Hedy Lamarr

Her inspiration for inventing a radio that broadcast on different frequencies came from watching a player piano paper go around with different holes in the paper. She gave the idea to the US War Department, which led to a radio guiding system for torpedoes that was used in World War II. She had supposedly gained the knowledge from her first husband, Fritz Mandl, an Austrian industrialist and arms dealer who philosophically and financially supported the Nazis. He was abusive and brutal to her, and she finally managed to escape him, and Austria, by drugging her maid.

Had three children: Anthony Loder (born March 1, 1947), Denise Hedy Loder (born May 29, 1945), James Loder (born March 6, 1939; Hedys husband John Loder adopted him October 16, 1939 as James Markey Lamarr).

Sued Mel Brooks for mocking her name in his film Blazing Saddles by naming a character "Hedley Lamarr". They settled out of court.

In April 1998 she sued software company Corel Corp. for using her photo on the cover of its product CorelDRAW.

After a screen test, it was Louis B. Mayer who changed her last name to Lamarr in honor of silent film star Barbara La Marr.

Arrested for shoplifting in January 1966. Found not guilty.

Arrested for shoplifting in 1991. She was found guilty at trial and sentenced to one year of probation.

During her marriage to screenwriter Gene Markey , the two adopted a son, James. She soon after gave birth to two children, Denise Hedy and Antony, while married to actor John Loder.

One of the few stars with whom costume designer Edith Head admitted she did not like working. The others were Claudette Colbert and Paulette Goddard.

Was co-inventor (with composer George Antheil ) of the earliest known form of the telecommunications method known as "frequency hopping", which used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or to jam. The method received U.S. patent number 2,292,387 on August 11, 1942, under the name "Secret Communications System". Frequency hopping is now widely used in cellular phones and other modern technology. However, neither she nor Antheil profited from this fact, because their patents were allowed to expire decades before the modern wireless boom. She received an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997 for her pioneering work in spread-spectrum technology.

For her appearance in Ekstase , she has been credited as being the first nude woman as well as portraying the first sex-scene in film history (scenes were cut and additional ones added in order to be able to release it in some countries). However, she was actually at least 18 years too late to be the first nude woman in film, as both Inspiration and Lois Weber s Hypocrites had beaten her to it.

Her profile was the most requested in the 1940s by women to their plastic surgeons.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 337-338. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

The mansion used in The Sound of Music belonged to her at the time.

The first Inventors Day in Germany was held in her honor on November 9, 2005, on what would have been her 92nd birthday.

Became a naturalized US citizen on April 10, 1953.

Dr. Kleiners pet head-crab "Lamarr" in the computer game Half-Life 2 is named after her.

Was considered for the role of Ilsa Lund in Casablanca , but Ingrid Bergman was cast instead. When Julius Epstein , one of the films several screenwriters, was trying to "pitch" (explain the plot) to producer David O. Selznick , he started a long, drawn-out summary but finally wrapped up with "Oh, what the hell! Its going to be a lot of shit like Algiers !", which was one of her starring films.

Was cast in the movie Picture Mommy Dead , but fired on February 3, 1966, when she did not show up for the first day of shooting.

Was the inspiration for Anne Hathaway s performance of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises .

Was the inspiration for the DC Comics antiheroine and Batmans love interest, Catwoman.

Considered Delilah to be the best performance of her career and Cecil B. DeMille s Samson and Delilah her best film.

She was married six times.

Although she earned a great deal of money during her career, she lost her fortune with her production company. She died impoverished in Florida in 2000.

Her father was a bank director and her mother was a pianist.

After an education that included ballet and dancing lessons and learning to speak such languages as English, Italian and Hungarian, she rounded off her apprenticeship by attending a Swiss boarding school.

In Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. , she appeared with Peter Lorre. This would be the first of three films they would make together.

Her nude and sex scenes in Ekstase caused a scandal in Europe at the time. Even Benito Mussolini had a copy of the movie in his private possession. Today these nude scenes looks harmless.

When Ekstase was showed in the cinemas the name Hedy Kiesler was the talk of the town. However, instead of a great film career, she followed with a marriage to Austrian munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl. She retired from the film business at her husbands request and devoted herself to the marriage. Mandl tried to buy up all existing copies of "Extase" but was unsuccessful. The marriage turned out to be a disaster, however--her husband beat her regularly and was an ardent Nazi supporter--and she escaped from the marriage and her home country and fled to England, where she met producer Louis B. Mayer , who changed her name to Hedy Lamarr in honor of silent-screen star Barbara La Marr.

She admitted that she made one of her biggest career mistakes when she turned down the leading role in Casablanca .

She studied at Max Reinhardt s theater school at the Deutsches Theater.

She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz) and Emil Kiesler. Her father was born in Lviv (now in Ukraine) and her mother was born in Budapest, Hungary. Both were from Jewish families.

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd. on February 8, 1960.

Mother of Anthony Loder and mother-in-law of Roxanne Loder.

Met Max Reinhardt (v) at a party in 1929 when she was 15.

When she first arrived in Hollywood MGM set her up in a roommate situation with Hungarian actress Ilona Massey.

Introduced to her husband John Loder by Bette Davis at the Hollywood Canteen.

May be the only screen actor to be in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. She was inducted in 2014 along with former Hollywood composer George Antheil. At the start of World War II, the two invented a frequency hopping technique that could be used by the Allies to prevent jamming of torpedo guidance systems. It later became an important aspect for wireless communications. The inventors received no compensation for their discovery. The original 1942 patent expired and the technique became part of the public domain.

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.

If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her,nude, I hope to make you use your imagination,Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look,stupid.

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually agent, actor, director,producer, leading man. And you are a star if you sleep with them in,that order. Crude but true.

To be a star is--to own the world and all the people in it. After a,taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.

I win because I learned years ago that scared money always loses. I,never care, so I win.

I was the highest-priced and most important star in Hollywood, but I was,"difficult".

He has documents and evidence to support everything he does.

Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.

Every girl would like to marry a rich husband. I did twice. But what divides girls into two groups is this question - do you first think of money and then love, or vice versa?,Any girl can be glamorous. All she has to do is stand still and look stupid.

Dates with actors, finally, just seemed to me evenings of shop talk. I got sick of it after a hile. So the more famous I became, the more I narrowed down my choices.

To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.

It is easier for women to succeed in business, the arts, and politics in America than in Europe.

Perhaps my problem in marriage - and it is the problem of many women - was to want both intimacy and independence. It is a difficult line to walk, yet both needs are important to a marriage.

My mother always called me an ugly weed, so I never was aware of anything until I was older. Plain girls should have someone telling them they are beautiful. Sometimes this works miracles.

If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her nude. . . I hope to make you use your imagination.

A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.

I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job. If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never fails.

American men, as a group, seem to be interested in only two things, money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook.

Analysis gave me great freedom of emotions and fantastic confidence. I felt I had served my time as a puppet. .