Hedy Lamarr's Mother: Escape From Austria

Austrian-American actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, fled her first husband, arms dealer Fritz Mandl, in 1937. Mandl was an Austrian military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer with ties to the fascist movement. Lamarr's mother, Gertrud Trude Kiesler, was a pianist and native of Budapest who came from an upper-class Hungarian-Jewish family. While it is unclear whether Lamarr was able to get her mother out of Austria, her mother, Trude, moved to the United States to be with her daughter in 1942.

Hedy Lamarr's escape from her first husband

Lamarr's marriage to Mandl, an Austrian military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer, began in 1933 when she was just 18 years old. Mandl was reputedly the third-richest man in Austria, with close ties to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini and, later, German Führer Adolf Hitler. Lamarr's parents, who were of Jewish descent, did not approve of the match, but they were unable to stop the headstrong young woman.

Lamarr soon discovered that Mandl was extremely controlling. He ordered her to quit acting and tried to buy and destroy every copy of 'Ecstasy'. He also kept her as a virtual prisoner in their castle home, Schloss Schwarzenau, only allowing her to leave if she was accompanied by a servant. He listened to her phone calls, controlled her allowance, and kept her jewellery locked away.

Realising that her marriage had become unbearable, Lamarr began planning her escape. She stole pieces of jewellery here and there and asked a friend to sell them and keep the money for her. According to one account, she even hired a maid who looked like her, drugged her one night, and escaped in her uniform. However, in her autobiography, 'Ecstasy and Me', Lamarr wrote that she simply persuaded Mandl to let her wear all her jewellery for a dinner party and then disappeared afterwards, catching a late train from Vienna to Paris.

Arriving in Paris, Lamarr received a telegram from a servant warning her that Mandl was on her trail. She then travelled to London, where she met Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, who offered her a film contract in Hollywood. Mandl, frustrated by his wife's escape, decided to divorce her rather than continue the hunt.

And so, Lamarr's escape from her first husband set her on a path to Hollywood stardom and, eventually, technological glory.

Her career as an actress

Hedy Lamarr's career as an actress began in Vienna, where she took acting classes and got herself hired as a script girl at Sascha-Film. She had a role as an extra in the romantic comedy Money on the Street (1930) and then a small speaking part in the comedy Storm in a Water Glass (1931). She was then cast in a play entitled The Weaker Sex, which was performed at the Theater in der Josefstadt.

Lamarr's first major role came in 1932, when she appeared in a Czech film called Ekstase (US title: "Ecstasy"). In the film, she played a young girl married to an older gentleman, who falls in love with a young soldier. The film included brief nude scenes, which were very tame by today's standards but still caused a sensation worldwide. The film was banned by the U.S. government at the time and denounced by Pope Pius XII. Despite the controversy, the film brought Lamarr worldwide fame and name recognition as the "Ecstasy Girl".

In 1937, Lamarr fled her controlling first husband, Friedrich Mandl, and secretly moved to Paris, before travelling to London, where she met Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a film contract in Hollywood. Mayer persuaded her to change her name to Hedy Lamarr, in order to distance herself from her real identity and the "Ecstasy Lady" reputation associated with it. Lamarr made her American film debut as Gaby in Algiers (1938), which was followed by Lady of the Tropics (1939).

In the 1940s, Lamarr starred in several successful films, including the Western Boom Town (1940) with Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, and Spencer Tracy, and the drama White Cargo (1942), in which she played the exotic Arab seductress Tondelayo. She was invariably typecast as the archetypal glamorous seductress of exotic origin, and her roles tended to emphasize her beauty and sensuality while giving her relatively few lines. Lamarr reportedly took up inventing to relieve her boredom.

After World War II, Lamarr's career began to decline, and her contract with MGM was not renewed. Unfortunately, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942), which would have secured her standing in the minds of the American public. In 1949, she starred as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Samson and Delilah, which was Paramount Pictures' most profitable movie to date. However, Lamarr only made six more films between 1949 and 1957, with her last film being The Female Animal (1958).

Her career as an inventor

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor. She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, the only child of a pianist mother and a banker father. As a child, she showed an interest in acting and technology. She began her film career in Czechoslovakia, starring in the erotic romantic drama "Ecstasy" in 1933. Lamarr's most notable acting work includes "Algiers" (1938), "Boom Town" (1940), and "Samson and Delilah" (1949).

Lamarr's career as an inventor, however, is equally impressive. She had a natural curiosity for machines and technology, often taking things apart and reassembling them to understand their workings. This passion for invention was further fuelled by her relationship with businessman and pilot Howard Hughes, who encouraged her to innovate and provided her with equipment to work with. Lamarr's most significant invention was a radio guidance system for torpedoes, which she co-invented with composer George Antheil at the beginning of World War II. This system used "frequency hopping" to prevent radio waves from being intercepted, thus allowing torpedoes to find their targets. This technology now forms the basis for modern wireless communication systems such as Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Lamarr received a patent for her invention in 1942 but did not profit from it. She was also an early pioneer of spread spectrum technology, which is widely used today.

Despite her remarkable inventions, Lamarr's genius was largely ignored during her lifetime, with society focusing more on her beauty and acting career. It was only in her later years that she received recognition for her contributions to the field of technology. In 1997, she was jointly awarded the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and she became the first woman to receive the Invention Convention's Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. In 2014, four years after her death, she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her development of frequency-hopping technology. Lamarr's legacy continues to inspire, with honours such as an asteroid and a quantum telescope being named after her.

Her marriages

Hedy Lamarr was married six times. Her first husband was the Austrian munitions manufacturer and arms dealer Friedrich "Fritz" Mandl, whom she married in 1933. Lamarr described Mandl as controlling and abusive, and he kept her as a virtual prisoner in their castle home. In 1937, she fled to Paris, and the couple divorced in 1938.

Lamarr's second marriage was to Gene Markey, a screenwriter and producer. They were married from 1939 to 1941, and Lamarr adopted a son during this marriage.

Her third husband was the actor John Loder, with whom she had two children: a daughter, Denise, and a son, Anthony. They were married from 1943 to 1947.

Lamarr's fourth marriage was to Ernest "Teddy" Stauffer, a nightclub owner, restaurateur, and former bandleader. This marriage lasted from 1951 to 1952.

Her fifth marriage was to W. Howard Lee, a Texas oilman who later married film actress Gene Tierney. They were married from 1953 to 1960.

Lamarr's sixth and final marriage was to Lewis J. Boies, her divorce lawyer. They were married from 1963 to 1965.

After her sixth divorce, Lamarr remained unmarried for the last 35 years of her life.

Her later life and death

Hedy Lamarr's career began to decline in the 1950s, and her last film was 1958's The Female Animal. She retired to Florida, where she died in 2000.

In her later years, Lamarr lived a reclusive life in Casselberry, a community just north of Orlando, Florida. She died there on January 19, 2000, of heart disease, aged 85. Her ashes were scattered in the Vienna Woods in Austria, in accordance with her last wishes, and the remainder was buried in Vienna Central Cemetery.

Lamarr was married and divorced six times and had three children. She adopted a son, James, during her second marriage to Gene Markey, and had two biological children, Denise and Anthony, with her third husband, actor John Loder, who also adopted James.

In the 1970s, Lamarr retreated from public life and became increasingly reclusive. She was offered several scripts, television commercials, and stage projects, but none piqued her interest. She filed a $10 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. in 1974, claiming that the parody of her name in the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles infringed on her right to privacy. The studio settled out of court for an undisclosed nominal sum and issued an apology to Lamarr.

Despite her illustrious career, Lamarr's final years were marked by financial struggles. During her last years, she relied on SAG and social security checks totalling only $300 a month.

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