Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr

1914-11-09 – 2000-01-19 (age 85) Vienna, Austria
View on IMDb ↗

Biography

Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born actress and technology inventor. She was a film star during Hollywood's Golden Age.

After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her first husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood. She became a film star with her performance in Algiers (1938). Her MGM films include Lady of the Tropics (1939), Boom Town (1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and White Cargo (1942). Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Bible-inspired Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal (1958). She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

At the beginning of World War II, she and avant-garde composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. This system later became the basis for what is now known as Bluetooth.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Hedy Lamarr, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Photos

Known For

Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah

1949

as Delilah

Ziegfeld Girl
Ziegfeld Girl

1941

as Sandra Kolter

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

2018

as Self (archive footage)

The Strange Woman
The Strange Woman

1946

as Jenny Hager

That's Entertainment, Part II
That's Entertainment, Part II

1976

as (archive footage) (uncredited)

Celebrity Naked Ambition
Celebrity Naked Ambition

2003

as Self (archive footage)

That's Entertainment! III
That's Entertainment! III

1994

as (archive footage) (uncredited)

Boom Town
Boom Town

1940

as Karen Vanmeer

Copper Canyon
Copper Canyon

1950

as Lisa Roselle

Ecstasy
Ecstasy

1933

as Eva Hermann

Come Live with Me
Come Live with Me

1941

as Johnny Jones

Lady of the Tropics
Lady of the Tropics

1939

as Manon deVargnes Carey, aka Kira Kim

Experiment Perilous
Experiment Perilous

1944

as Allida Bederaux

The Story of Mankind
The Story of Mankind

1957

as Joan of Arc

The Heavenly Body
The Heavenly Body

1944

as Vicky Whitley

Show-Business at War
My Favorite Spy
My Favorite Spy

1951

as Lily Dalbray

Her Highness and the Bellboy
Her Highness and the Bellboy

1945

as Princess Veronica

Showbiz Goes to War
Showbiz Goes to War

1982

as (archive footage)