Scholars’ Spotlight: Hedy Lamarr

Early Life

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary on November 9, 1914. Her father, Emil, was the director of the Austrian bank, the Creditanstalt-Bankverein. Her mother, Gertrude, was a classical concert pianist. At an early age, Hedwig was given the nickname Hedy. This would stick for the rest of her life.

Hedy was interested in many things during her adolescence. Her two greatest loves were the theatre and learning about various modern inventions and how they worked via her father’s encouragement to take them apart. At school, she studied piano and ballet as part of her curriculum.

By the age of 12, Hedy was noticed for her astonishing looks when she won a beauty contest. Around this time she began to study acting. Hedy noticed an advertisement for a job as a script girl with the Austrian movie studio Sascha-Film. As a result, she applied for the job by forging a permission note from her mother, as she was not of legal age. Of course, she was hired.

“I was different. Maybe I came from a different planet. I don’t know”

– Hedy Lamarr

European Movies

At 15, Hedy’s first role was as an extra in Money on the Street (1930). She followed this up with a small speaking part in Storm in a Water Glass (1931). Next, she was cast in a play entitled The Weaker Sex by producer Max Reinhardt, which was performed at Vienna’s Theater in der Josefstadt. Reinhardt arranged for her to return with him to Berlin, where he was based to continue their working relationship.

Upon arriving in Berlin, Hedy met Russian theatre producer Alexis Granowsky, who cast her in his directorial debut, The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (1931), which co-starred Peter Lorre and Walter Abel. She never worked with Reinhardt in Berlin despite the fact that he invited her there.

Hedy’s breakout role would come in 1933 at age eighteen, with the lead role in Gustav Machatý’s film Ecstasy, which was filmed in Czechoslovakia. She played Eva Jermann, the neglected young wife of Adam (Albert Mog), an older man.

This film was infamous for showing Hedy’s face in the throes of an orgasm, which was achieved by someone sticking her with a pin. High-power telephoto lenses were used for brief nude scenes featuring Hedy.

Throughout Europe, the film was regarded as an artistic work. However, in the United States and Germany, it was banned, due to its sexual nature. In 1935, after cuts were made to the movie by the Nazis, the film was shown in a few German cinemas, with the warning: “This film offends the youth. In early 1933 Hedy also appeared in Sissy, a play about Empress Elisabeth of Austria produced in Vienna.

Fritz Mandl and European Exodus

Hedy’s roles in Sissy and Ecstasy attracted the attention of Fritz Mandl, a Fascist arms dealer and the third richest man in Austria. Mandl was raised Catholic but his father was Jewish. After a whirlwind courtship, he proposed with the caveat that Hedy, who was Jewish, converted to Catholicism, which she did. They were married on August 10, 1933.

Mandl was domineering and controlling from the beginning of the marriage and spent over $300,000 buying up and destroying copies of the film Ecstasy. Hedy was prohibited from acting and would accompany Mandl to various meetings with Axis-affiliated scientists where military technology was discussed.

Although she despised the Nazis and their allies she enjoyed these meetings which were Hedy’s gateway into the field of applied science and were the catalyst for her interest in scientific research. When she didn’t attend these events or parties with potential clients for her husband’s business (which included Benito Mussolini and Hermann Goering) she was a virtual prisoner at Mandl’s Austrian castle home, Schloss Schwarzenau.

“I knew very soon that I could never be an actress while I was his wife…He was the absolute monarch in his marriage…I was like a doll. I was like a thing, some object of art which had to be guarded – and imprisoned – having no mind, no life of its own”

– Hedy Lamarr

Eventually, both Hedy and Fritz grew disinterested in the marriage. It transformed into a sham for appearances with both of them essentially living separately and engaging in affairs with other people.

In the late summer of 1937, Hedy left Austria while Fritz was on a vacation in Hungary. They had already begun the paperwork for an amicable divorce. (Note: The most commonly known version of this story has Hedy escape from Austria and Mandl by impersonating a maid and escaping through a servant’s entrance during a party. Research done by author Margaret Porter dispels this story as being completely false).

“She packed her luxurious clothes and with her tiny nest egg made ready for flight…and then quietly one night during her husband’s absence, she with the aid of a faithful maid, crept to the depot and caught the train”

– Photoplay Magazine, 1938

She made her way to Paris and then London and then finally New York City via an ocean liner. While in London she met Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, and his wife who were overseas looking for fresh faces to take back to Hollywood. After an initial meeting, Hedy turned down an offer for $125 and while on the ocean voyage from London to New York in which the Mayers were also traveling negotiated a weekly salary of $500. Mayer’s only stipulation was that she should change her last name to distance herself from the movie Ecstasy. They settled on “Lamarr”, which Mayer’s wife suggested as an homage to silent film actress Barbara La Marr.

Her husband Fritz Mandl, was forced to flee Austria in 1938 after the Anschluss of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938. Goering despised him and used his Jewish lineage to move against him. Mandl spent the next several decades in exile, first in Switzerland and later in Argentina before finally returning to Austria.

After the divorce was eventually finalized Fritz and Hedy remained on friendly terms throughout the years. In some ways, they were closer than when they married, with Fritz calling Hedy on her birthday every year. Occasionally, he would send her monetary gifts of several thousands of dollars. They saw each other only once more in 1940 in New York City. Both were remarried at the time. Unbeknownst to them, the meeting was documented by the FBI and recorded in Hedy’s file.

Religious Subterfuge

Upon arriving in America, Hedy made the decision to permanently erase any trace of her Jewish ancestry. In 1938 she brought her mother, Gertrude to America. In a letter written to Gertrude Hedy instructed her mother to convert to Catholicism prior to leaving Europe with the words:

“Please do this for me, because I don’t want to be identified as a Jew in Hollywood”

This letter was found by filmmaker Alexandra Dean while working on the documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Hedy was so successful in the obfuscation of her lineage that it wouldn’t be until well over a decade after her death that her three children would learn the truth about their mother’s Jewish ancestry. They discovered this via Dean showing them a copy of their grandfather’s death certificate from 1935.

Hollywood Years (1938-41)

Louis B. Mayer billed Hedy as “the world’s most beautiful woman” when she hit the Hollywood scene. MGM cast her opposite Charles Boyer in Algiers (1938), which was a remake of the acclaimed French film, Pépé le Moko (1937).

In 1938, she conceived a child with actor John Loder, who was currently married to French actress Micheline Cheirel, out of wedlock. Hedy then married screenwriter Gene Markey and gave birth in secret on June 9, 1939. Subsequently, the couple adopted a baby named James Lamarr Markey. This was to hide the illegitimacy.

A few years later, Hedy would marry Loder, adopting his own biological child. James would not learn the truth about any of this until 2001, a year after his mother’s death. Hedy and Loder would have two additional children together. Although their marriage lasted for only four years. Hedy would eventually marry three more times for a total of six – the last one ending in 1965.

In 1940, Hedy made two movies with Clark Gable. Both films were hits: Boom Town, also featuring Spencer Tracy and Claudette Colbert, and Comrade X, which was similar to Greta Garbo’s Ninotchka (1939), released a year earlier.

The following year Hedy would make two pictures with Oscar-winner James Stewart, Come Live With Me, and Ziegfeld Girl, both released in 1941. The latter also featured Judy Garland and Lana Turner.

War Years (1942-45)

In the days leading up to the war, Hedy came up with an idea for an invention. She contacted her friend composer George Antheil about developing a frequency-hopping signal that could not be tracked or jammed, which was a problem with the radio-controlled torpedoes of the day.

The idea utilized radio signals integrated into a miniaturized layer piano and was patented on August 11, 1942. The US Navy did not use this technology until the late 1950s. By 1962, an updated version of the design was installed on most naval ships. Their invention was the foundation for modem Bluetooth and Wi-fi technology.

“Hedy modestly admitted she did only ‘creative work on the invention’, while the composer and author George Antheil, ‘did the really important chemical part’. Hedy was not too clear about how the device worked, but she remembered that she and Antheil sat down on her living room rug and were using a silver match box with the matches simulating the wiring of the invented ‘thing’. She said that at the start of the war.”

– Stars and Stripes Newspaper, 1945

Hedy Lamarr was also involved in the effort to sell war bonds like many other stars of the era. Within a 10-day period, she helped to sell over $25 million in bonds during her public appearances. She also supported the troops by making appearances at The Hollywood Canteen like many other stars of the day.

During the war, the actress made several movies. These included White Cargo (1942), The Conspirators (1944), and Her Highness and the Bellboy (1944), co-starring Robert Walker. In 1945, Hedy would leave MGM.

Post-War Movie Career

After leaving MGM Hedy formed the production company Mars Film Corporation with Jack Chertok and Hunt Stromberg. She starred in both movies the company produced The Strange Woman (1946) and Dishonored Lady (1947). These movies fell squarely in the film noir genre but were not successful financially, breaking even at the box office.

Hedy’s biggest hit came with the release of Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949), the highest-grossing film of 1950. On March 29, 1951, the film won two Academy Awards (Best Color Costume Design and Best Color Art Direction) at the 23rd annual ceremony. It was nominated for three more (Best Special Effects, Best Color Cinematography, and Best Music Score).

Hedy had two more successful movies at the box office in the 1950s. The first was the Western Grand Canyon (1950), which co-starred Ray Milland, and the following year was the comedy My Favorite Spy (1951), with Bob Hope.

In 1954, the actress decided the produce an anthology television series, Great Loves, in which she would also star in. The premise was to highlight the love affairs of various women throughout history, with Hedy playing the lead in each story. Filmed in Italy and planned to have thirty-nine episodes, financial and distribution problems allowed only three to be shot. Subsequently, it was released as Loves of Three Queens with Hedy playing the following roles: Helen of Troy, Joséphine Bonaparte, and Genevieve of Brabant.

Hedy Lamarr’s career began to wind down by the end of the 1950s, with her final role being in the 1958 thriller The Female Animal. She was 44 years old when filming was completed.

Final Years

In 1966, a ghost-written autobiography of Hedy’s life was released called Ecstasy and Me. She disavowed the book as mostly fiction and tried but failed to stop its publication. That same year she was arrested for shoplifting in Los Angeles. The charges were ultimately dropped.

Hedy Lamarr moved to Florida in 1981 and lived there for the remainder of her life. In her final years, she became more and more reclusive, refusing to meet even her children face to face and opting to have all of her personal correspondence done via the telephone.

On January 19, 2000, Hedy Lamarr died of heart disease at eighty-five years old. She was cremated, with her ashes being scattered in Austria’s Vienna Woods.

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