English Unlimited HTL 4/5, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

194 activities Unit 1, exercise 20a Student C Hedy Lamarr (b. Nov. 9, 1914–d. Jan. 19, 2000) Often called ‘The most beautiful woman in film,’ Hedy Lamarr’s beauty and screen presence made her one of the most popular actresses of her day.  She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914 in Vienna, Austria. At 17 years Hedy starred in her first film, a German project called ‘Geld auf der Straße’. Hedy continued her film career by working on both German and Czechoslovakian productions. The 1932 German film ‘Ekstase’ brought her to the attention of Hollywood producers, and she soon signed a contract with MGM.  Once in Hollywood, she officially changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and starred in her first Hollywood film, ‘Algiers’ (1938), opposite Charles Boyer. She continued to act with the most popular and talented actors of the day, including Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart.  As if being a beautiful, talented actress was not enough, Hedy was also extremely intelligent. In addition to her film accomplishments, Hedy patented an idea that later became the crutch of both secure military communications and mobile phone technology.  In 1942, Hedy and composer George Antheil patented what they called the ‘Secret Communication System’. The original idea, intended to solve the problem of enemies blocking signals from radio-controlled missiles during World War II, involved changing radio frequencies simultaneously to prevent enemies from being able to detect the messages. While the technology of the time prevented the feasibility of the idea at first, the advent of the transistor and its later downsizing made Hedy’s idea very important to both the military and the mobile phone industry.  This impressive technological achievement combined with her acting talent and star quality to make ‘The most beautiful woman in film’ one of the most interesting and intelligent women in the film industry. 1940s film goddess Hedy Lamarr responsible for pioneering spread spectrum ‘Spread Spectrum’ is the technical basis for wireless communication in mobile phones, faxes and other wireless communications systems. It’s currently utilised in wireless LAN, integrated bar code scanners, palmtop computers, radio modem devices for warehousing, digital mobile telephone communications, city, state or country networks for passing faxes, computer data, email and multimedia data. And its use is at the cutting edge of the explosive commercial development on the internet.  The inventor behind this amazing process is an incredibly beautiful and talented actress of the 1940s, Hedy Lamarr.  Lamarr was born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. She grew up in Vienna, Austria, and married millionaire Fritz Mandl, a Nazi sympathiser who dealt arms to Hitler. During her four-year marriage to Mandl, she listened and learned about advanced weaponry when he took her to all his business meetings as his showpiece wife. She grew to hate the Nazis as well as her husband and escaped to the United States in 1938.  In Hollywood Lamarr met American composer George Antheil, dubbed ‘The bad boy of music’, and with his help devised a plan to help the war effort. On August 11, 1942, Lamarr and Antheil were awarded U.S. Patent Number 2,292,387 for a ‘Secret Communications System’.  They donated the patent as their contribution to the war effort. However, the invention would not be implemented during World War II and only came into use 20 years later during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when it was installed on ships sent to blockade Cuba. This was three years after the Lamarr-Antheil patent had expired. Neither of them ever received any compensation for their patent. Nu zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv