How the ‘most beautiful woman in the world’ who dominated Hollywood and even created a vital US Army WWII invention spent her final years a reclusive loner in small Florida town
Once called the most beautiful woman in the world, Hollywood siren and legendary inventor Hedy Lamarr spent her final years in a modest home in Florida.
Despite being one of the most important inventors of the 20th century, she lived her last days in solitude, far from the Hollywood glare, in a three-bedroom house in Casselberry, twenty minutes outside Orlando.
Described as a recluse during her final years, Lamarr died at the age of 85 in January 2000, without ever being fully recognized for her invention that helped change the world.
“My mother visited friends in Florida and ended up staying there,” Lamarr’s daughter Denise Loder-DeLuca said Click on Orlando.
It was an unexpected end for a woman who defied all expectations of women at the time and helped create the technology behind the telephone and wireless Internet in an effort to aid the Allies during World War II.
Once called the most beautiful woman in the world, Hollywood siren Hedy Lamarr spent her final years in a modest home in Florida
Born in Austria, Lamarr caught Hollywood’s attention after fleeing her Nazi-sympathizing husband in the early 1930s.
The beauty, who was married six times, emigrated to the United States after a stopover in London and went on to star in films with the likes of Spencer Tracy, James Stewart and Clark Gable in what turned out to be a glittering career.
But after becoming disillusioned with acting and the roles she was offered, she decided helped invent the technology she became best known for in response to the Nazis’ repeated jamming of radio signals used to guide torpedoes to their targets in World War II.
Together with composer and co-inventor George Antheil, she created a device that enabled ‘frequency hopping’, making radio transmissions more difficult to intercept and allowing the missiles to reach their target.
The pair based the system on the 88 keys of a piano and filed a patent for the idea in 1941.
She helped invent the technology she became best known for in response to the Nazis’ repeated jamming of radio signals used to guide torpedoes to their targets in World War II.
Despite being one of the most important inventors of the 20th century, she lived her last days in solitude, in a three-bedroom house in Casselberry, twenty minutes outside Orlando.
The Florida home is a far cry from the Hollywood mansion Lamarr once lived in at 2707 Benedict Canyon Road
A patent was granted the following year, but the US Navy chose not to use the technology in the war.
Instead, Lamarr supported the war effort by using her celebrity to help sell war bonds in her adopted country.
Her technology was later used on US warships during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – although Lamarr did not receive a cent.
It was decades after Lamarr arrived in the US for a peace of the American Dream.
Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914, the son of a banker and pianist in Vienna, Austria.
She started as an actress in her teens and made her debut at the age of 18 in 1933 in the Czech film Ecstasy.
The film was controversial because it portrayed the first female orgasm ever seen in a non-pornographic film.
Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914, the son of a banker and pianist in Vienna, Austria.
She started as an actress in her teens and made her debut in the Czech film Ecstasy in 1933. The film was controversial because it depicted the first female orgasm ever seen in a non-pornographic film.
In 1934, she married her first husband, arms manufacturer Fritz Mandl, in her native Vienna, but soon became disillusioned with the union and fled their home in the middle of the night.
She later claimed in her autobiography that Mandl had maintained close business ties with the Nazis and alleged that Adolf Hitler and Italian fascist ruler Benito Mussolini attended parties at his home.
After she went to London, it was MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer who convinced them to hand her a lucrative contract – even though she spoke only a little English at the time.
Lamarr then moved to the US and mixed with the likes of future US President John F Kennedy and aviation millionaire Howard Hughes – whom she dated – in Beverley Hills.
He gave her the equipment she needed to conduct experiments in her trailer and took her to his aircraft factory, where he showed her how his machines were built.
After seeing his planes, Lamarr sketched a new wing design for them, prompting Hughes to label her a “genius.”
Lamarr is credited in a total of 35 films, but the actress was reportedly bored by the roles she was given, which were often light on lines and focused on her appearance.
Her technology was later used on US warships during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – although Lamarr did not receive a cent
Lamarr is credited in a total of 35 films, but the actress was reportedly bored by the roles she was given, which were often light on lines and focused on her appearance.
“Every girl can be glamorous,” she once said. “All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”
Lamarr, who had three children, divorced her sixth husband in 1965 after only two years with him.
The star died in Florida in 2000 after suffering from heart failure.
The 2017 documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story retold the story of the movie star’s incredible life.