Who Is Hedy Lamarr? What You Need To Know About The Real-Life Wonder Woman Gal Gadot Is Taking On Next!

Born Hedwig Kiesler on November 9, 1914, in what was then Austria-Hungary, Hedy started acting at a young age and married a rich industrialist at 19. He was demanding and controlling, forcing her to convert to Catholicism, and was a weapons manufacturer working with Nazi Germany. Suffice to say, their marriage wasn’t a happy one, and in 1937, Hedy divorced him and moved to London. In the interim, she had appeared in a handful of films in her native country before bouncing, including Ecstasy, a film that made waves all over the world in 1933 for containing what is widely considered the first sex scene! Scandalous!!! (You can check out the scene here if you're curious; pretty tame by today's standards but considered graphic for the times!)

In London, Hedy met MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood. He convinced her to change her name, and she chose Lamarr in honor of silent film star Barbara La Marr. Hedy got her mother out of Austria as it was becoming under the control of the Third Reich, and they moved to the U.S. 

Her first big Hollywood film was Algiers (1938), starring Charles Boyer. Her star continued to rise quickly, and soon she was starring alongside Clark Gable, James Stewart, Judy Garland, and Lana Turner. But outside of all the success, Hedy was homesick and hated seeing her home country caught in a war. 

She wanted to help. Hedy used her star status to sell war bonds, but she was also an inventor, a hobby she pursued in her spare time. During World War II, Hedy made the important discovery that radio-controlled torpedoes could be jammed through their frequencies. With her friend, composer George Antheil, they created a frequency-hopping system and patented their invention. Their design was finally implemented on U.S. Navy ships in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the technology is an integral part of the modern internet!

In 1997, the two inventors received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award for their lifetime achievements in science, and in 2014, they were posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 

Known for her beauty and acting ability, Hedy Lamarr was also a brilliant inventor who worked hard to help her country. Gal Gadot seems like the perfect actress to portray this extraordinary, barrier-breaking woman. The project is slated to be a limited series at Showtime, in which Gal Gadot is the star and an executive producer. 

Can’t wait to see Gal Gadot play this real-life “Wonder Woman”!