Great Girls is series in which we meet inspiring women from ever era, culture and walk of life. This month we're meeting...
Heddy Lamar; silver screen siren and technology pioneer. Oh darling, beauty, brains and balls!
Heddy - or to use her full name Hedwig (reason enough to love her no?) crammed so much into one life time of Hollywood excess that she makes Rihanna (and her ubiquitous nipples) look tame. From dinner with Hitler, galas with Mussolin, condemnation from the Pope, a spell of nymphomania and a stint in prison to an invention that changed the world and won a war Heddy has been there, done it and won it.
Born in Vienna in 1914 Heddy had her first taste of showbiz after a chance meeting with a director, who awed by her beauty - if not her acting talent - cast her in his film. Heddy loved it and at the age of 16 took herself to Berlin to make herself a star. Shortly afterwards she met and fell in love with her first husband (there would be six), a decision she came to regret very quickly.
Fritz Mandl was described by his young wife as "handsome, magnetic...and utterly ruthless". Neccesary qualities no doubt for a Jew selling arms to the nazis. Really! Besotted by this handsome and magnectic man, a love struck Heddy couldn't wait to start married life in the the 'Mandl Palace'. However she quickly found herself a prisoner there, forbidden from working and spied on by the enourmous staff Heddy was trapped playing the vivacious hostess to dinner guests like Hitler and Mussolini. This was no place for a jewish girl who couldn't act!
Late one night Heddy took her chance. A few crushed pills into a maid's tea provided the costume for her disguise and, with a bag full of jewels and bank notes Heddy pocketed Mandl's car keys and drove into the dark. She took herself to Paris, where once again a chance meeting would land her back on the screen. Well, almost. The MGM scout was less than impressed by her acting skills and told her so, but, never one to be put off, Heddy pawned her jewels and bought herself a one-way ticket to New York...aboard the very same ship as the scout! Hedwig Mandl boarded in France and Heddy Lamarr alighted in New York. Hedwig and Heddy knew that her looks alone could not carry her, after all...
One of her first roles was in Ecstasy, it would rock the movie industry, horrify polite society and scandalise the pope because Heddy was the very first woman to be depicted nude and simulate an orgasm on screen. Miley and her 'bitches' have nothing on Heddy! A glittering, though less than Oscar worthy, career followed and Heddy quickly earned herself a reputation as a diva, but in her own words..
Heddy's most lasting contribution came from a rather unlikely source. Her disasterous marriage to Mandl did serve a useful purpose - it introduced her brilliant brain to spread spectrum communications and frequeny hopping. Her invention involved transmitting messages and missile signals from a stream of constantly changing radio frequencies - this made it impossible for enemies to incept or block messages. And thus, Heddy Lamarr brought a happy ending to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Perhaps that's not cool enough? Well if youre reading this on a phone or tablet you have Heddy Lamarr to thank because WiFi and Bluetooth are built on the technology that Ms Lamarr designed on her living room with a silver matchbox and a tube of red lipstick.
Sadly, while "the first half of her life was a glittering dream, the second half was a tragic waste." Heddy tore through husbands, by the time she got to number six her motives were less than romantic claiming that "I was broke and hungry, I had to marry." Her career began to fade, and she relied on plastic surgery to preserve her looks and drugs to cope with her depression. She was twice arrested for shop lifting and by the sixties was living in a bedsit, estranged from all who loved her and unable to afford heating or food. She would freqeuntly acost strangers in the street to tell of her "glory days" as a "famous actress". Heddy passed away in 2007 after a roller coaster life that took her to the heights of both her careers and the deepest lows in her personal life. She once tragically declared that she had been blessed and cursed by her beauty, declaring "My face is the mask I can't take off."
Lets leave Heddy with a wry warning to our vanity...
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