Hedy's birthday!

Once upon a time, Hedy Lamarr incarnated the wicked temptress in movies such as Samson and Delilah. She debuted very young, making films in her native German tongue, but after a failed marriage and a rather spectacular escape from her fascist husband that included drugging him and fleeing into the night, she ended up in America.





She was a very hard working actress – in the years between 1940 and 1949, she made no less than 18 movies. She also had two children, and together with friend George Antheil she invented something that we still benefit from. See, Hedy wasn’t just a pretty face, she also possessed considerable mathematical talent and she and George Antheil, as their own personal contribution to the allied forces, invented an early version of frequency hopping. It actually used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. It was never used at the time, but it was implemented in the USA in 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba.

But time would put Lamarr’s and Antheil’s ideas to better use – today they serve as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in WiFi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones. Kinda like an example of how to turn swords into ploughshares. Or, considering how much sex related stuff that probably passes through WiFi-connections on a an odrinary Thursday, a practical example of using technical innovations to make love not war.

Either way, Hedy was a pretty remarkable lady and I figured she deserved a shout-out on what would’ve been her 96th birthday.

A star is torn

Once upon a time – say, about eighty years ago – Jeanne Eagels was the brightest shining star on Broadway.

Starting out as the cash girl in a department store, she soon got into acting and at the tender age of 17, she moved to New York to fulfill her dreams and became a Ziegfeld Follies Girl. From there, she went on straight to the top, headlining Broadway show after Broadway show.

Then her tendency for self-medication got the better of her and her career began to decline. She missed performances and was finally banned by the Actors Equity from appearing on stage for 18 months. Though she did make a few movies, there was no denying she was heading for a fall.

At the age of 35, her body had finally had enough. She died suddenly on October 3, 1929, most likely from alcohol or heroin abuse. She was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Letter, but the Oscar went to Mary Pickford for her role in Coquette.

"She talked fast and gestured with her hands. Few knew or understood her. She was explosive, mercurial, neurotic, loyal, generous, and sweet. She usually ignored all except the humblest members of her company. She hated most managers, interviews, movies, gossip, autograph seekers, night clubs, and Actors Equity. She liked dogs, auction sales, dill pickles, and ice cream with cherries. Her philosophy was Never deny. Never explain. Say nothing and become a legend."

Death of a Flapper

During the late teens of the last century, no girl was more beautiful or more celebrated than Olive Thomas. Painted by Vargas, married to Jack Pickford and the girl who gave the flapper a face, Olive Thomas wasn’t just The Most Beautiful Girl in New York (a title which she won in 1914), she was a rising Hollywood star and the world was her oyster.


Then one night in the early fall of 1920, she and her husband were out doing the rounds of Montparnasse, toasting and, it’s been said, doing more than just a little nose powder. Upon returning to their hotel she, for unknown reasons, managed to imbibe her husband’s syphilis medicine (a mercury bichloride solution) and despite the efforts that were made to save her, she died on Sep 10th, 1920, only 26 years old. Today, hardly anyone remembers her name.

“I think that you die when your time comes and not until then. I feel the same about other things as I do about death. I don’t think you can change anything that is going to happen to you any more than you can change anything that has happened to you. That’s why I never worry, and that is why I don’t think people should get conceited and think themselves better than others.”/ Olive Thomas on death in June 1919

PS. The moral of the story? Stay away from men with syphilis, I guess…