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January 19th, 2023 marks the twenty-third anniversary of the passing of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr. Once named "the most beautiful woman in film" by Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM studios, Lamarr was an American movie star during the Golden Age of film, known for her stunning beauty and a string of successful films and television appearances, up until her retirement in 1958. What many people don't know is that Lamarr was also a successful inventor. In fact, her invention of a "secret communication system" helped pave the way for our modern day technologies of GPS and Bluetooth wireless communication.
Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9th, 1915 in Vienna Austria, she showed an early interest in acting, the theater and film. She began working in the Austrian film industry, first as a script girl then as an actor for a number of local film productions. Eventually traveling to Berlin, Kiesler soon starred in the movie that first made her famous.
In 1933, at the age of eighteen, she was cast as the lead role in the film, Extase (Ecstasy), directed by Gustav Machatý. Kiesler plays the neglected wife of an older man who is indifferent towards her. After leaving her passionless marriage, she meets a younger man who becomes her lover.
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| Poster for the the film Extase (Ecstasy) (fair use, Wikipedia) |
The movie became famous because Kiesler is shown running and swimming while completely nude and for a scene in which she appears to have an orgasm (although the only image seen is of Kiesler's face).
After continued acting work in Austria and a failed marriage to a European arms dealer, Kiesler travelled to Paris. In 1937, while in London, Kiesler met Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM Studios, who was scouting for new talent at that time. Hoping to land a film contract with MGM, Kiesler booked passage to New York on the same ocean-liner as Mayer. Over the course of the voyage, she was able to convince Mayer to sign her to a $500 per week contract with the studio.
In an effort to distance Kiesler from her history as the "Ecstasy lady", Mayer convinced her to change her name to Hedy Lamarr, a suggestion made by Mayer's wife, in homage to the beautiful silent film star, Barbara La Marr. Once in Hollywood, Mayer began promoting his new actress as "the world's most beautiful woman".
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| Poster for the the film Algiers (fair use, Wikipedia) |
In 1938, Lamarr starred in the film Algiers, opposite Charles Boyer. While in terms of box office dollars, the film was a moderate success, the appearance of the unknown Hedy Lamarr created what author Stephen Michael Shearer called, in his book, Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr, a "national sensation". According to Shearer, one moviegoer remarked that when her face first came onto the screen, "everyone gasped....Lamarr's beauty literally took one's breath away."
Inevitably typecast in subsequent roles as the beautiful but dangerous seductress, Lamarr found that her onscreen time and dialogue were sometimes limited, which meant she was often not needed on movie sets for extended stretches of time. Lamarr spent many hours engaged in various other activities, one of which included sunbathing at her agents home. However, it was another one of these activities which would take on a life of its' own and lead her down a path of recognition which she may have never expected.
Tinkerer and Inventor
In her spare time, Hedy LaMarr found particular enjoyment in tinkering and working on ideas for useful items. One such idea was for a tablet which would dissolve in water, creating a carbonated drink. Unfortunately, this particular invention did not succeed, as LaMarr said the resulting beverage tasted like Alka-Seltzer.
Her interest in inventing became so great that, at one point, she expressed an interest in joining the National Inventors Council in Washington D.C. However, Charles Kettering, founder of Delco and a Council member himself, suggested that she could do more good by using her movie star status to sell war bonds, which she ultimately did. Of course, this did not stop Lamarr's interest in looking for useful items which she could create.
A Fateful Meeting
At some point during World War II, Hedy Lamarr learned of the idea of radio controlled torpedoes, and that they were being considered for development as a weapons system. However, concerns had been raised that an enemy could easily jam the radio transmissions, thus rendering their guidance signals useless. This weakness in the system caused the idea to be shelved indefinitely.
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| George Antheil (public domain image, Wikipedia) |
Around this same time, Lamarr had becomes friends with the American avant-garde music composer and fellow inventor, George Antheil. At some point, the two got to discussing this issue of radio controlled torpedoes and came up with the idea that a device which could utilize a frequency-hopping carrier signal just might be able to overcome this issue.
Frequency Hopping
The idea behind frequency hopping is a fairly simple one. When a radio signal is transmitted, it travels on a specific frequency, called a "carrier frequency", because it is literally carrying the radio signal along with it. In order to receive the information being carried, a radio receiver will be tuned to that specific carrier frequency. Frequency hopping describes the action of a system that rapidly changes the carrier frequency on which a radio signal is transmitted.
It was just this kind of system which Hedy Lamarr and George Anthiel believed could solve the problem of using radio transmissions to guide torpedoes. If the carrier frequency could be quickly and randomly changed for a signal which was guiding a torpedo, the pair of inventors reasoned, it would be next to impossible for the enemy to effectively interrupt that signal before it reached its target.
After deciding upon the solution, Antheil created a prototype, synchronizing the mechanism of a miniature player piano with specific radio signals. Next, he created a sketch of a system which would take advantage of this technology, using perforated paper tape and actuated pneumatic controls, similar to those already in use in player pianos.
Once they had an actual system that appeared to be feasible, Lamarr took it a number of steps further. She hired Professor Samuel Stuart Mackeown of the California Institute of Technology to implement the idea. She also hired the Los Angeles legal firm of Lyon & Lyon to create a patent application for the system. On August 11th, 1942, United States patent no. 2292387 was granted to Hedy Kiesler Markey and George Antheil.
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| Copy of the U.S. patent for "Secret Communication System" (public domain image, Wikipedia) |
Frequency Hopping's Advocates - (Almost) Lost In The Shuffle
In the short term, nothing came of this technology after the patent was awarded. The US Navy did nothing with the information, except to label it Top Secret and file it away. In 1959, on August 11th, the patent expired, seventeen years to the day after it had been awarded.However, this was not the end of the story for frequency hopping. After World War II, the US Navy was interested in creating the next generation of what were (and still are) known as "sonobuoys", floating devices designed to detect underwater submarines using sonar technology. The information these devices gathered would then be transmitted from the buoys to planes overhead. One of the challenges they faced in developing these devices was potential jamming of the carrier frequency used between the buoy and the plane. To the rescue came frequency hopping. Once it was proved that the technology worked in a real world application, it spread to other areas of need.
From there, other organizations, both military and commercial, began creating their own technologies, based around the invention of Lamarr and Anthiel. In 1997, Lamarr was recognized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which gave her a long overdue award for her contributions to the technology. One year later, Wi-LAN Inc, an Ottawa technology developer, paid Lamarr an undisclosed amount for a 49% claim on the patent.
The technology Lamarr and Anthiel invented is similar in many respects with modern-day spread spectrum technologies, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi network connections and CDMA in some cordless and wireless telephones.
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