Books, arts and culture

Glamour and glass ceilings
The incredible inventiveness of Hedy Lamarr

“Bombshell”, a new documentary film, tells the story of a studio star and pioneer of wireless technology

SHE was considered “the most beautiful woman in the world”, and had one of the most iconic faces of 1930s and 1940s Hollywood. She provided the inspiration for Snow White and Catwoman. Other actresses tried to look like her, and leading men sought to be with her. But Hedy Lamarr’s glamorous career overshadows her most significant achievements. “Bombshell”, a new documentary film from Alexandra Dean, restores Lamarr’s rightful place in the history not only of film, but of science as well.

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Born in 1914 to a Jewish family, Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler grew up absorbing the high culture and creative currents of her native Vienna. Her father was a bank director with a keen curiosity for the world around him, and she inherited his inquisitive mind-set. At the young age of five she took apart her music box in order to put it back together. Importantly, she learned to internalise his admonitions that one must control one’s own destiny.

Her arresting beauty led her into film and away from a career in science. Aged 16 she walked into the largest movie studio in Vienna and launched her career. “Ecstasy” (1933) was her most notorious production, in which she frolicked naked and simulated orgasm (the pope was quick to condemn it). When Louis B. Mayer, an American film producer, arrived in 1937 in an attempt to sign the stars fleeing Hitler, she saw an opportunity. When he offered her $125 a week, she refused, but spent her last savings to book passage on the boat Mayer was taking back to New York. After being struck by the sight of her in her most glamorous dress, he raised the offer to $500. She accepted, and disembarked in America as Hedy Lamarr.

Lamarr had a new career path and a new American life to match her name, but her intellectual curiosity remained. After days on set, her nights were spent at her drawing board. She had equipment in her trailer, a gift from fellow inventor Howard Hughes (she designed aerodynamic wings for his airplanes). In 1940, she was determined to find a way to help the Allies in the war; the Nazis’ U-Boats were overpowering British ships. In collaboration with George Antheil, an avant-garde composer she had met at a party, she sought a solution to “radio jamming”—the deliberate disruption of radio signals—that was causing torpedoes to go off-course. Using paper tape, they created a device that would allow “frequency hopping” and secure communications. “Bombshell” shows us her original notes and diagrams, using animation to help with the explanation.

Although they were granted a patent in 1942, the navy was hostile towards inventions produced outside the military; Lamarr was told that she would be more useful to the war effort if she used her fame and beauty to sell war bonds. The navy’s eventual use of her invention in the cold war—the patent had elapsed—was not conveyed to her. Eventually, frequency hopping would form the basis for most of the world’s secure communications, including military satellites, Wi-Fi and GPS.

Like other recent tributes to untold feats by women in science and technology, “Bombshell” unearths a chapter of history that doesn’t neatly comport with our understanding. Lamarr’s ingenuity went unrecognised not only because she was a woman, but because of the very glamour and beauty that dominated her public perception. The film opens with Lamarr’s wry observation that “any woman can look glamorous: all she has to do is stand still and look stupid.” Even Mel Brooks, who was a lifelong fan, remarked: “Best looking star that ever lived and I heard she was a scientist too…is that true?”

Her own family believed she died without telling her full story; obituaries devoted scant space to her inventions. Ms Dean was determined to try and correct that and make Lamarr the narrator of her own story. After some tenacious digging, that became possible: Fleming Meeks, a staff writer at Forbes in the 1990s, said that he had been “waiting 25 years for someone to call me about Hedy Lamarr, because I have the tapes.” In these audio recordings, Lamarr laments the lack of recognition that her invention, and her intellect generally, received. It provides the backbone of the film, and brings to life Lamarr’s beguiling persona.

With these remarkable tapes, comprehensive archival material and interviews with family and friends, “Bombshell” is a masterful portrait of a most complex character. It acknowledges the more sordid stories that trailed Lamarr—a string of failed marriages, a drug addiction that ravaged her physical and mental health, the ruinous plastic surgeries that left her a recluse, hiding in the shadow of her once famous face. But it weaves together the many strands of her different identities. She was a Jewish émigrée fleeing the Nazis; a canny negotiator in an exploitative studio system; a producer in her own right (as a means to circumvent the powerful men in Hollywood altogether); a single mother; an inventor.

Much as “Hidden Figures” drew attention to the important roles of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson at NASA during the space race, “Bombshell” will encourage viewers to look differently at the wireless technology on which mobile phones and GPS so depend. Alexandra Dean has not only told the story of a siren of the silver screen in vivid colour, but retold the story of communications technology.

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