YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU KNEW HER

Today's sirens all seem to lack something, don't they?

Substance?  Soul?  Integrity? 

Viennese-born Hedwig Eva Maria Keisler was both daring and intellectual, whose life surpassed any heroine she portrayed on the screen.

Who?

Heddy Lamarr -- who is one of the major players in my WIP, LOVE IS BUT ANOTHER WORD FOR DEATH.

Take "Ecstasy," the 1933 Czech film that was highly controversial for its nudity and sex scenes.

 Lamarr made “Ecstasy” when she was just 18,

 and it was released the same year that she married one of Austria’s richest men, a munitions manufacturer who did business with Mussolini and, 

according to Lamarr’s autobiography, hosted Hitler at their castle home.


 Lamarr, who was of Ukrainian-Hungarian Jewish heritage, 

eventually made her escape from spouse and situation 

— she wrote that she fled to France in disguise — 

and was discovered in Paris by MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer.

{Of course in actuality, it was Samuel McCord who helped her escape, put his marriage into a tailspin, and made her famous in films.}


 During World War II, though, Lamarr also put her mind to the war effort, determined to invent something that would help defeat Hitler. 

(Her first marriage had resulted not only in reportedly hosting the Fuhrer, but also in gaining knowledge of torpedoes.)


 She and California neighbor/composer George Antheil co-created a frequency-hopping system 

(using a player-piano roll) 

so radio-guided torpedoes could avoid interference jamming — an invention for which they received a patent in 1942.

Pick up her autobiography or her latest biography to learn more about a fascinating woman.