Hedy Lamarr is often regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world.
“Some said she had the most beautiful face they had ever seen. Some just stopped talking mid-sentence, in awe, when she walked into a room.”
She captivated the acting world, most successfully in Samson and Delilah (1949), and was honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 1960. Born in the Galicia region of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1914, she began her movie career in Austria. A role at 18, in the film Ecstasy, generated a reputation for her as overtly sexual. The film was banned in the US and Germany and opposed by women’s groups. While it won the Venice Film Festival as an artistic work, the role embittered her taste for acting, at least temporarily.
Escaping a traumatic marriage to a Nazi sympathizer, first to Paris, and then London, she came to the attention of Louis B Mayer in 1937, who typecast her as the archetypal glamorous seductress of exotic origin. Following Mr. Mayer to the US, she remained there, appearing in various films alongside leading actors, stateless, until securing American citizenship in 1953.
Between Takes
After leaving MGM in 1947, she continued to act, formed a production company, and indulged in perhaps the most hidden of her accomplishments: devising a secret code for use during WWII. This was only one of her many inventions created on set between takes, including an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would effervesce in water to create a flavored carbonated drink.
Perhaps her most important invention addressed the need to guide a torpedo through water. Radio control had drawbacks, as the enemy could jam the system and “derail” the torpedo. Instead, Hedy and a collaborator devised a “Secret Communication which utilized “frequency hopping,” where a transmitter and receiver changed tuning frequently and synchronously to guide torpedoes, making them un-jammable. Alas, the US Navy never adopted the conception during the war, but the work was not for naught; the technology was later used during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Today, it is a necessary precursor to modern-day technologies such as our digital phones, your car keys, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth.
Frequency Hopping
The concept of synchronous continuous frequency changes had earlier “authors,” including Nikola Tesla, who was awarded US Patent 725,605 in 1903 for the earliest mention of techniques for frequency-shifting or hopping to avoid interference.
Tesla’s patent doesn’t specifically mention the phrase “frequency hopping”, but alludes to it, and by 1915, it had been appropriated for military use by the Germans, who were using primitive frequency hopping radio to stop the British eavesdropping on their conversations.
Others claiming earlier credit include:
- Johannes Zenneck (1908) described the technology in his book Wireless Telegraphy, indicating that Telefunken was already experimenting with it, and
- Leonard Danilewicz (1929), who developed similar concepts in Poland.
While Lamarr’s idea was not new, her concept of using frequency hopping to prevent the intended target from jamming the controller’s transmissions was.
The Bimbo Effect
While many are aware of Ms. Lamarr’s screen presence, beauty, and acting ability, far fewer are aware of her technical prowess.
According to scientific research, that is not surprising. Good looks and height do enhance the perception of competence and lead to professional advancement, at least for men.
“The Journal of Applied Psychology found that someone six feet tall earns nearly $166,000 more over a 30-year career than someone 5'5", even when controlling for gender, age, and weight. Each additional inch of height was associated with $789 more per year.”
- American Psychological Association, July 2004
But this correlation doesn’t apply across the genders, as “beauty may adversely impact the selection of female leaders.” A 2012 study entitled “Is Beauty Beastly?” examined the impact of beauty on leadership style. The team found that although attractive people generally enjoy many positive benefits, beauty may adversely impact the selection of female leaders. For transformational leaders who provide individualized support for their staff, leading by example, encouraging staff to exceed expectations, attractiveness harmed perceptions of women—but not men
As the authors explain, “that transformational leadership style includes intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and serving as a role model through idealized influence. In contrast to transactional leaders, who are focused on task completion, rewards, and punishments, transformational leaders inspire their staff to reach goals beyond what is expected.”
A 2024 study dubbed the beauty influence “the attractiveness halo” and revealed that “perceptions of attractiveness profoundly impact the social judgements that we make: human beings are positively biased towards individuals who are perceived as physically attractive.”
When the subjects' images were “beautified” with digital filters, the disparity between female and male perception increased: “Males were perceived as more intelligent than females both by male and female raters, with a widening gap between genders after beautification such that female stimuli are perceived as less intelligent on average by male raters after beautification….”
The findings confirmed yet another study published in 2012 in the Journal of Social Psychology, finding that “for less intelligent applicants, lower attractiveness was a relative liability for men and a relative asset for women.” However, when women’s intelligence exceeded their attractiveness, they suffered “a negative bias that men with the same characteristics did not.” In other words, a negative bias is attached to highly attractive women of lower intelligence, a penalty not observed in men with the same characteristics.
Add female “sexiness” to the mix, and the perceived competence drops even further. Let’s not forget that Ms. Lamarr’s career was launched by a film some called overtly sexual.
The Naysayers
While some say LaMarr was a genius, detractors claim her intellectual achievements were only recognized because of the PR attached to her Hollywood status.
It’s difficult to parse out the contribution of PR to the recognition and later reception of Hedy’s invention – or to the credit she is given rather than to those who originated the scientific concept. But consider one thing: did you know the name of her co-inventor? It was a man, a composer named George Antheil. While both were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014, much less is written about his scientific contributions.
