Hedy Lamarr


Publicity photo (c. 1944)

Born: Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914; Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died: January 19, 2000 (aged 85); Casselberry, Florida, U.S.
Citizenship :
Austria (1914–1953)
United States (1953–2000)

Hedy Lamarr (/ˈheɪdi/; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914[a] – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American film actress and inventor.

After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood. She became a film star with her performance in Algiers (1938). Her MGM films include Lady of the Tropics (1939), Boom Town (1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and White Cargo (1942). Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal (1958). She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

At the beginning of World War II, she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth and GPS technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

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George Antheil


Detail from a portrait of Antheil,
by American photographer
Berenice Abbott, c. 1927

Born: George Johann Carl Antheil; July 8, 1900; Trenton, New Jersey, US
Died: February 12, 1959 (aged 58); New York City, US
Occupation: Composer, pianist, author, and inventor

George Johann Carl Antheil (/ˈæntaɪl/; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of the early 20th century. Spending much of the 1920s in Europe, Antheil returned to the United States in the 1930s, and thereafter spent much of his time composing music for films, and eventually, television. As a result of this work, his style became more tonal. A man of diverse interests and talents, Antheil was constantly reinventing himself. He wrote magazine articles (one accurately predicted the development and outcome of World War II), an autobiography, a mystery novel, and newspaper and music columns.

In 1941, Antheil and the actress Hedy Lamarr developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used a code (stored on a punched paper tape) to synchronise random frequencies, referred to as frequency hopping, between a receiver and transmitter. It is one of the techniques now known as spread spectrum, widely used in telecommunications. This work led to their being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

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Berlin and Paris

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Ballet Mécanique and later work in Europe

Antheil's best-known composition is Ballet Mécanique. The "ballet" was originally conceived to be accompanied by the film of the same name by experimental filmmakers Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy (with cinematography by Man Ray),[33] although the nature of the collaboration is mysterious. The first productions of Antheil's work in 1925 and 1926 did not include the film, which turned out to last around 19 minutes, only half as long as Antheil's score.

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Ballet Mécanique

Ballet Mécanique (1923–24) is a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray). It has a musical score by the American composer George Antheil. However, the film premiered in a silent version on 24 September 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exposition for New Theater Technique) in Vienna presented by Frederick Kiesler. It is considered one of the masterpieces of early experimental filmmaking.

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Ballet Mecanique by George Antheil, at the National Gallery of Art
19,313 views Aug 14, 2012

Paul Lehrman
247 subscribers

The Ballet Mecanique Robotic Orchestra performs George Antheil's 1924 "Ballet Mecanique" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, March 2006. This is the complete video! Music programming and editing by Paul D. Lehrman. Robotics by the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR), Eric Singer, director. For more information about the Ballet Mecanique visit www.antheil.org. For more about LEMUR, visit www.lemurbots.org.