Hedy Lamarr was part of Hollywood's golden age in the 1930's and
40's and once billed as "the world's most beautiful woman." Her claim to
fame come in the 1933 Czech film Ecstasy, which was fine
for European audiences but too racy at the time for Hayes-coded Hollywood.
She came to America soon after and appeared in the 1938 movie
Algiers
with Charles Boyer and the Cecil B. DeMille
epic
Samson and Delilah (1949). Around this time she made
her famous, and often quoted, comment about good looks, "Any girl can be
glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." Lamarr
was defiantly glamorous, but unlike the beauties she comments about, had
the brains to set apart from the pack. With her ex-husband she created
a radio signaling device in the 1940 that was the core of modern-day cell
phones. Her last starring role was in 1958 in the movie The Female
Animal with Jane Powell. She withdrew from the limelight
in the mid 1960's because of a lurid, ghost-written autobiography and lived
as a recluse until her death.
|