My history hero: Martha Lane Fox chooses Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000)
Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist Martha Lane Fox chooses actor and inventor Hedy Lamarr as her history hero
Hedy Lamarr: in profile
Born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna into a wealthy Jewish family, Hedy Lamarr is best known for starring in hit Hollywood films such as Lady of the Tropics (1939) and Boom Town (1940). She was also a gifted inventor, helping develop a radio guidance system for torpedoes to counter the threat of jamming, patented during the Second World War. The principles of her work are incorporated into Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology. The six-times-married mother-of-three died a recluse in Florida, aged 85.
When did you first hear about Lamarr?
I've been a big fan of her films – Hollywood classics like Cecil B DeMille's biblical romantic drama Samson and Delilah (1949), which I think is absolutely hilarious – ever since my teens. I quite liked her racy personal life and the fact that she was very much her own woman. However, I learnt a lot more about her from an excellent documentary called Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story which I saw a couple of years ago.
What kind of person was she?
She was incredibly talented. I respect anybody who can move between disciplines like she did, and be both a big-screen star and a serious mathematician, whose research all those years ago helped lay the basis for the infrastructure of Wi-Fi. I think that Hedy was a complicated person, which might go some way to explaining her tempestuous private life. She was also a strong character, an amazing actor and a beautiful woman, although at times she felt she had to play down her glamour for people to see her serious side.
What made her a hero?
The number of women who work in the world of technology today is relatively small and, by and large, they’re not well known. So I think we need to raise the profile of women such as Hedy Lamarr who have made such a significant contribution to all the ways in which we now use technology. I’m rather ashamed to admit it, but it was not until the 2000s that I really appreciated just how important a role she played in laying the groundwork for the modern world of technology.
What was Lamarr's finest hour?
It's her career arc that I really admire. Anyone who developed the frequency-hopping system she co-created in the war, which has contributed so significantly to today's communications technology, while also making a lot of films of real note, has to be a pretty impressive person. She also had the first on-screen orgasm in mainstream cinema history, in the 1933 erotic drama Ecstasy [appearing under the name Hedy Kiesler]!
Is there anything you don't particularly admire about her?
As I’ve mentioned, she had a complex personal life, and it’s unfortunate that that eclipses some of her other achievements. I wonder if a man would have had so much written about his private life?
Can you see any parallels between Lamarr's life and your own?
I’m a frustrated actor and would love to have had a successful Hollywood career, but I’m not nearly as racy as Hedy and not a fraction as glamorous! That said, like her, I’ve always tried to do my own thing and be my own person.
Martha Lane Fox co-founded lastminute.com in 1998 and sits on the boards of Twitter and Chanel. She is chancellor of the Open University. She was talking to York Membery
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This article was first published in the January 2020 edition of BBC History Magazine
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