Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Page #8

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The longer I wait,

the better the book gets.

Somebody suggested

doing her autobiography,

that she should do it.

She had no interest

in the book itself,

but she wanted

the money from it.

There really hadn't been

any sort of scandalous tell-all.

She spoke with ghostwriters

for many, many hours

about her past,

and then they translated

her memories

into a narrative.

I think her business manager

was paid off

to get all this stuff past her.

And she didn't want to deal

with paperwork,

so she just trusted him.

Your book,

called Ecstasy and Me...

Don't talk about that.

That's not my book.

- You wrote it.

- No.

Did that hurt your image

in Hollywood?

I don't know what is an image.

I mean,

what's your image, Woody?

What's my im... same as yours.

Okay, now you want me

to tell you what your image is?

- Yeah.

- It's a glamorous,

beautiful,

internationally known star

who obviously rides

in limousines

and has great jewels

and you don't scrub

your kitchen floors.

I don't like that, no,

but tell me more.

I never lived that way.

Isn't that what it's all about?

No, not to me.

I guess in the image it is.

She was known for her glamour

and her beauty.

It was impossible to live up to

as she got older.

She would see that

and you knew

that it disturbed her.

She started having

plastic surgery in her 40s.

One of her plastic surgeons

told me once

that she was a groundbreaker

even in plastic surgery

where she came up with ideas.

She said, "My arms are crepey

and I want you to cut here

right in the line of the fold

and I want you to get rid

of the excess skin

and leave the scar here.

Leave the scar on my knee,

behind my knee.

Put the scar behind my ear.

And they did it

and the surgeons said, you know,

"A lot of these things she did

we were never doing before."

You'll mention her

to an older plastic surgeon

and they remember their...

all their actresses

coming in saying,

"You know, well, Hedy,

she had this done.

Can I get this done too?"

She was really one of the first

women out there saying,

"Why isn't this possible?

Why can't we do this?"

She looked wonderful

for her age,

but all of that didn't work

because people still wanted

that old image of Hedy Lamarr.

You know, the only thing

that would have...

that would have solved

the problem

is if she'd died young.

People were cruel to her.

People would come up and say,

"You were so beautiful."

The press was mean.

I said, "Oh, Mom,

I feel I really have empathy

for that pressure on you."

So no wonder

she kind of hid away.

Do you think

you are unsociable?

Me? No!

Have I been reserved with you?

No, I mean are you unsociable

here in America?

I only know that they

do not understand me.

How can you understand

a person who

has had as many phases

in life as I have?

I have been through a lot,

my whole life.

You start to think,

"I have experienced

everything now in life."

"Now I want peace."

I miss Vienna.

I would like to make

a movie about it.

What would the movie look like?

All of the nice things

I have seen when I was a child.

The opera.

The Spanish Riding School.

Schnbrunn Palace.

My school in Dbling.

Whatever, I don't know.

I am always Austrian.

We met in person

two times in my life.

She would send me

autographed pictures of herself,

you know,

which they're mostly like

those studio prints.

Even though she says

it was a curse,

that's what people liked

and loved about her and she...

for some reason I think

she thought even her family,

her grandchildren,

her children want that.

She did a lot of sadly

not so good plastic surgery

in her later years,

each one fixing the flaws

of the last.

And she no longer

went out in public.

And then the money

started running out

because she only got something

from Screen Actors Guild

and Social Security.

All they give me $300.

Per month?

Yep.

That's not much, is it?

No, it's not very much.

Have you ever tried to get... uh

some recompense...

for your idea?

...the patent?

No.

I was surprised that they

don't even acknowledge it.

In 1969, Hedy had written

to a friend in the Navy

asking if he could find out

what happened to her patent.

"Laura Slainier,

Washington Patent Office,

has an invention of mine,

a missile-guided torpedo.

Maybe you can get it."

So this was important to her.

His reply has been lost,

but she probably learned

that her idea,

frequency hopping,

had been put to use

in military communications.

By the time

of the Cuban Missile Crisis,

when President Kennedy

sent Navy ships

to blockade Cuba,

the ships that were running

the blockade

were all equipped

with frequency-hopped radios.

When she found out

that the patent was used,

she thought, "Hey, I should be

making some money from this."

I mean, isn't that normal

to get something?

Yes, it is.

Well... apparently

they didn't think so.

Well, it has to do

with the nature of patent law.

I think that it wasn't

actually used

during the life

of the patent

and it was only after

the patent expired

that it went into common use.

I don't think so.

They used it before!

For Hedy to be paid,

the Navy had to use her patent

before it expired in 1959.

And there's evidence they did

give it to a contractor.

Romuald Scibor sent me an email.

And he said, 19...

it was about '55,

he said he was handed

that patent.

And they were tasked

to create a sonobuoy.

A sonobuoy is a floating

submarine detection device.

Someone in the Navy

found the patent and thought,

"Well, I don't know

if there's anything here,

but let's toss it

to a contractor."

And he took that patent

and used it

as the basis for communications

from the sonobuoy in the water

to a passing naval airplane

that would also be secure.

The inventor

of the sonobuoy had a website

where he paid tribute

to the Markey-Antheil invention.

Will you take a look?

Sure.

A Tribute to Hedy Lamarr

by Romuald Scibor-Marchocki.

No, I haven't seen this.

"I designed the sonobuoy,

one of the first deployments

of frequency hopping."

And he goes on to write

about surveillance drones

at Aerojet-General.

"I was the systems manager

building the surveillance drone

which eventually

flew over Vietnam.

I personally designed

the reliable and secure

two-way radio

communications system.

For the first time,

we had the ability

to switch frequencies rapidly.

Now that I know who invented

frequency hopping,

I, who was the only person

who remembers

those early applications

of this concept,

want to express

my sincere admiration

and belated thanks

to Hedy Lamarr."

How 'bout them apples?

She should have gotten paid.

What would you have

the government do to repay you?

At this point

I don't even care.

There she is.

The Tyrolean beauty.

Toward the end of Hedy's life

she began to reflect.

She began to have insight.

Well, things don't always

work... straight forward.

They have detours sometimes.

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