Hedy Lamarr

That's HEDL- no wait, never mind!

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (1914 - 2000), better known as Hedy Lamarr, was an Austrian actress active in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of her first starring roles was in the dialog-light film Ekstase, which featured a long scene of Lamarr fully nude. While the Hays Code made a repeat performance in America impossible, the reputation as a dark and glamorous Ms. Fanservice did follow her. Subsequent films included an adaptation of John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat and the Cecil B. DeMille film Samson and Delilah.

Lamarr was also very mathematically talented; her most notable non-movie achievement was inventing, along with composer George Antheil, a form of radio frequency hopping that is the basis for components of wi-fi and cordless phones today. Or as Cracked.com put it, she's the world's sexiest mad scientist. If you're reading this page on a smartphone screen, thank Ms. Lamarr for making that possible.

Hedy Lamarr has performed in the following roles:

• Geld auf der Straße, as the Girl at the Night Club (1930)
• Ekstase, as Eva Hermann (1933)
• Algiers, as Gaby (1938) -- She was the girl whom Pepe le Moko would have asked to come with him to the Casbah, if he had ever actually said the line.
• Lady of the Tropics, as Manon deVargnes Carey, aka Kira Kim (1939)
• Comrade X, as Golubka, aka Theodore Yahupitz and Lizvanetchka (1940)
• Ziegfeld Girl, as Sandra Kolter (1941)
• H.M. Pulham, Esq., as Marvin Myles Ransome (1941)
• Tortilla Flat, as Dolores Ramirez (1942)
• White Cargo, as Tondelayo (1942)
• The Heavenly Body, as Vicky Whitley (1944)
• The Conspirators, as Irene Von [sic] Mohr (1944)
• Her Highness and the Bellboy, as Princess Veronica (1945)
• The Strange Woman, as Jenny Hager (1946)
• Dishonored Lady, as Madeleine Damien (1947)
• Let's Live a Little, as Dr. J.O. Loring (1948)
• Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah, as Delilah (1949) -- Opposite Victor Mature. This was the film that prompted Groucho Marx's famous quip: "I never go to see a picture where the guy's tits are bigger than the goil's."
• Copper Canyon, as Lisa Roselle (1950)
• My Favorite Spy, as Lily Dalbray (1951) -- Opposite Bob Hope
• The Story of Mankind, as Joan of Arc (1957)
• The Female Animal, as Vanessa Windsor (1958)

Hedy Lamarr provides examples of the following tropes:

• Fake Nationality: Everything from Russian to Mexican to South Sea Islander.
• Femme Fatale: Most notably in Algiers, in which she lures Charles Boyer to his doom.
• She Also Did: As noted above.