We Owe Our Wi-Fi to the World’s Most Beautiful Woman
Star of the silver screen, world's most beautiful woman, and the face that inspired a Disney animated princess...but the greatest story of Hedy Lamarr's life is her insatiable desire to invent
The story of Hedy Lamarr is quite an extraordinary one. A famous Hollywood actress once dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world. A woman whose face was the most sought after request to plastic surgeons in the 1940s. A face that was the inspiration for the animated image of Snow White.
However, this beauty and star of the silver screen possessed yet another world-class talent…inventing. And this talent would bring about an invention that propelled the world to innovations few in her time could have ever imagined.
Before Hedy Lamarr, There Was Heddie Kietzler
Born to Jewish parents in Austria, the young Lamarr, whose given birth name was Heddie Kietzler, had an insatiable curiosity for invention. And it was evident at a young age. She successfully disassembled and re-assembled a music box when she was just five.
Her passion would continue into her formative years. As she grew and attended private school, she would listen to her father explain how various inventions in the world worked. She soaked up as much as she could from him, only furthering her appetite for discovery.
When she turned nienteen, she married a wealthy Austrian munitions manufacturer. She also began acquiring roles in movies in Europe. However, Lamarr grew unhappy with her relationship and what was taking place in Europe to Jews. It was the late 1930s and her awareness of what may transpire in Europe coupled with her desire to escape her marriage and start anew led her to leave.
Leaving Town for America
In 1937, Lamarr strategically booked herself a ticket to New York on the same ocean liner that MGM head Louis B. Mayer was on. While in transit, she met with Mayer and discussed her potential as an actress in Hollywood. Negotiating Mayer up from his original offer of $125 per week to a $500 per week contract, Lamar adopted the name she is famous for today, and the foundation of her stardom was laid.
In between her films - including Boom Town, Tortilla Flat and Crossraods - Lamarr continued to tinker as a self-taught inventor. Her passion for inventing would lead her to parter with another inventing enthusiast, composer George Antheil.
Antheil and Lamarr set off to pursue their passion. Despite their busy professional ‘day job’ schedules, the two would work tirelessly behind closed doors and well into the early hours of the morning.
Supporting the War With Both Talents
As World War II broke out, Lamarr continued her successful acting career, and her time spent inventing. Despite her intellectual curiosity and capability, her desire to support the war efforts were met with recommendations to utilize her fame and appearance. Thus, when she wasn’t wrapped up in inventing projects, found time to support the war efforts using her platform.
She would travel to 16 cities in just ten days and help sell over $25 million in war bonds. She would also start a letter-writing campaign through MGM which resulted in over 2,100 letters being sent to servicemen fighting in World War II.
Despite these accomplishments, her most significant contribution to society, though it would not be realized for decades, was the invention of ‘frequency-hopping.’ Determined to find a way to throw off torpedo tracking capabilities, Antheil and Lamarr had discovered a way in which they could throw off course fired torpedos using various radio signals.
An Idea Ahead of its Time
They called the technology frequency-hopping and filed and gained a patent for the idea in 1942. The two presented the idea to the U.S. Navy hoping an interest in deterring torpedos would be desired. Despite their pitch, the officials deemed the technological bar to implement too high, and at the time were not considering patented ideas born outside of the military. Their tremendous idea went ignored.
Fast forward twenty years and the United States found itself in the height of tensions with the Soviet Union. As the Cuban Missile Crisis began to unfold, the value and ingeniousness of Lamarr and Antheil’s technology could no longer be annoyed. As the U.S. Navy formed their line of ships, they did so with ships featuring an updated version of Lamarr and Antheil’s frequency-hopping technology.
Now recognizing the brilliance of their invention and with technological innovation exploding, others began using frequency-hopping as the basis for greater technological leaps forward.
In Lamarr’s lifetime, she would watch her frequency-hopping technology serve as the foundation for spread spectrum technology. Their idea became the root of innovations that gave us Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi.
Battling the Stereotype: Beauty and Brains
Despite her brilliance for invention and insatiable curiosity, Lamarr could never escape the expectations and focus that the title of most beautiful woman in the world brought with it. But for those who had the opportunity to ‘talk shop’ with Lamarr, they are known to point out that their conversations resembled “two engineers on a hot project.”
Many today know Lamarr for success on the silver screen and for her tumultuous personal life which included six marriages and a conviction for shop lifting in 1990. But her frequency-hopping idea, which unfortunately came off patent before widespread implementation or acceleration into more advanced technologies is said to be worth $30 billion.
Her Curiosity Burned On
It was only in the later years of her life did she start to receive the attention and praise for the invention - though she still did not see any money from it. In 1997, she was awarded the Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Even into her 80s she continued to invent: a fluorescent dog collar, a variation of the stoplight, and even proposed modifications to the design of the Concorde. The curiosity in her never quieted.
Lamarr would die at age 85 in 2000, but her ingenious invention, now turning eighty years old this year, has fueled technological advancements and global interconnections that even she may have never imagined.
History for the Hurried
February 28, 1844: During a demonstration a gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded, killing several top U.S. government officials on the steamer ship, and narrowly missed killing then President John Tyler.
February 28, 1994: NATO conducted its first combat action in its 45 year history as four Bosnian Serb jets were shot down by American fighters in a no-fly zone.