Most of us use it every day without a second thought, but did you know Wi-Fi is the invention of one of the biggest stars of 1940’s Hollywood? One of the world’s most beautiful women, Hedy Lamarr was at the centre of controlling husbands, arms dealers, Nazis, and Hollywood fame. Her life had more twists and turns than one of her movies – read on for her amazing story, and to find out how her legacy extends to Half-Life 2.
Born in Vienna in 1913, Lamarr dropped out of school as a teenager to star in German and Austrian movies, but it was her turn as a divorcee in 1933’s Exstase (US title: Ecstasy) that boosted her profile. It became notorious for featuring Lamarr nude, 30 years before nude scenes were commonplace. She married Friedrich Mandl, an arms manufacturer, and had to stop acting because of his obsessive controlling nature. (He bought as many copies of Exstase as he could, objecting to anyone seeing Lamarr nude.)
He did take her to meetings with technicians and business partners though, where the mathematically gifted Lamarr learnt about military technology. And that’s where her interest was piqued.
In her autobiography, Lamarr wrote Mandl had Hitler and Benito Mussolini at his parties, despite being part Jewish. She disguised herself as a maid and fled to Paris, where she divorced, then moved to London. There she met legendary MGM producer Louis B Mayer, who cast her in a string of films through the late 30s and 40s. It was during this period her technological breakthrough came.
A neighbour of Lamarr, avant garde composer George Antheil had experimented with automated control of musical instruments. Lamarr contributed her knowhow gleaned from the meetings with Mandl, and together she and Antheil submitted the idea of a secret communications system in June 1941 – the patent was granted in August 1942, registered to Antheil and Hedy Kiesler Markey (her married name at the time). Their technology was an early version of frequency hopping, using a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies. It was intended to make torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. Despite the patent being granted, it wasn’t put into action until 1962 by US military ships during a blockade of Cuba, after the patent had expired. The Electronic Frontier Foundation eventually gave Lamarr an award in 1997 for her contribution, to which she reportedly said, “It’s about time.”
Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council, but was told she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds.
Frequency hopping now serves as the basis for spread spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections and CDMA used in some mobiles. Wi-LAN inc. acquired a 49 percent claim to the patent from Lamarr in 1998.
In later life she retired from public life and moved to Florida, where she died in 2000. But her legacy lives on, with wireless technology now ubiquitous, as well as Dr. Kleiner’s pet head-crab “Lamarr” in 2004′s Half-Life 2 being named after her.
So next time you connect to a Wi-Fi network, remember the lady who started it all.
