Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor known for her beauty and pioneering work in spread-spectrum communications. While she achieved fame during Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” her invention of a radio signaling device has had a lasting impact on modern wireless communication.

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born in Vienna, Austria, on November 9, 1914, to a well-to-do Jewish family. Her father, Emil Kiesler, was a bank director who inspired her to explore the inner workings of machines. Her mother, Gertrud (née Lichtwitz), was a concert pianist who introduced Hedy to the arts.

From age four, Lamarr received private tutoring. By age 5, Lamarr could disassemble and reassemble her music box to understand how it worked. By age 10, she demonstrated proficiency in piano and dance and spoke four languages. Her father would take her on long walks and explain how machines like printing presses and streetcars operated.

At 16, Lamarr studied acting with Max Reinhardt in Berlin. In 1930, she had a small role in the German film Geld auf der Strasse. Lamarr gained international recognition for her role in the Czech film Ecstasy (1933).

In 1933, Lamarr married Fritz Mandl, an Austrian munitions manufacturer. Mandl, who sold arms to the Nazis, was controlling and abusive. Lamarr converted to Christianity to marry Mandl. She fled to London in 1937 and then went to Hollywood. While married to Mandl, she gained knowledge of wartime weaponry from dinner table conversations. It is believed Mandl had the marriage annulled in 1938 on the grounds of race.

Lamarr met Louis B. Mayer in London, who offered her a contract with MGM Studios. Mayer changed her name from Hedwig Kiesler to Hedy Lamarr. Her first American film, Algiers, was released in 1938. Lamarr starred in films such as Lady of the Tropics (1939), Boom Town (1940), Tortilla Flat (1942), and Samson and Delilah (1949). During this time, she met Howard Hughes and was inspired by his desire for innovation, and he provided her with equipment to use in her trailer on set.

During World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a “Secret Communications System” to prevent enemies from decoding messages. Their system used “frequency hopping” to guide torpedoes to their targets by changing radio frequencies, preventing radio waves’ interception. However, the U.S. Navy did not implement the system at the time. Though not used in wartime, this device is now being used as a satellite and cellular phone technology component.

Lamarr’s film career declined in the 1950s, and her last film was 1958’s The Female Animal. In 1966, she published her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, but later sued the publisher for inaccuracies.

In 1997, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) jointly awarded Lamarr and Antheil with their Pioneer Award. That same year, Lamarr became the first woman to receive the Invention Convention’s Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

Although Lamarr was born to a Jewish family, she maintained secrecy about her Jewish identity. One reason for this was her conversion to Christianity. In Hollywood, Lamarr was not open about her Jewish identity either, and she even denied it to her children. MGM Studios, led by Louis B. Mayer, preferred to promote her as a young Catholic girl from Vienna, as anti-Semitism was prevalent at the time. While concealing her Jewish heritage publicly, Lamarr privately assisted her mother in seeking compensation for assets stolen by the Nazis.

Lamarr became an American citizen in April 1953.

Lamarr had a complex and eventful personal life. She was married six times and had three children.

She died in Casselberry, Florida, on January 19, 2000.

Sources: Colleen Cheslak, “Hedy Lamarr,” National Women’s History Museum, (2018).
Michael Fox, “To Hedy Lamarr, the hidden Jew, beauty was only skin deep,” Jewish Journal, (March 8, 2018). 
Garry Miller, “‘Bombshell’ Delves Into the Genius and Jewish Identity of Hedy Lamarr,” Jewish Journal, (May 9, 2018). 
“Hedy Lamarr,” Biography.com, (April 19, 2021).
Ruth Barton, “Hedy Lamarr,” Jewish Women’s Archive, (June 23, 2021).
Beth Harpaz, “Hollywood goddess Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian Jew who pined for Vienna but hid her religion,” Forward, (March 28, 2023).
“Hedy Lamarr,” Britannica, (January 15, 2025).

Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.