In 1932 Hedy Lamarr performed the first nude in film history. And then he went to invent WiFi

Throughout its 85 years Hedy Lamarr He dedicated himself to chaining lives. First there was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, the name her parents gave her when she was born in Vienna in 1914, and with which she became a gifted child and a pioneering actress: the first to appear naked from head to toe and fake an orgasm in a commercial film.

For a few years she was also Mandl’s Lady, his wife and “slave” (as she herself would later define that stage). by the Viennese Fritz Mandla jealous, controlling and tyrannical magnate, who provided weapons to Hitler and Mussolini. Towards the end of the 1930s, in Hollywood, she became Hedy Lamarr, the name with which producer Louis B. Mayer baptized her and with which she would rise to fame.

Already a diva of the cinema, she was the engineer Lamarr, who dedicated her nights to cultivating her side of inventor and managed to develop a key technology for the subsequent development of wireless communication of mobile phones, GPS or WiFi technology. Already in the last years of her life she had to assume the saddest role: she secluded herself in her mansion in Florida, obsessed with operating rooms, kleptomaniac and hooked on pills.

The life in three acts of a woman who passed through the world as if she were playing her best and most demanding Hollywood role. Lamarr won the title of “most beautiful woman” of golden cinema and (already at the end of his days), when his technological contributions were echoed, he obtained numerous recognitions from the scientific community: the Pioner Award, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), or the Viktor Kaplan medal from the Austrian Association of Inventors and Patent Holders, among others. The date of his birth, November 9, has become International Inventor’s Day.

Act one: the first nude in cinema

The future Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna, in 1914, with the name Edwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Theirs was a Jewish family, cultured and wealthy. His father was a prosperous banker from Lemberg and his mother, a pianist from Budapest raised Catholic. Since she was a child, she received a careful education that soon revealed her prodigious intelligence. It is said that when he was only five years old he satisfied his scientific curiosity by gutting musical boxes that he would then put back together piece by piece.

Kiesler began his engineering career, but abandoned it to dedicate himself to his other great vocation: acting. In 1932, at only 19 years old, he starred in his first bombshell: Ecstasy, a film by Gustav Machaty in which she broke molds by appearing on screen as God brought her into the world and faking an orgasm. That bravery was met with the anger of his family, the indignation of a good part of the prudish society of the time, and even provoked the wrath of the Vatican.

The sensual and intelligent Viennese woman fascinated Fritz Mandl14 years older than her. The tycoon got Kiesler’s parents They approved the wedding and the couple walked down the aisle in 1933. Mandl, an arms businessman who worked with the Nazis, soon showed himself to be a sexist tyrant. In a fit of jealousy he tried to buy all the tapes of Ecstasy so that no one could see Kiesler’s scenes, and he even prohibited her from bathing or undressing if he was not in front of her. He also forced her to accompany him to his business meals.

Fed up with that slavery, in 1937 the young woman he pulled his wits to escape: He hired a maid who looked like him, sedated her, dressed like her and managed to evade the surveillance of his confinement. She sold her jewelry and set sail for the United States after stopping in London. “He had played at keeping me prisoner. I played at escaping. He lost,” she would later relate. This first act of her life closes with a thrilling escape while Mandl’s thugs are hot on her heels to force her to return to her golden cage.

Second act: the great diva of Hollywood

Destiny awaited Kiesler around the corner. Specifically, on the ship he boarded to travel to North America. There he met Louis B. Mayer, the famous producer, who showed off his unfailing eye for celluloid. He offered her a job and renamed her Hedy Lamarr, a peculiar tribute to the actress Bárbara La Marrwhose life had been taken prematurely by tuberculosis and nephritis just a decade earlier.

In Hollywood, Lamarr deployed all his talent in front of the cameras, she won the title of “most beautiful woman” and fulfilled the role of femme fatal. He acted in Algiers, Lady of Tropics, Comrade…And dozens of other titles. He shared the bill with some of the brightest stars in Hollywood and they say that the creators of snow white and catwoman They were inspired by her stunning beauty.

The most famous role he played was that of Delilah in Samson and Delilah. Her fame could have been much greater if Lamarr or those who advised her had had more aim when choosing roles. He rejected the main characters in two bombshells that would go down in cinema history: Casablanca (!) and Dying lightwhich together had almost twenty Oscar nominations.

Throughout his career, Lamarr produced his own films. In his private life, he had six marriages that ended in as many divorces. She ended her days retired in Florida, a kleptomaniac, obsessed with cosmetic surgery, succumbing to drugs and starring in notorious scandals. She died at the dawn of the new century: on January 19, 2000. “She was a victim of the system,” comments one of her sons in one of the documentaries filmed about her.

Proof of how little society knew how to value her is the anecdote that happened to her when, during the Second World War, she offered her collaboration to the United States as a brilliant engineer. The answer he got was that his physique was more interesting than his intellect. She was encouraged to promote the sale of bonds for the troops and even participated in a campaign that compensated each purchase of $25,000 in bonds with a kiss from her. In one night he raised seven million.

Act three: the brilliant engineer

The fascination that that Viennese girl felt in interwar Austria when disassembling and reassembling her musical boxes has a lot to do with whether you can connect your music today. smartphone to the network Wi-Fi. Instead of sinking into depression due to the confinement to which Mandl subjected her, Kiesler resumed his engineering studies with more intensity. Years later, this knowledge allowed him to develop the spread spectrum transmission technique, decisive for wireless technologies, WiFi or BlueTooth. The help of musician George Antheil also played a key role in his work.

The patent on the Lamarr secret communication system aroused the interest of the US Army, which ended up discarding it during World War II. Its military applications were taken advantage of decades later, in the Cuban missile crisis. Despite the impact of his contributions, Kiesler did not receive recognition until almost the end of his life.

It is sad and ironic to imagine her as an old woman, sitting on one of the sofas in her Florida mansion, with a glass of wine in one hand while she followed the unstoppable advance of telecommunications on television. On his face, a smile bitter by the conviction that a large part of that boom technological roots were rooted in her efforts and the work she had done at night, during her years as a diva in Hollywood, hidden from a public opinion fascinated by her beauty and intimidated by her intelligence.

“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is sit still and look stupid,” she once said. Bitter advice, which he never followed, and which portrays the society of his time.

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