Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr
Birth Name: Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler
Born: Nov 9, 1914
Vienna, Austria
Career: 1930-2000
Countries: USA
Genre/Type: Comedy
Drama
Fantasy
Historical Film
Romance
Biography by Hal Erickson
The daughter of a Vienesse banker, Hedy Lamarr began her acting career at 16 under the tutelage of German impresario Max Reinhardt. She began appearing in German films in 1930, but garnered little attention until her star turn in Czech director Gustav Machaty's Extase (Ecstasy) in 1933. It wasn't just because Lamarr appeared briefly in the nude; Extase was filled to overflowing with orgasmic imagery, including tight close-ups of Lamarr in the throes of delighted passion. Though her first husband, Austrian businessman Fritz Mandl, tried to buy up and destroy all prints of Extase, the film enjoyed worldwide distribution, the result being that Lamarr was famous in America before ever setting foot in Hollywood. She was signed by producer Walter Wanger to co-star with Charles Boyer in the American remake of the French Pepe Le Moko, titled Algiers (1938). That Lamarr wasn't much of an actress was compensated with several scenes in which she was required to merely stand around silently and look beautiful (she would later downgrade these performances, equating sex appeal with "looking stupid"). The prudish Louis B. Mayer was willing to forgive Lamarr the "indiscretion" of Extase by signing her to a long MGM contract in 1939. Most of her subsequent roles were merely decorative (never more so than as Tondelayo in White Cargo [1940]), though she was first rate in the complex role of the career woman who "liberates" stuffy Bostonian Robert Young in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1942). In 1949, Lamarr, tastefully under-dressed, appeared opposite the equally attractive Victor Mature in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). Lamarr's limited acting skills became more pronounced in her 1950s films, especially when she gamely tried to play Joan of Arc in the all-star disaster The Story of Mankind (1957). She disappeared from films in 1958. An autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, enabled her to pay many of her debts, though she'd later sue her collaborators for distorting the facts. In another legal action, Lamarr took on director Mel Brooks for using the character name "Hedley Lamarr" in his 1974 Western spoof Blazing Saddles. In 1990, Lamarr made an unexpected return before the cameras in the obscure low-budget Hollywood satire Instant Karma, in which she was typecast in the role of Movie Goddess.

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Filmography

Movie/Film Released Rating Role Buy
Hedy Lamarr: Secrets of a Hollywood Star 2006 Archival Appearance
Instant Karma 1990 Actor [Starring]
The Female Animal 1958 Actor [Starring]
The Story of Mankind 1957 Actor [Starring]
L'Amante di Paride 1954 Actor [Starring]
Love of Three Queens 1954 Actor [Starring]
My Favorite Spy 1951 Actor [Starring]
A Lady without Passport 1950 Actor [Starring]
Copper Canyon 1950 Actor [Starring]
Samson and Delilah 1949 Actor [Starring]
Let's Live a Little 1948 Actor [Starring]
Dishonored Lady 1947 Actor [Starring]
The Strange Woman 1946 Actor [Starring]
Experiment Perilous 1945 Actor [Starring]
Her Highness and the Bellboy 1945 Actor [Starring]
The Conspirators 1944 Actor [Starring]
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Hedy Lamarr was born Nov. 9, 1914. She died Jan 19, 2000 at the age of 85 in Altamonte Springs, Florida. ChaCha
About the actress Hedy Lamarr, history and biography of the Hollywood filmstar. Headline--1938: HEDY LAMARR At the Peak: The 1938 film Algiers was memorable for several reasons. There was a fine performance by Charles Boyer--who uttered the...
yes she used theis codes in her invention which became famious ten years after she died

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