Kurier, November 26, 2019
German original: https://kurier.at/kultur/hedy-lamarr-hollywood-diva-mit-sex-appeal-und-technischer-brillanz/400686728
A life fit for the movies is shown by the Museum at Judenplatz: “Lady Bluethooth. Hedy Lamarr” (until May 5).
By Werner Rosenberger
“I think sometimes I act more in life than on the screen,” Hedwig Kiesler aka Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) said, a true Viennese child from the Döbling district.
The daughter of a bank director and later film star with sex appeal, and inventor at the same time, was regarded as the “most beautiful woman in the world” during the 1930s. Walt Disney drew his Snow White based on her image.
The exhibit Lady Bluetooth. Hedy Lamarr (until May 10) at the Jewish Museum Vienna at Judenplatz sheds light on the life of an actress, who gained world fame over night by playing the first nude scene in film history in Ecstacy (1932). Censorship intervenes. The Pope is indignant.
Towards the end of the 1920s, Max Reinhard had discovered her for the stage. After acting training in Berlin she returns to Vienna and performs her first big film role in Man braucht kein Geld (One Does Not need Money) next to Hans Moser and Heinz Rühmann.
A Turbulent Life
She regards herself as a”complicated, simple person,” marries six times, among others the Bullet King (Patronenkönig) of Hirtenberg, Fritz Mandl, of whom she said “he did not marry me, he collected me, just like a successful business deal.”
“Every girl can be glamorous. You just have to stand still and look stupid” is one of her most-cited sentences.
Her most successful movie is Cecil DeMilles old-hat bible drama Samson and Deliah (1949), although Groucho Marx complained that her partner, Victor Mature, has “bigger tits” than her, who often serves as decoration for famous men: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, or Charles Boyer.
And the sex bomb’s contribution to the history of technology was quickly forgotten - her idea that the principle of punch cards - like those controlling automatic pianos - could be used for a secret communications system for torpedoes. Together with the composer Georg Antheil she developed the frequency hopping technique during the 1940s, which, among other things, serves as the basis for today’s Bluethooth technology.
Her patent did not garner much attention for decades, while the U.S. military was still using it. And with digitalization it transpired: Lamarr was a pioneer for technologies like WLAN or Bluetooth.
As her fame fades, she becomes a film producer and goes bankrupt. She remains a hotel owner only until her next divorce. She is being charged in court twice for shoplifting.
“Her total happiness was denied,” says her son, Anthony Loder. She was afraid to lose her beauty: facelifts lead to catastrophic results. But her orgasm in Ecstasy was not real, either: there, the camera shows her aroused face, she bites her own hand, then the cigarette makes its appearance. The ecstatic expression, according to Lamarr, was caused by pinpricks to her buttocks, administered by the film’s director.
The Film Archive will host a Hedy Lamarr retrospective from December 12 until January 7.
Book tipp: Michaela Lindinger „Hedy Lamarr. Filmgöttin – Antifaschistin – Erfinderin“, Molden Verlag, 28 €