Hedy
Lamarr
1914-2000
Born in
Austria,
Hedy Lamarr was probably the first actress to perform an orgasm
onscreen. Or at least, she was the first such actress identified in the
credits of a movie that respectable people went to see. It was in her
early film career in Czechoslovakia,
in the controversial 1933 erotic drama Ecstasy.
Lamarr married Friedrich Mandl, a munitions
manufacturer, but eventually fled her husband and secretly moved to Paris.
She worked in Hollywood during its Golden Age, starring in films such
as Ziegfeld Girl and Samson and Delilah.
Marriage to a munitions
manufacturer gave her knowledge of weapons
systems, including torpedo control systems.
Lamarr worked with Hollywood composer George Antheil to invent
a frequency hopping technique that is an important
development in the field of wireless communications. Frequency hopping reduced the risk of detection or jamming of
radio-controlled torpedoes. Multiple radio frequencies were used to
broadcast a radio signal, switching frequencies at split-second
intervals in a seemingly random manner that would sound like mere noise
to anyone listening. But if both the sender and receiver of the signal
hopped frequencies at the same time, the signal was clear.
Alphabetical
< Harriet Tubman
Hedy Lamarr
Helen of Troy >
Timeframe
< Rosa Parks 1913-2005
Hedy Lamarr 1914-2000
Rosalind Franklin 1920-1958 >