This Week's Goddess - Hedy Lamarr

She has been deamed one of "The Most Beautiful Women in Film..."

and argueably quite worthy of the label...

"Experiment Perilous" (1944)

She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna Austria-Hungary in 1914. She began starring in German movies as a teenager and was first noticed when she appeared nude in the pre-code film ECTASY about a love-starved young young woman married to an older man who finds true passion in the arms of a young farmer.

"Ectasy" (1933)

Ironically, Hedy married Friedrich Mandl (a Vienniese arms manufacturer 13 years her senior) that same year. Friedrich considered acting a fools trade and tried to force the young intellectual Hedy to give up acting and assist him with his business with the German military prior to WWII. Hedy eventually found a way to escape her controlling husband and fled to Paris to pursue her dreams. She later met Louis B. Mayer in London who put her under contract for MGM and made her change her name to Hedy Lamaar in homage to the late silent star Barbara La Marr.

Her American debut was with Charles Boyer in ALGIERS:

"Algiers" (1938)

She was an uncanny natural beauty:

who went on to be one of the most memorable raven-haired vixens of the silver screen.

Lamarr and Robert Taylor - "Lady of the Tropics" (1939)

with Jimmy Stewart - "Come Live with Me" (1941)

She appeared alongside Judy Garland and Lana Turner in the famous ZIGFIELD GIRL

"Ziegfield Girl" (1941) - Hedy appears starting @ 2:40

"Tortilla Flat" with Spencer Tracy and John Garfield (1942)

with William Powell - "The Heavenly Body" (1944)

"The Conspirators" with Paul Henreid (1944)

Probably one of her most famous roles was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's SAMSON AND DELILAH which was the highest-grossing film of 1949...

with Angela Lansbury and Victor Mature in "Samson and Delilah" (1949)

"Lady Without a Passport" (1951)

What is rarely known about Lamarr is that she not only had a brilliant face, but a brilliant mind. Her wit came through in some performances, but most are not aware that she helped invent and patent an early frequency hopping device in 1941 that was not only used for secret military comminications during the Cold War, but also is the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology for Wi-Fi and cell phone network connections.

Later in life she was accused of shoplifting and other odd acts which were possilby a testament to her loneliness (she married and divorced 6 times) and intellectual boredom.

She is definitely one of the most gorgeous hollywood godesses of all time and it makes me wonder what her legacy would have been if she had been able to find a true intellectual and creative partner...