a writer and producer, and together they adopted a son, but they divorced a few years later. She continued to act but also tried to satisfy her insatiable curiosity. She was an avid reader who had shelves of books on engineering. She even set up a scientific laboratory in her home.
5 The trouble in Europe came to a head on September 1, 1939, when Nazi German forces invaded Poland, effectively starting World War II. From her home safe in the United States, Lamarr read reports of civilian deaths at the hands of the German forces. She was particularly upset about German submarines sinking ships at sea. Innocent men, women, and children were killed by these torpedoes. Lamarr thought about ways to save lives. She also thought about her mother, who was still alive and living in Austria, one of the countries being invaded by German forces. She used her contacts to help her mother escape the Holocaust.
6 As the conflict raged on and escalated, Lamarr continued to work in Hollywood. She appeared in a number of films, including Lady of the Tropics (1939) and White Cargo (1942), before her contract with MGM expired. She also worked hard to help the American forces by selling war bonds. These bonds helped the government supply troops with weapons and other gear they needed in combat. In one night, Lamarr sold an amazing $7 million in war bonds to help the troops.
7 The actress was also thinking about another way to help defeat the Germans. In 1940 she met an American composer named George Antheil, who had lived in Germany and also fled Europe as the Nazis rose to power. Antheil was also a curious person and had many interests. He had worked in Europe as a reporter and was an expert in the study of human glands—he even wrote a science book about them. In Hollywood, he wrote music for movies. Lamarr and Antheil discussed a variety of subjects, including torpedoes, which were very important in the war effort. Controlling these missiles with radio signals would make them more likely to hit their targets, but radio signals could be intercepted by the enemy, who could deliberately throw them off course. Lamarr remembered all she had learned about radio transmissions and weapons during her first marriage. She had some ideas about how to make radio signals more reliable and harder to jam. Antheil also had a mathematical mind and saw the logic in Lamarr's ideas.
8 Lamarr and Antheil put their heads together for two years and came up with an idea that seemed very complicated, but is really very simple. They realized that changing the radio frequencies very quickly and unpredictably would make it impossible for anyone to find the radio signals that controlled the torpedoes. Antheil was known for composing music for player pianos, which operate by reading holes punched in rolls of paper—each hole is a key strike on the instrument. He and Lamarr invented a way to use the player-piano method on the missiles. They created "frequency hopping." They programmed the torpedoes to change frequencies very quickly. Only those who knew the program would find the missiles.
9 Lamarr and Antheil developed their idea, which they called a Secret Communications System. They received a patent, which meant nobody could use their idea without their permission for seventeen years. Because they wanted to stop the Germans, they gave their idea to the US military for free. But military leaders did not see the brilliance of the idea. Maybe they didn't understand how a player piano was like a missile-guidance system. Lamarr believed the military leaders did not take her idea seriously because she was a famous actress. Antheil later said his description of how a player piano worked must have confused them. In fact, the invention was technologically well ahead of its time. Lamarr and Antheil had developed a system to work with electronics, which really didn't exist yet. Though the military did not use the idea, it classified the system as a military secret, meaning no one else could learn about it.
10 Lamarr reportedly turned down leading roles in two major films—Casablanca and Gaslight. The roles made Ingrid Bergman a star, and Lamarr found herself being offered very few quality film roles. She always felt that her looks held her back, both in her career and in her personal life. Studios felt they couldn't cast her in such ordinary roles as a shop worker or heartbroken woman, so instead, Lamarr was cast over and over as a beautiful woman who lacked intelligence. She rarely had a chance to show her skill as an actress.
11 In 1945, the Allied forces finally defeated the Nazis and World War II ended. Lamarr continued to act for several more years, though not as often as before. In 1949, she starred in Samson and Delilah. Paramount Pictures made a fortune on the film. It was the studio's most profitable movie, but Lamarr was paid just $100,000 for her work. In 1953, the actress became an American citizen. She moved to Europe for a few years, acting briefly, but soon returned to the United States, where she made a few more movies. Again, she did not earn much money for her work, and she struggled with finances for the rest of her life.
12 During the late 1950s, after the patent on the Secret Communications System had expired, the US military finally developed the device. The US Navy put it to use during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and it became a crucial aspect of all military defense systems. After appearing in The Female Animal (1958), Lamarr retired and moved to Florida. She passed away on January 19, 2000. She continued to act but also tried to satisfy her insatiable curiosity. She was a voracious reader who had shelves of books on engineering. She even set up a scientific laboratory in her home.
Question
Lamarr began acting as a teenager. She starred in German films. She married Fritz Mandl, a successful Austrian businessman, when she was 19, but the marriage was not a happy one. Mandl was fifteen years older and wanted a wife who would stay at home. He didn't want Lamarr to act anymore. Bored, Lamarr sat through many business dinners with her husband's German clients, who often discussed radio technology. Lamarr learned a great deal about this technology and the problems the Germans were having with torpedoes, a type of missile, which her husband helped to build. She listened carefully to the scientists.
What in the interaction between Lamarr and Mandl causes their relationship to become unhappy?
Responses
A They are of differing levels of maturity.They are of differing levels of maturity.
B They are of differing levels of intelligence.They are of differing levels of intelligence.
C They have different goals for the relationship.They have different goals for the relationship.
D They have different expectations for those outside of their relationship.They have different expectations for those outside of their relationship.
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