Hedy Lamarr

Date of Birth
9 November 1913, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]

Date of Death
19 January 2000, Orlando, Florida, USA (natural causes)

Birth Name
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler

Nickname
The Most Beautiful Woman In Films

Height
5.7

Spouse
Lewis J. Boies (4 March 1963 - 21 June 1965) (divorced; separated 15 October 1964)
W. Howard Lee (22 December 1953 - 1960) (divorced)
Teddy Stauffer (12 June 1951 - 1952) (divorced)
John Loder (27 May 1943 - 17 July 1947) (divorced) 2 children
Gene Markey (5 March 1939 - 3 October 1941) (divorced) 1 child
Fritz Mandl (10 August 1933 - 1937) (divorced)

Trivia

Children: Antony Loder (b. 01 March 1947), Denise Loder (b. 29 May 1945), James (b. 06 March 1939 - father John Loder; adopted 16 October 1939 as James Markey Lamarr).

Sued Mel Brooks for mocking her name in his film Blazing Saddles (1974) (they settled out of court)

Sued software company Corel Corporation for using her photo on the cover of software product CorelDRAW. [April 1998]

After a screen test, it was Louis B. Mayer who changed her last name to Lamarr in honor of silent film star Barbara La Marr.

Arrested for shoplifting in January 1966. Found not guilty.

Arrested for shoplifting in 1991. One year probation.

During her marriage to screenwriter Gene Markey, the two adopted a son, James. She soon after gave birth to two children, Denise Hedy and Antony, while married to actor John Loder.

One of the few stars with whom costume designer Edith Head admitted she didn't like working. The others were Claudette Colbert and Paulette Goddard.

Was co-inventor (with composer George Antheil) of the earliest known form of the telecommunications method known as "frequency hopping", which used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or to jam. The method received U.S. patent number 2,292,387 on Aug. 11, 1942, under the name "Secret Communications System". Frequency hopping is now widely used in cellular phones and other modern technology. However neither she nor Antheil profited from this fact, because their patents were allowed to expire decades before the modern wireless boom. She received an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997 for her pioneering work in spread-spectrum technology.

For her appearance in Ecstasy (1933), Hedy is credited as being the first nude woman as well as portraying the first sex-scene in film history. Scenes were cut and additional ones added in order to be able to release it in some countries. However, she was actually at least 18 years too late to be the first nude woman in film, as both Inspiration (1915) and Lois Weber's Hypocrites (1915) had beaten her to it.

Her profile was the most requested in the 1940s by women to their plastic surgeons.

The mansion used in The Sound of Music (1965) belonged to her at the time.

Became a naturalized citizen of the United States on 10 April 1953.

Was the inspiration for Anne Hathaway's performance of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

She was the inspiration for the DC Comics Anti-hero and love interest of Batman, Catwoman.