I have written about this actress before and her accomplishments.

It is a very impressive list.

One thing that is less known about her is something that happened prior to many of her non acting accomplishments.

I often wonder if she wasn’t even more motivated after what she was forced to do by her husband.

Her husband was a wealthy businessman and prior to emigrating to the United States, our actress lived with him in Europe.

They were known for having fabulous parties where they would entertain the rich and powerful and the people that could make sure there was no red tape for his very red tape heavy business.

It was at one of these parties that our actress was introduced to one of the most evil people that has ever walked this planet.

Our actress was then told by her husband to sleep with the evil man or he would lose his business.

Our actress did it and even was presented with a special souvenir he gave out only to those women he slept with.

Hedy Lamarr

Husband: Friedrich Mandl
Austrian businessman, arms dealer, Argentine immigrant, advisor to Peron

Hitler (souvenir: Syphilis)

It all started with a skin flick, and here’s the rest of the story

In 1933, a beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the woods, naked. She swam in a lake, naked. Pushing well beyond the social norms of the period. The most popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman.

Louis B. Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film was banned practically everywhere, which of course made it even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price.

The star of the film, called Ecstasy, was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was “to stand there and look stupid.” In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She was a genius. She’d grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her.

Between the sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the men in her life, including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in history.

Her beauty made her rich for a time. She is said to have made, and spent, $30 million in her life.

But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect, and her invention continues to shape the world we live in today. You see, this young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under Hitler’s nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood star, her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office.

Today, when you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called “long-term evolution” or “LTE” technology), you’ll be using an extension of the technology a 20-year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with Hitler.

At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria ‘s leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis.

Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of Mandl’s favorite topics at these gatherings—which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini—was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes. – Source

Hedy Lamarr’s inventions:

Although Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she tinkered in her spare time on various hobbies and ideas, which included a traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. The beverage was unsuccessful; Lamarr herself said it tasted like Alka-Seltzer.
Copy of U.S. patent for “Secret Communication System”

During World War II, Lamarr read that radio-controlled torpedoes had been proposed. However, an enemy might be able to jam such a torpedo’s guidance system and set it off course.[44] When discussing this with her friend the composer and pianist George Antheil, the idea was raised that a frequency-hopping signal might prevent the torpedo’s radio guidance system from being tracked or jammed. Antheil succeeded by synchronizing a miniaturized player piano mechanism with radio signals.Antheil sketched out the idea for the frequency-hopping system, which was to use a perforated paper tape which actuated pneumatic controls (as was already used in player pianos). – Source

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