Hedy Lamarr

“Any girl can be glamorous,” Hedy Lamarr once said. “All she has to do is stand still and look stupid.”

Though she was once dubbed the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, Hedy broke with convention and used her intelligence to develop the technology that became known as ‘frequency hopping.’

Hedy was born in Austria in 1914 and by the late 1920’s was a working actor in movies. While working in Paris in 1937, she met Louis B. Mayer, who persuaded her to move to Hollywood. Once Hedy was there, Mayer promoted her as ‘the world’s most beautiful woman.’

She became a  very successful actress, but wanted to be known for more than her looks. She was a passionate opponent of the Nazi’s and had a strong desire  to contribute to the allied victory.

An issue during the war was the interception of  Allied signals for torpedoes. When intercepted, the enemy would cause torpedoes to miss their targets or sink allied ships. When a ship filled with children was sunk, Hedy decided to use the knowledge she had learned from her ex-husband’s business with scientists and engineers to invent a way to stop enemy forces from interfering with Allied signals.

 She got the idea of distributing torpedo guidance signals over several frequencies, thus protecting them from enemy jamming. She described her idea to her friend, composer George Antheil, and asked him to help her build the device.

Their collaboration was successful, and they were granted the patent for their ‘Secret Communication System,’ on June 10, 1941.

Unfortunately, Hedy’s brilliance was ahead of the times, and when her and George met with government officials, they scoffed at her invention.

But all was not lost, because twenty years later during the Cuban missile crisis, her invention was resurrected to insure secure communications between naval ships.

With the emergence of digital technology, Hedy’s frequency hopping invention, now called ‘spread spectrum’ technology,  was implemented to protect the privacy of cell phone users. So the next time you’re watching footage of the Cuban Missile Crisis, or talking to a friend on your cell phone, remember to thank a woman, thank Hedy Lamarr.