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HEDY LAMARR - A Beautiful Mind

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Bianca
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« on: November 13, 2007, 09:28:07 am »













                                                   Hedy Lamarr, A beatiful Mind





by Federico Peiretti

 “It’s not difficult to become a great seducer”, Hedy Lamarr used to say, “staying still and playing the bimbo is enough”.

The great Hollywood movie star, who had an irresistible gaze and was acclaimed as “the most beautiful woman of the world”, demolishes the cliché that beauty must necessarily be accompanied by stupidity.

Although on screen she played the bimbo, in real life, besides being very beautiful, she was also very intelligent. The fact that she is the only movie star who can boast a patent in such a difficult field as telecommunications proves it.



In order to reconstruct the story of her invention we have to go back to 1933, when after the success
of Ecstasy -the scandalous film where she appeared naked, the first naked scene in a film shown in normal cinemas- she married a rich Austrian weapons manufacturer, Fritz Mandl.

Hedy Lamarr had been born in Vienna in 1915 and her parents forced her to marry when she was only eighteen. She could hardly put up with a despotic husband who treated her as a slave and – Lamarr remembers – paraded her as a trophy in his many meetings with generals, arms dealers and specialists
on
that field. Confident that the beautiful Viennese would never be able to understand their technical conversations they talked freely in front of her.

Four years later, when Mandl started collaborating with the Nazis, Lamarr escaped to London. There she met Louis B. Mayer from MGM, who made it possible for her to go to Hollywood.

But she didn’t forget what she had learnt while she was at the side of the first of her husbands, particularly the confidential talks about the research Mandl was carrying out in a very delicate field: long distance weapons control.

In practice it was a matter of being able to guide a missile or a torpedo towards its target in such a way that the enemy couldn’t intercept and cancel the signal. Sure enough, a simple radio signal of a given frequency could easily be identified and blocked. Therefore it was necessary to find a way to switch frequencies from moment to moment, so that the enemy received just an indecipherable background noise while the signal arrived loud and clear only to those transmitting and receiving it, provided they were conveniently synchronised.

Hedy Lamarr - 9 years old


Lamarr thought that if these ideas she had heard in Vienna were conveniently developed, they could provide a crucial contribution in the war against Nazism, which she personally hated. Meeting George Antheil, the avant-garde composer, in 1941, made it possible for Lamarr to achieve the practical realisation of her project. One day Antheil was playing the piano and she was following him with her voice. It was obvious that despite the continuous variations they could understand each other perfectly. Wasn’t it possible – Lamarr wondered – to achieve a similar understanding of frequency changes in a torpedo’s radio control?

George Antheil


They started working together on this idea. In essence, the range of frequencies available was subdivided in 88 subfields, or channels, as many as keys a piano has. The transmission was made to bounce from channel to channel at regular intervals, but the channel sequence order (for instance: 25, 11, 54, 61, etc...) was to be kept secret and known only by the transmitter and the receiver. Obviously they had to be perfectly synchronised and use a precise mechanism that remembered the sequence of channels selected during each elementary time interval.

Antheil found the solution to both problems by adopting a method similar to that of the punched paper rolls used to operate mechanic pianolas. After several months’ work they presented their project at the National Inventors Council, which issued them with a patent registered on 11 August 1942, Secret Communications System n. 2.292387.


« Last Edit: November 13, 2007, 11:31:26 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2007, 09:41:52 am »






A design from the Lamarr-Antheil’s patent



FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Hedy Lamarr (under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey) and composer George Antheil received U.S. Patent 2,292,387  for their Secret Communication System on August 11, 1942. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam.

This idea was controversial and ahead of its time and technology. The technology was not implemented until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba,[3] after the patent had expired. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil (who died in 1959) made any money from the patent. Perhaps due to this lag in development, the patent was little-known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr an award for this contribution.[1]

Lamarr's frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. The technology in particular that is often attributed to her and George Antheil is CDMA.[4]

Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council but she was told that she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. She once raised $7,000,000 at just one event.
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Bianca
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« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2007, 09:46:44 am »










That’s how what’s today known as “spread spectrum” or “divided spectrum transmission” was born. But technology in the 40s was still unsuitable for putting this idea into practice. It was the period of the big thermionic valves and the transistor didn’t exist yet. The project didn’t arouse great enthusiasm. The Navy declared that it would have been too difficult to insert a synchronising device similar to that used in pianolas into every torpedo. When Lamarr insisted on moving to Washington and working on her invention at the National Inventors Council, the army replied that she would be much more useful in Hollywood, using her stardom appeal for collecting the funds necessary to finance the war.



WWII WAR BONDS DRIVE


Thus Lamarr gave up her idea and went back to her femme fatale role. It’s been told that during the evenings organised by The Army she offered a kiss to those who underwrote bonds for at least twenty five thousand dollars, and that in this way she managed to collect seven million dollars in a single night.

Her idea was correct though, and its realisation became possible with electronic technology. In 1962 the new communication technique was adopted by the United States. It was the on-board communication technique used by all the ships involved in the Cuban blockade. The idea of subdividing a wide frequency field in several channels is not only useful in cryptography, but also when you want to divide the transmission resources among several broadcasts. It’s not only useful for military purposes, but today it’s also used in mobile phones and wireless internet connections. In recent years the United States patents office has registered as many as 1203 patents related to the “divided spectrum transmission”.

 


Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy
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Bianca
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« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2007, 09:59:19 am »









Finally also Hedy Lamarr is getting the acknowledgement she deserves for her work.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has awarded her the “EFF Pioneer” prize for “the invention and development in 1942 of the original frequency hopping concept, from which the spread spectrum stems.” Last time the newspapers talked about her was because of a theft in a Los Angeles department store.

Although she’s never earned any money for her invention, the scientific prize she’s now received must surely be a far more important acknowledgement than any Oscar for Hedy Lamarr, a nice revenge on the general who had confined her to “selling kisses”.

Hedy Lamarr died on January 18, 2000, at the age of 86.

Federico Peiretti
25/03/98





On the web

For those who want to know more about the subject:
http://cas.et.tudelft.nl/~glas/ssc/techn/techniques.html

http://cas.et.tudelft.nl/~glas/thesis

http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/student-papers/fall98-papers/spectrum/whitepaper.html

http://wireless.oldcolo.com

The prize awarded to the actress:
http://www.eff.org/awards/pioneer/1997.php

The Wired article regarding the prize:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,2507,00.html

Homage to Hedy Lamarr, her films and her invention:
http://www.hedylamarr.at/indexe.html

A short video taken from Ecstasy:
http://www.hedylamarr.at/f_filmee.html

Hedy Lamarr’s filmography and biography:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001443


http://www2.polito.it/didattica/polymath/ICT/Htmls/Interventi/Articoli/Italia/LamarrPeiretti/Lamarr%20english.htm
« Last Edit: November 13, 2007, 10:06:36 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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Tristan
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« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2007, 10:47:45 am »

Truly a wonderful thread, Bianca.  Hedy Lamarr not only was one of the most beautiful women of her time, but she also had a very inventive mind.  Too often, people tend to dwell on the way she ended up, the arrests for shoplifting, and such, which were simply the case of the authorities picking on her.
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Bianca
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« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2007, 10:59:13 am »



Oh, Tristan, I am so glad you liked this post.

Often entertainers are dismissed  by the general public as 'not too bright', especially women. 


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


Women in my day and hers (my mother's time) were NOT supposed to have any 'brains', we were only allowed to 'look good'. Believe it or not, that way of thinking is still prevalent in men my age, which is
one of the reasons I never found that I wanted to remarry.....

Yes, I think she did die in poverty, probably the reason for the 'shoplifting'.  I must look it up.

Stay turned....



SHOPLIFTING CHARGES:

In 1965 Lamarr made headlines for being arrested for shoplifting; charges were eventually dropped. This situation played out again in 1991.

From: www.wikipedia.com
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« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2007, 11:00:42 am »

I love her!
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Bianca
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« Reply #7 on: November 13, 2007, 11:01:50 am »



Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American Jewish actress and communications technology innovator. Though known primarily for her great beauty and her successful film career, she also co-invented the first form of spread spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication.






She met Louis B. Mayer in London. After he hired her, at his insistence she changed her name to Hedy Lamarr, choosing the surname in homage to a famously beautiful film star of the silent era, Barbara LaMarr, who had died of a drug overdose in 1926.

Lamarr had already appeared in several European films, including Ecstasy (1933), A Czech film, in which she played a love-hungry young wife of an indifferent old husband. Closeups of her face in orgasm, and long shots of her running **** through the woods, gave the film notoriety. (In reality, the looks of passion were looks of pain, as the director poked her with a pin to get the desired effect.) (Robert Osbourne, TCM) Mandl bought up as many copies of the film as he could possibly find, as he objected to her nudity, as well as "the expression on her face."

In Hollywood, she was usually cast as glamorous and seductive. Her many films include Algiers (1938), White Cargo (1942), and Tortilla Flat (1942), based on the novel by John Steinbeck. In 1941 she was cast alongside two other Hollywood beauties, Lana Turner and Judy Garland in the musical extravaganza Ziegfeld Girl.

Her biggest success came as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) with Victor Mature as the Biblical strongman. Samson and Delilah was the highest-grossing film of 1949.

Lamarr became a naturalized citizen of the United States on April 10, 1953.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hedy Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd.
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« Reply #8 on: November 13, 2007, 11:13:15 am »









Death

Lamarr died in Altamonte Springs, Florida (near Orlando) on January 19, 2000.




 Legacy

In 2003, the Boeing corporation ran a series of recruitment ads featuring Hedy Lamarr as a woman of science. No reference to her film career was made in the ads.

In 2005, the first Inventor's Day in German-speaking countries was held in her honor on November 9, on what would have been her 92nd birthday.




Marriages

Briefly engaged to the actor George Montgomery in 1942,[5] Lamarr was married to:

Friedrich Mandl (1900–1977), married 1933–37; chairman of Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik, a leading armaments firm founded by his father, Alexander Mandl. Mandl, although partially of Jewish descent, was a supporter of political fascism, although not Nazism.

Gene Markey (1895-1980), screenwriter and producer, married 1939–41; son (adopted in 1941, after their divorce), James Lamarr Markey (b. 1939).[6] When Lamarr and Markey divorced — she claimed they had only spent four evenings alone together in their marriage — the judge advised her to get to know any future husband longer than the four weeks she had known Markey. Previously, he was married to actresses Joan Bennett and Myrna Loy.

John Loder (born John Muir Lowe, 1898–1988), actor, married 1943–47; two children: Anthony Loder (b. 1947) and Denise Loder (b. 1945). Loder adopted Hedy's son, James Lamarr Markey, and gave him his surname. James Lamarr Loder later challenged Hedy Lamarr's will in 2000, which did not mention him. He later dropped his suit against the estate in exchange for a lump-sum payment of $50,000.
Ernest "Ted" Stauffer (1909-1991), nightclub owner, restaurateur, and former bandleader, married 1951–52.

W. Howard Lee (1909–1981), a Texas oilman, married 1953–60. In 1960, he married film star Gene Tierney.

Lewis J. Boies (b. 1920), a lawyer, married 1963–65. They were divorced after Lamarr claimed he had threatened her with a plastic baseball bat and wiffle ball.
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« Reply #9 on: November 13, 2007, 11:16:21 am »



SAMSON AND DELILAH








Filmography



Money on the Street (1930)

Storm in a Water Glass (1931)
 
The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (1931)
 
We Need No Money (1932)
 
Ecstasy (1933)


Algiers (1938)
 
Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (short subject)
 
Screen Snapshots: Stars at a Charity Ball (1939) (short subject)
 
Lady of the Tropics (1939)
 
I Take This Woman (1940)
 
Boom Town (1940)


WITH CLARK GABLE IN 'COMRADE X'
Comrade X (1940)
 
Come Live with Me (1941)



Ziegfeld Girl (1941)
 
H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941)


Tortilla Flat (1942)
 
Crossroads (1942)


White Cargo (1942)
 
Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
 
The Heavenly Body (1944)
 
The Conspirators (1944)
 
Experiment Perilous (1944)
 
Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)
 
The Strange Woman (1946)
 
Dishonored Lady (1947)
 
Let's Live a Little (1948)
 
Samson and Delilah (1949)
 
A Lady Without Passport (1950)
 
Copper Canyon (1950)
 
My Favorite Spy (1951)
 
The Eternal Female (1954) (unfinished)
 
Loves of Three Queens (1954)
 
The Story of Mankind (1957)
 
The Female Animal (1958
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« Reply #10 on: November 13, 2007, 11:21:17 am »









Cecil B. DeMille is said to have gathered the 1,900 peacock feathers that Lamarr wore on her 18-foot-train dress in the film Samson and Delilah (1949) himself, having followed molting peacocks on his ranch for the previous 10 years, until he had collected enough feathers to have the garment made.


According to My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959), the autobiography of actor and adventurer Errol Flynn, he went out of his way to meet Lamarr because he had heard of her outstanding beauty and wanted to hear more of her personal life. "She had been married to the fabulously rich Fritz Mandel, a munitions magnate. The story was that he used to lock up all her jewels, and he used to lock her up too. Her husband let her wear one or two jewels at a time, but never all together, and the jewels were in his safe all the time. One night he was having over a very famous Nazi guest, Prince von Staremberg, the leader of the Austrian Fascists. Mandel was doing a lot of business with him. Hedy asked her husband if she could wear all her jewels that night because she wanted to impress the prince and so be of some help to Mandel in his business relation. Her jeweled entrance caused a sensation. From her fingers up to her shoulders in ice, red ice, blue ice, emeralds, rubies, diamonds. She must have weighed half as much as the late Aga Khan. As the dinner went on, Hedy developed a sick headache and excused herself just for a moment, to go to the bathroom. But she never came back for coffee. Next thing she was in America — in Hollywood — jewels and beauty and talent and all. Now, with Niven prodding me, I didn't know how to get around her to ask her to tell me about her private life, but it sounded intriguing when David repeated, 'See if she'll talk about that night she couldn't stand it anymore and made a getaway.' Hedy and I talked for a while. I started leading up to it in a diplomatic way, and finally got out the words, 'Where is Mandel now?' At which, from this beautiful creature, came the growl, 'That sonofabitch!' She spat and walked off."

 
In 1965 Lamarr made headlines for being arrested for shoplifting; charges were eventually dropped. This situation played out again in 1991.


Andy Warhol directed a 70-minute film Hedy (1966) also known as Hedy the Shoplifter, starring drag queen Mario Montez as Hedy.

 
According to her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me (1966), once while running away from Friedrich Mandl, she slipped into a brothel and hid in an empty room. While her husband searched the brothel, a man entered the room and she had sex with him so she could remain hidden. She was finally successful in escaping when she hired a new maid who resembled her; she drugged the maid and used her uniform as a disguise to escape.  Lamarr later sued the publisher claiming that many of the anecdotes in the book, which was described by a judge as "filthy, nauseating, and revolting," were fabricated by its ghost writer, Leo Guild.


In an interview included in the DVD release of Blazing Saddles (1974), Mel Brooks claims that Hedy Lamarr threatened to sue the producers. He says she believed the film's running "Hedley Lamarr" joke infringed her right to publicity. In one scene, one character even warns another that Hedy would sue. Brooks says they settled out of court for a small sum.

 
In the song "Feed Me (Git it)" from Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Audry II lists a date with Hedy Lamarr as part of his offer to Seymour in exchange for food.


In 1998, a vector illustration of Lamarr's face was used by Corel Corporation on the packaging and in the publicity for its CorelDRAW 8 software. Lamarr retained Attorney Michael McDonnell and sued Corel for damages relating to unauthorized use of her likeness. The case was resolved in 1999 and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, under terms that allowed Corel five years of exclusive rights to the image.


In the video game Half-Life 2, Doctor Isaac Kleiner keeps a debeaked headcrab he calls 'Lamarr' and at some points in the game calls 'Hedy'. The same headcrab appears in the ending sequence of the game.
Hedy Lamarr's story is illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil on Jim Ottaviani's graphic novel, Dignifying Science: Stories of Women Scientists, which focuses on her engineering developments.
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« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2007, 11:22:46 am »









Quotes



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

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


"Films have a certain place in a certain time period. Technology is forever".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr








Original paintings of Hedy Lamarr by her daughter, Denise Loder-DeLuca: deedeeloder@comcast.com
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« Reply #12 on: November 13, 2007, 11:37:27 am »

Almost thirty years ago I was given the honor of picking a film to be shown at Filmforum back when it was in Pasadena CA and I chose Ecstacy.... I had only been together with my Jack for a few months at that time and the word fit my life perfectly!
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