Women's History Month intends to honor, inspire, educate, unite and promote women in the face of forces intent on subjugating and silencing them. It is about those who overcame overt and imbedded assumptions and prejudice to be their best selves. RGB said it well:
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”
DAY 5: HEDY LAMARR
Austrian born actress, but SO much more! A self-taught inventor, she co-authored a patent for frequency hopping signals that could keep enemies from tracking or jamming guidance signals during World War II, and is incorporated into Bluetooth & GPS tech today.
Born Hedwig Eva Kiesler, she is a classic example of how social dynamics and expectations can restrict your career. Hedy could have easily been a scientist, but such opportunities for women back then were rare. That didn't stop her from eventually being recognized as an innovator and tech genius. Her story reminds me so much of a high school friend I had, who played the role of “dumb blonde” while carrying an extremely high GPA in our class and becoming valedictorian.
Hedy’s father stimulated her curiosity and analytical interests during her childhood. At age five, she would disassemble and reassemble mechanisms like music boxes to understand their inner workings. Her concert pianist mother encouraged a love of the arts that included ballet.
All this took a back seat when a director “discovered her” at 16, and she began studying acting. At 18, she gained recognition for her lead role in the movie Ecstasy, a well made but controversial commercial film which includes the scene of a woman having an orgasm. This was unheard of in 1932, and puritanical America banned it for decades.
She married a wealthy Austrian industrialist fifteen years her senior when she was 18, but soon became disenchanted with his controlling ways. When he insisted that she quit acting, she left him and moved to London. It was there that she caught the eye of the well-known American film producer Louie B. Mayer, head of MGM Studios, who offered her a $125/week contract. She turned him down, but chose to book passage on the same ship as him to America. Subsequent conversation resulted in him signing her to a $500/week contract. She came to star in 25 movies, alongside the best known actors of the day.
Age decreased the number of roles offered her, which gave her time to return to tinkering with technology. While dating Howard Hughes, she gained access to equipment that she kept on movie sets to dabble with. It was her reemerging technical abilities that led to affect the wing designs of Hughes’ military aircraft, and to develop the patented process of frequency hopping, which manipulates radio frequencies at random intervals between transmission and reception. This could keep the Nazis deciphering radio transmission use for data and missile guidance.
The American military did not implement this patent, but kept it classified for military use only until 1981. That technology is what enables bluetooth and the WiFi we take for granted today. Lamar never received compensation for her invention. She was posthumously included in the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
In her words, “I know what I did. There comes a point where you can’t take anymore, and you have to make yourself heard!” Way to go, Hedwig.
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