Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Page #7

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to buy some land.

It was all Austrian,

it's beautiful.

She spent years

making that place.

She created some

of her homeland.

That's why it meant

a lot to her.

She was really,

I think, homesick.

It was after that

that everything

started falling apart.

Their relationship wasn't good.

It was pretty traumatic;

he was an alcoholic.

With children it was very

difficult so I walked away.

I said, "All I want is Aspen,"

which I built myself.

My chalet there which makes

a million a day,

I suppose, now.

Hedy told me again and again

about her divorce

with Howard Lee.

May be the darkest time

in her life.

And then my daughter said,

"Ma, something happened

to Tony."

My son was almost killed

in a car accident.

While her son was

in the hospital near death,

Hedy was called to testify

in divorce court.

Stressed and traumatized

to the point of breakdown,

she sent

her Hollywood body double

to testify in her place.

She infuriated the judge,

who punished her

by cutting her share

of the divorce settlement.

He took everything away.

Aspen, which was beautiful.

I mean, it was a big shock.

So with the pressure here

and pressure all over

that's all I needed.

So I collapsed.

I had a nervous breakdown.

I feel like I was dead for...

I don't know how long,

but I was dead.

And so much so that this light

you see really exists

on the ceiling.

I saw my father.

She said Emil, her father,

was her greatest love,

or no one could compare to him.

Well, he knew her

before she was this celebrity.

And so she felt

real love there.

And I don't know

if she felt that again.

Hedy had two more husbands

in her life.

Neither marriage lasted

much more than a year.

I wish my mother had a husband

who knew how to love her.

But she never did.

When I ended up living

with her after Texas,

it was very, very tricky,

very hard.

I think the drugs

were very responsible.

The slightest thing could...

could set her off.

There was erratic behavior.

She was becoming more unstable.

I guess it pretty much

started with Jimmy.

As an adult,

I was looking at baby pictures

and it was my first birthday

with my mom...

and mother and father behind me.

And in between them, a boy.

Um, I told Mom,

"Who's this boy?"

And she literally said,

"Oh, it was an adoption

that didn't work out."

She told me that

he was really rebellious

and was acting out big time.

And Jimmy was put

in a military boarding school.

So the sports coach

kind of took Jimmy

under his wing,

coach and the wife,

and he asked Hedy

if he could live with them.

And Mom was apparently so hurt

she said yes.

And I can't believe

that I have no memory of him.

She's my mother and I love her.

I called her sometimes

and she called me sometimes.

I never really blamed her

for anything,

I... I just...

I knew she was upset

because I, you know,

kind of like slapped her

in the face.

Like saying,

"I don't love you anymore."

But still I never saw her

after that for 40-some years.

She was a woman of extremes.

I mean, Hedy can just

leave things behind.

She cut off Jimmy,

she cut off being Jewish.

She was broken, she was

missing pieces of herself.

A lot of stars

from the studio system

did carry over this addiction

to pep pills, speed.

It does explain, in hindsight,

a lot of her behavior.

There are always

a great many rumors

about her connection

to the famous Dr. Feelgood.

Dr. Feelgood was Max Jacobson.

Look at

the Aretha Franklin song,

"Oh, Dr. Feelgood,

please make me feel good."

Everybody called him

Dr. Feelgood

because he made them

feel good.

When Cecil B. DeMille

had his heart attack

on the set

of The Ten Commandments,

he flew Dr. Max over.

And then DeMille said,

"Go inject Charlton Heston.

There's not enough energy.

His Moses is too lackadaisical."

Hedy Lamarr

became a patient of his

from the 1950s

until Max Jacobson

lost his medical license

in 1974.

Somebody did me in

like many times

and gave me a shot.

I don't know what it was.

I thought it was vitamins

but it wasn't.

Said, "Oh, you should try

these vitamin B shots.

They give you so much energy."

What Max Jacobson said

is they were

special vitamin elixirs.

And he loaded up a vial

with 40 milligrams

of methamphetamine.

Meth was legal.

And he gave Hedy a shot.

And the thing

about methamphetamine

is once you get

a couple of shots,

you're hooked

because the brain will demand

more and more of that reward.

So she got hooked

on these "vitamins."

And they turned her

into a monster.

I was standing in the kitchen

and she was holding a fork

and she dropped it.

And all of a sudden

she just hauls up and, bam,

smashes me across the face.

"Whenever I drop something,

you pick it up!"

You know,

she was just out of control.

Now I can be forgiving

for all that erratic behavior

because in a way

she was a victim

of the very system

that made her famous.

Thank you very much.

Howdy-hi, Shindiggers.

I'm Jimmy O'Neill and tonight

it's my great pleasure

to introduce the beautiful

Ms. Hedy Lamarr.

Of course anyone growing up

in Hollywood in the early '60s

was aware of her

as the kind of caricature

of herself that she had become.

Lucille Ball, I remember,

used to do an outrageous

takeoff of Tandelayo.

I am Tandelayo.

I think it was offensive to her.

She didn't want to be a joke.

Mom was not in a good...

good way

when I was away at college.

I remember one day

walking to school at Cal,

with my books,

and I walked past a newsstand

and there's a picture

of Mom in jail.

Mrs. Lamarr was shopping

at the May Company

Department Store

and evidently was arrested

by one of the security personnel

of the store.

And it was apparent that she had

something like

approximately $14,000 on her,

but she had still taken

about $80 worth of merchandise.

When you see that

on the front page,

it's like you want

to just crawl in a hole.

The defendant

is quoted as saying,

"I didn't mean

to steal anything.

I'll be glad to pay

for the items.

I have the money."

She was acquitted for that.

She said it was

a misunderstanding.

Who knows?

You know, a lot of people

handle stress in different ways.

It was a shock.

She was such a big star.

She seemed so untouchable

to be reduced to that.

And I think that

most people thought

it must be a kind

of mental illness.

I want to see the store manager.

No.

I want to see the store manager.

You're not seeing

the store manager.

Andy Warhol's

school of filmmaking

makes a film that is very

obviously lampooning her image.

And she becomes,

essentially, a punch line.

The shoplifting also resulted

in her inability

to play her final role.

She was signed to do

Picture Mommy Dead

and Zsa Zsa Gabor

stepped in to replace her.

They just fired me.

- Were you shocked?

- No.

I'm not shocked at that, no.

This is gonna go

into your book, I trust.

Oh, yes, indeed.

What's the name of that book?

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