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Today is Hedy Lamarr's 100th birthday. The actress once dubbed "the most beautiful woman in the world" also patented a brilliant communications technology in the 1940s -- the basis for Bluetooth and other wireless marvels. Who knew?!
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發現，是無法事先計畫的。--- 歐文‧朗繆爾 (Irving Langmuir)
(1881-1957美國化學家，以燈泡設計突破等聞名——譯註)
An Inventive Hollywood Star
From filming nude scenes for 'Ecstasy' in 1933 to devising radio-controlled torpedoes meant to foil German defenses in World War II.
HENRY PETROSKI
December 16, 2011
In his new book, Richard Rhodes, the author of acclaimed histories of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, tells the story of a 1940s Hollywood bombshell and her fascination with military-weapon design. Yet even though "Hedy's Folly" ostensibly concerns, as the subtitle has it, "the life and breakthrough inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the most beautiful woman in the world," the book is equally about the role that chance and coincidence can play in the development of technology.
Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna in 1913, was the only child of Jewish parents. Emil Kiesler, a successful banker, was a doting father; her mother, Trude, a former concert pianist, was less indulgent, "concerned that such a pretty, vivacious child would grow up spoiled unless she heard criticism as well as compliments," Mr. Rhodes writes. Trude taught Hedy to play the piano, and Emil conveyed to his daughter a consuming interest in technology.
Hedy dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue an acting career in Berlin. At 18, after appearing onstage and in a few small film roles, she was cast by Czech director Gustav Machaty as the lead in "Ecstasy," a movie that contained two brief nude scenes and much sexual symbolism. Even though she was billed by her real name—the change to Hedy Lamarr would come in Hollywood—her association with a movie so daring for its time would, the author says, "both promote and plague her professional career."
The actress captured the attention of Fritz Mandl, a wealthy and powerful Austrian arms manufacturer. After she married him at age 19, her new husband tried, unsuccessfully, to buy up every print of "Ecstasy" so that no one else could ever view it again. As Mandl's wife, hosting dinner parties for his business associates, Hedy became familiar with the technology of war. Like much of this most unusual book about a Hollywood star, Mr. Rhodes relates the Austrian chapter of Lamarr's story with engaging efficiency.
As Europe in the mid-1930s was roiled by Hitler's rise, Lamarr, a Jew, resolved to flee her homeland and her marriage. Her controlling husband had Jewish roots—his father had converted to Catholicism, his wife's religion—but Mandl was also a proponent of fascism. In London, the actress met the MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract and insisted on a new screen name. The rest is Hollywood history—with a twist.
Enlarge Image
Hedy's Folly
By Richard Rhodes
(Doubleday, 261 pages, $26.95)
As Mr. Rhodes relates, Hedy Lamarr was hardly an intellectual, but she was a indefatigable tinkerer. Among her inventions was a sort of bouillon cube that, when dissolved in water, produced a cola-like drink. Another was an attachment for a tissue box to hold used tissues, a convenience that anyone with a bad cold can appreciate. But she also turned her attention beyond the domestic. Even as she was starring in movies such as "Boom Town" (1940), Lamarr applied her inventing talents to trying to combat German submarines preying on ships in the North Atlantic. She had an idea for radio-controlled torpedo delivery that could not be foiled by the enemy.
Enter George Antheil, an American avant-garde composer whose works were known for using unorthodox instruments such as player-pianos, airplane propellers and sirens. He also wrote music for movies and, like Lamarr, tinkered with ideas for inventions. His signature composition from the 1920s, "Ballet Mécanique," prompted him to develop a way to synchronize multiple player-pianos.
Ever scrambling to piece together an income, Antheil wrote frequently for Esquire magazine—including articles on endocrinology, particularly female hormones, that happened to catch Lamarr's attention. The actress told a friend who knew Antheil that she would like to meet him. When they were introduced at a dinner party in August 1940, she asked Antheil if he knew how she might make her breasts bigger. Mr. Rhodes reports that Antheil recalled, in his autobiography, "Bad Boy of Music," suggesting "various glandular extracts" that would help the pituitary gland, with the added benefit that "the bosoms stay up."
Antheil and Lamarr eventually moved on to talking about the war in Europe. She wondered if her knowledge of munitions and secret weapons projects from her time in Austria could help somehow. She also described an idea for a remote-controlled torpedo: A radio transmitting directions and a receiver implementing them would be synchronized so that their frequencies could be changed simultaneously in a random manner. This constant retuning would make it difficult for the enemy to jam the signals. Lamarr termed the technique "frequency hopping," a forerunner of the spread-spectrum technology that is used today in communications applications such as Wi-Fi.
Antheil lent his experience with synchronizing player pianos. The two refined the idea, then consulted with an electrical-engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology, who confirmed that the concept would work. U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 for a "Secret Communication System" was issued to Hedy Kiesler Markey and George Antheil in 1942. (Markey was the surname of a husband she had divorced in 1940.) The frequency-hopping technology was not put to use in World War II, but it was employed in 1962 during the blockade of Cuba.
Today, when innovation is often identified as essential for revitalizing an ailing economy, politicians demand more science funding as an incentive. They would do well to note the story of Hedy Lamarr and remember that innovation comes in many forms, often from unlikely sources, who all have one thing in common: a love for ideas and an urge to find out if they'll work.
Mr. Petroski is a professor of engineering and of history at Duke University. His latest book is "An Engineer's Alphabet: Gleanings From the Softer Side of a Profession."
English
海蒂·拉瑪[編輯]
| 海蒂·拉瑪 Hedy Lamarr | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| 藝人 | ||
| 本名 | Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler | |
| 國籍 |  奧地利 美國 | |
| 出生 | 1913年11月09日 奧匈帝國維也納 | |
| 逝世 | 2000年01月19日（86歲） 美國佛羅里達州卡西貝利 | |
| 職業 | 演員, 發明家 | |
| 配偶 | 弗里茨·曼德爾（Fritz Mandl） (1933–1937; 離婚) 尤金·馬基（Gene Markey） (1939–1941; 離婚) 約翰·洛德（John Loder） (1943–1947; 離婚) 泰迪·斯托弗(Teddy Stauffer) (m.1951–1952; 離婚) 霍華德·李（W. Howard Lee） (1953–1960; 離婚) 劉易斯·博伊斯（Lewis J. Boies） (1963–1965; 離婚) | |
| 兒女 | James Lamarr Markey（子） Denise Loder（女） Antony Loder（子） | |
| 代表作品 | 電影《神魂顛倒》（Ecstasy）、《阿爾及爾》、《參孫和達莉拉》（Samson and Delilah）；發明擴頻技術 | |
| 活躍年代 | 1930–1958 | |
海蒂·拉瑪（Hedy Lamarr，1914年11月9日－2000年1月19日），出生於奧地利，猶太人後裔，美國演員，展布頻譜技術的共同發明人（為現代許多無線通訊系統包括無線區域網路與行動電話的基礎關鍵）她於1933年上映的捷克電影中展示裸體，為世界上最早的裸體電影之一[1]。她於2000年在美國佛羅里達州逝去。
生平[編輯]
海蒂·拉瑪出生於奧地利維也納，原名海德維希·愛娃·瑪麗亞·基斯勒（Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler）她的父親是一名世俗化的猶太銀行家，母親是布達佩斯的鋼琴家。青少年時期她被電影院吸引住了，最後她退學當了一名演員。她學習了鋼琴與芭蕾，後來被導演馬克斯·萊因哈特發現。萊因哈特把她帶到了自己位於柏林的表演學校，拉瑪回到維也納以後當了一名場記員以此進入了電影行業。1930年，年僅17歲的拉瑪出演了一部德國電影《街上的錢》（Geld auf der Straße），這也是她的第一部影片。在接下來的幾年中她又拍攝了幾部影片，其中1933年時她拍攝了捷克斯洛伐克電影《神魂顛倒》（Ecstasy），在影片中她拍攝過裸泳鏡頭，還赤身裸體離開發怒的丈夫，然後奔入森林在小屋中同一個男青年做愛。[2]在拍攝完這部影片後不久，她遇上了第一任丈夫弗里茨·曼德爾，此人為腰纏萬貫的奧地利軍火商。他曾與希特勒以及墨索里尼等法西斯份子打過交道，在招待自己的客戶時，他美麗的妻子拉瑪也時常會出席宴會，拉瑪因此能夠聽到他們之間的一些交談。雖然生活在薩爾斯堡一個城堡內的拉瑪非常富裕但她並不滿足，並在結婚後4年就嘗試著逃跑。雖然她的逃跑失敗了，但是卻留下了某些傳說。由於丈夫追得太緊她鑽入一家妓院躲進了某個房間，而妓院的顧客到來後她只好同顧客發生性關係以避免被丈夫發現。不過也有其它說法指出，她只是躲進了在播放色情電影的俱樂部。當她再次試圖逃跑時，她向丈夫派來監視她的女傭下了藥，然後穿上了傭人的衣服，從下人出入的後門走了出去。然後她逃到了倫敦，在那裡表演過一些戲劇。倫敦她遇到了米高梅三位創始人之一的路易·B·梅耶，後者在法國的客輪上同她簽訂了一份為期7年的合同。因為《神魂顛倒》臭名遠揚，梅耶讓她改名，她的新名字來源於默片時代的米高梅演員芭芭拉·拉瑪（Barbara La Marr）。[3]
1938年海蒂·拉瑪第一次出現在了好萊塢的影片《阿爾及爾》之中，1939年她為米高梅拍攝了第一部影片。她拒絕了主演1942年的《北非諜影》以及1944年的《煤氣燈下》，要不然還可以獲得更大名聲，而英格麗·褒曼則因為主演這兩部影片獲得了很大的聲望。不過海蒂·拉瑪依舊出演過許多頗受歡迎電影，同她合作過的男演員包括克拉克·蓋博、史賓塞·屈賽等人。[4]1940年夏天，拉瑪在一個聚會上認識了從歐洲移民來的鋼琴家喬治·安塞爾，當時拉瑪正同第二任丈夫分居。拉瑪曾把安塞爾邀請到家中，開玩笑般詢問他如何增大自己的胸部。後來他們討論了更為嚴肅的話題，拉瑪想起自己的第一任軍火商丈夫，某次晚宴上她曾聽到納粹官員談起過如何操控魚雷的內容。[5][3]如果是直接使用遙控則很容易被相同頻率的信號干擾從而使魚雷偏離目標，某個下午安塞爾漫不經心地彈著鋼琴，拉瑪想到如果改變鋼琴按鍵就能改變聲音，那麼改變無線電信號頻率同樣能改變信號。如果不停隨機地改變信號頻率，敵人的干擾影響就會減小很多。而安塞爾則想出了具體的實施方法，他曾經在1926年的《機械芭蕾》（Ballet Mecanique）中使用了16架自動演奏鋼琴，這些鋼琴由滾筒驅動。當在魚雷的接收器和艦船的發射器內安裝上相同編碼的滾筒，讓兩者同時運轉時，就可以完成這種跳頻擴頻。1942年8月11日，海蒂·拉瑪與喬治·安塞爾從美國專利局獲得了名為秘密通信系統（Secret Communications System）的專利，編號為2,292,387。事實上在他們的專利中一共使用了88種頻率，這個數字和鋼琴的按鍵相同。獲得專利後他們沒有開發相關的商業用途而是直接交給了政府，他們還需要為此擔負相關的專利維護費。[6]然而那時候還未發明電晶體以及集成電路，想要將龐大的電子管設備塞入魚雷之中困難重重，因而海軍拒絕了這一想法。雖然拉瑪和安塞爾沒有繼續他們的發明，但是實際上日後擴頻技術在CDMA、Wi-Fi中發揮了很大的作用。二戰時拉瑪還通過販售戰爭債券的方式幫助抵抗法西斯，其中在一個晚上她就售出了7百萬美元的債權，平均下來每個吻賣掉了2萬5千美元的債權。[3]
50年代以後隨著海蒂·拉瑪美貌不再加上新一代的電影演員迅速崛起，她漸漸地淡出了銀幕。1951年之後她就很少拍電影了，1958年她在自己44歲那年正式退休。1967年後她出版了自傳然後定居到了佛羅里達州，1991年時已經78歲的拉瑪因為在商店順手牽羊被逮捕再次登上新聞。[7]實際上在1966年時已經發生過類似的事情，那時12名陪審員中有10人認為拉瑪無罪。2000年1月19日，85歲的拉瑪死於佛羅里達的家中。[3]
海蒂·拉瑪一共經歷過6段婚姻，最後一段婚姻結束於1965年在那之後她再也沒有結過婚並於不久後移居到了佛羅里達。所有的這些婚姻都沒能長久，最長的第5段婚姻也不過只持續了7年，這一任的丈夫是一位德克薩斯的石油商人。她一共生下了兩個孩子並領養過一個男孩。[2]
電影作品[編輯]
| 年份 | 片名 | 角色 | 備註 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 譯名 | 原名 | |||
| 1930年 | 《街上的錢》 | Geld auf der Straße | ||
| 1933年 | 《神魂顛倒》 | Ecstasy | ||
| 1940年 | 《新興都市》 | Boom-Town | ||
| 1933年 | 《齊格飛女孩》 | Ziegfeld Girl | ||
| 1949年 | 《參孫和達莉拉》 | Samson and Delilah | 達莉拉(en) | |
來源[編輯]
^ Hedy Lamarr
^ 2.0 2.1 Hedy Lamarr (1914 - 2000)
^ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Hedy Lamarr
^ HEDY LAMARR
^ When George Antheil Met Hedy Lamarr (A True Story)
^ The birth of spread spectrum
^ Hedy Lamarr Charged In Shoplifting Case
外部連結[編輯]
（英文） Female Inventors
Hedy Lamarr的傳奇
 | 維基共享資源中相關的多媒體資源：海蒂·拉瑪 |
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