Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1914–January 19, 2000) was an actress and communications innovator. She was known as The Most Beautiful Woman In Films and also as a co-inventor of the first form of spread spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication.

Anecdotes

In one story presented in her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, once while running from Friedrich Mandl she slipped into a brothel and hid in an empty room. While her husband searched the brothel, a customer entered the room and she had sex with the man so she could remain hidden. She was finally successful in escaping when she hired a new maid that looked like herself, drugged her and used the maid's uniform as a disguise to escape.

Related Topics:
Autobiography - Friedrich Mandl - Brothel - Maid

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Lamarr later sued the publisher claiming that many of the anecdotes were fabricated by the ghost writer.

Related Topics:
Anecdote - Ghost writer

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According to accounts in film histories, Cecil B. DeMille is said to have gathered the 1900 peacock feathers that Lamarr wore on her 18-foot-train dress in the 1949 movie Samson and Delilah himself, having chased molting peacocks on his ranch for the previous 10 years until he had collected enough feathers to have the garment made.

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For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hedy Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd.

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In an interview appended to the DVD release of Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks claims that Hedy Lamarr threatened to sue the producers. He says she believed the film's running "Hedley Lamarr" joke infringed her right to publicity. Mel says they settled out of court for a small sum.

Related Topics:
Blazing Saddles - Mel Brooks - Right to publicity

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Hedy Lamarr was also the namesake for Hedy Lamarr, the headcrab pet of Dr. Isaac Kleiner, in the 2004 computer first-person shooter, Half-Life 2.

Related Topics:
Headcrab - First-person shooter - Half-Life 2

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