Nadene Goldfoot 
Studio publicity still of Hedy Lamarr ( November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000) died at age 86; for the film Ziegfeld Girl 1941 age 27. Lamarr's most successful film was the religious epic Samson and Delilah (1949 at age 35)..
Hedy Lamarr was a Jewish woman who lived during WWII in Europe. Her father was born to a Galician-Jewish family in Lemberg in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, part of Austria-Hungary (now Lviv in Ukraine) and was, in the 1920s, deputy director of Wiener Bankverein, and at the end of his life a director at the united Creditanstalt-Bankverein. Her mother, a pianist and a native of Budapest, in the Kingdom of Hungary, had come from an upper-class Hungarian-Jewish family. She had converted to Catholicism and was described as a "practicing Christian" who raised her daughter as a Christian, although Hedy was not baptized at the time. Chances are that her parents had her convert to Catholicism to save her life from the Nazis who started their anti-Semitic acts in about 1932 when she was 18. In their position, they were in the know of what was happening to Jews.
She was not only a most beautiful woman, but also a brilliant one. She's to be admired for what she accomplished during her life. born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; was an Austrian and American actress and inventor. Regarded as a successful film star, she also co-invented a radio guidance system during World War II.
In 1940, Lamarr, who had learned about weaponry through her marriage to an arms manufacturer, joined with the avant-garde composer George Antheil to invent an anti-jamming device for radio-controlled torpedoes.
The Navy ignored the advice. But years later, after the patent expired, the Lamarr-Antheil idea was independently advanced by other scientists and helped form the basis for the anti-jamming technology now used in the U.S. military's $25-billion Milstar defense communications satellite system. Frequency hopping, which existed and was utilized before the Lamarr–Antheil patent, is a foundational technology for spread spectrum communications. Its principles are utilized for secure wireless networking, including Bluetooth and early versions of Wi-Fi, which use variants of spread spectrum to protect data from interception and interference. Her part in this invention was out of the bag when people saw her patent had expired with her name on it.
Lamarr's role in "frequency hopping," overlooked for decades, is now as hot with technology enthusiasts as pinups of Lamarr were with World War II servicemen.
Schematic drawings of her patent appear on Internet Web sites. The actress, who never won an Oscar, is being showered with awards from inventors groups. Her most recent tribute will be accepted by her son Sunday at the Invention Convention in Pasadena.
For Lamarr, her brilliance was both a gift and a burden. Despite her fame, she often felt typecast and undervalued, facing six failed marriages, financial struggles from bad investments, and tabloid scrutiny over her looks, including plastic surgery complications. Don't feel bad, Hedy, Elizabeth Taylor was married 8 times in trying to find the right man.
Hedy Lamarr, the star of such films as "The Heavenly Body" and "Dishonored Lady," secured her place in history more than 60 years ago as the first woman to romp naked across the screen in a feature film. Hedy Lamarr's IQ is widely reported by biographical and trivia sources to be around 140 to 160, placing her in the genius-level range.
As she reflected in her autobiography Ecstasy and Me (1966), the invention’s rejection meant no financial gain—despite its billions in modern value—requiring her to fight twice as hard not just against typecasting, but against erasure of her intellectual legacy. Her experiences highlight the societal challenges faced by women who dare to blend art and science amid prejudice.
Aside from her frequency-hopping invention intended to help defeat the Axis powers, Hedy Lamarr directly helped her own family escape Europe and actively supported the broader Allied war effort. Navigated barriers: Because Atlantic crossings were perilous and targeted by Nazi U-boats, Lamarr worked through complex diplomatic and logistical hurdles to get her mother out safely. (Her mother later converted to Catholicism) , to help obscure their Jewish identity during a hostile era of widespread antisemitism in Hollywood). It happened After the 1938 Anschluss (the Nazi annexation of Austria), Lamarr successfully arranged and paid for her mother, Gertrud Kiesler, to safely escape Vienna and join her in the United States.
Sold war bonds: Turned away by the Navy regarding her invention, she threw herself into public fundraising, famously raising millions of dollars in war bonds for the U.S. military. At one famous rally in 1942, she raised $7 million in a single night by offering to kiss a participating buyer.
Hollywood Canteen volunteer: She regularly volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen, dancing with departing servicemen, signing autographs, and performing kitchen and dishwashing duty.
Hedy Lamarr is to be much admired. She truly is an icon for all of us.
Resource:
Wikipedia
