Tonight we were back with Hedy Lamarr, watching "Bombshell", the recent documentary on her life. It's quite a story, of triumph and tragedy, of the advantages and disadvantages of beauty, of intellect and invention, and of having your intelligence questioned and ignored because you are a woman.
Hedy Lamarr was brought up by a strong father, a wealthy banker who encouraged her childhood interest in mechanical things. He showed her how Vienna's electrical system worked, how radios tuned in their signals. She took apart a child's music box when she was five, and put it back together, gears and everything. But she had an independent streak and wanted to break free. By the time she was 15, she was aware of the power of her looks. Men and women both would stop and stare as she walked through a room. That kind of power can have detrimental effects. She decided she wanted to be in movies and by the time she was 19 she signed to a contract with an Austro-Hungarian producer who cast her in what was basically a soft-core porn film of the era, 1933. Think "pre-Code", but European style, and exploitative. Hedy was directed to run around nude in the film and to simulate sex scenes.
This was in 1933, when she was just 19. It was her introduction to the movie business. She was a free spirit and it didn't seem to faze her, but who knows what lasting effects exploitation can have? Maybe we will see. By the late '30s, she had broken through in Hollywood, though Louie B. Mayer wasn't giving her any good scripts. She had to fight for any good roles she got. This was because of "Extase", the notorious film she made in Austria. She had been labeled from the start because of it.
But she didn't need the movies and could always retreat into her inventions. She had a scientific mind, even though she had no training. One day in 1940, she saw in the newspaper that German U-Boats were sinking British ships by the dozen. She hated Hitler for what he had done to Austria and all of Europe, and she began to think about how the U-Boats could be defeated.
She came up with an idea for torpedo guidance that came to be called "frequency hopping", and with her friend the composer George Antheil, they developed the idea around the patterns used in player piano scrolls. This was good enough to get them a patent which they then took to the United States Navy, who promptly laughed Lamarr out of their offices. They suggested she do something more constructive like sell war bonds. So she did that, too, with great success. Meanwhile, her patent lingered in a top secret Navy file cabinet. Her friend Antheil eventually gave up on his part of the quest and she was left alone, divorced from her husband and caring for two children. So she returned to movies.
I don't want to tell you everything about "Bombshell", and I've probably told you too much, but I wanted to get your interest because you should see this film. If you only see one documentary in the next year, make it this one.
Hedy Lamarr lived a complex and troubled life due to the conflict between her beauty and her intelligence. She wanted to be known for the latter, but had to use the former to get there. She told friends, "no one knows the real me".
Later in life she became addicted to methamphetamine, a story I know myself. She had also begun to use plastic surgery as a means to maintain her looks, because she was conditioned to think that her face was all anyone wanted from her.
The repeated surgeries had disastrous results. I'll say no more, but from footage seen in the film, you almost get the impression that she was just as much trying to destroy her beauty as to maintain it.
But in the end, she sounded happy. An extended audiotape interview provides the basis for the story. She tells it herself, with few regrets. All she really wanted was acknowledgement for her invention, which went on to be developed by the military under the patent they legally took from her when she let it lapse. But it had still been her idea, and it took years for her to gain credit.
The movie ends with a recitation by Hedy of some words she had found helpful in her own life, from an undisclosed source (maybe a poem or an inspirational writing). It is about giving your best in life, no matter what.
Hearing her speak these words, after what you have seen and heard of her life, will put a tear in your eye........of sadness for sure, but also of astonishment.
You never know what is inside a person, underneath their skin.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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