Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World

Joy's review: The basic outline is intriguing, but the book is disappointing. Could use more background and info on Hedy Larmar; Rhodes drops bits of info like the fact that she was estranged from her son, but then tells you nothing about that. He focuses on the invention parts of the story, but

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that part alone would have been better told as a magazine article.

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While there are many parts of this book that are extremely interesting, the style is rather dry. I did like reading about Hedy's earlier life but than the book just started throwing facts at the reader, almost too many, and I started skimming. That Hedy was beautiful, but would rather have been

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admired for her intelligence, was fascinating. The inventions she and composer George Antheil patented made possible many of the electronics we take for granted today.

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Despite the promise of the title, and the focus of the reviews, this doesn't spend much time on Lamarr's inventing, being much more interested on her acting career and her marriages. And it's as much about her partner's musical career as about Lamarr herself.

There might be a moderately engaging

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article about the invention in this, but the book is disappointing.

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Hedy's Lamarr was far, far more than a pretty face. She was a human sponge, seemingly remote and beautiful but always listening and storing away information. Especially during her first marriage, to the head of a munitions company. It helped her to build a better torpedo, though no one knew that

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for years as the patented technology languished in the Navy's classified files. Finally, in 1999, she was recognized as being a Pioneer of Science. We should think of her every day, because her idea is the basis of much of the wireless technology: cell phones, computers, GPS and more.

This book is the tale of that invention, with colorful bits about Hedy's life in general, as well as her partner on the torpedo invention,and her very good friend, the composer George Antheil. The lives they led are fascinating even without the inventions (of which there were many--Hedy's invented things her whole life, and died with sketches on the drawing board for more). Reading this book is taking a very enlightening trip back to the 1920's through the 1950's where legends collected to create, talk, argue, invent and live the golden life. Beauty, brains, abundant talent, Europe, Hollywood,intrigue--this book really has it all.

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Less a biography of the woman herself than of her invention - initially chapters alternated between her backstory and that of George Antheil (her co-patent holder), and the last few chapters follow the concept of "frequency hopping" as it is developed by others into spread spectrum technology.

Interesting but not very insightful or analytical, not enough technical detail, not enough historiographic digging to really amaze the listener.

Interesting story, but I must admit that I skimmed the parts about how her communications system worked.

Interesting story, but I must admit that I skimmed the parts about how her communications system worked.

Lightweight book about movie star Hedy Lamarr, who fled a bad European marriage (and overhanging Nazi threat) to come to the US, where she invented things in between making movies. No deep psychological insights, and though the missile radio-guidance technology she patented with the help of a

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Hollywood composer uses principles that still structure important technologies today there doesn’t seem to be a direct connection between her version and the versions we use now, so if she hadn’t been a movie star by day this would be an unremarkable story. Still, it was a decent read: creativity comes from everywhere, including Lamarr’s exposure to her arms-dealer husband’s discussions and her collaborator’s experience with player pianos; the flash of genius is more likely when a curious mind has building blocks on which to draw.

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The big disappointment among my Christmas books. Richard Rhodes has written splendid books with genial portraits of people and their era ("the men from Mars"). The writing is fine, some parts are enjoyable. Two flaws doom the book. Firstly, Hedy Lamarr's Hollywood career was rather limited and

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stunted due to the war. The attribution of the "Most Beautiful Woman in the World" (which she inherited by the demise of its previous carrier, a starlet) was more marketing buzz than reality. Secondly, the patent about the joint invention of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil was shelfed by the US military and never served as a the basis of an actual application during and after the war. With a US torpedo failure rate of sixty percent, the Japanese were never in need of developing such sophisticated countermeasures that would have necessitated complicated frequency-hopping to thwart their efforts. Thus, at the center of Rhodes' short book is a big hole.

The inclusion of a biography of American composer George Antheil and especially his Paris years was a good if not sufficient addition. Hedy's Vienna years are based on shoddy research with elementary mistakes about Vienna. Rhodes also chickens out of offering an account of the advent of Austrofascism. No, it is not too complex to tell but an account how a conservative alliance of the capitalists, the church and the military-industrial complex abolished democracy might be too close for comfort for his US audience. Another topic not picked up is the transfer of Jewish-Austrian talent to Hollywood.

Rhodes should have condensed his findings into a magazine article. Stretched to book length, his hopping account does not do justice to the ample lives of his protagonists. Like the American torpedoes lacking quality control, this book is a dud.

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Fascinating when the author discusses the problems of guidance systems for torpedoes and the development of Lamarr and Antheil's patent to use frequency hopping to avoid signal jamming. As a biography of Hedy Lammar it is quite inadequate and rather superficial. Antheil is given almost as much

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coverage as Lamarr without ever fully resolving the question of the relative contributions of each of the parties to the invention. As other reviewers have said this would have been better written as a magazine article concentrating on the invention.

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Nothing special, yet fairly interesting.

This is another book about the life of Hedy Lamar, but unlike Marie Benedict's The Only Woman in the Room, this book is written as a standard biography, and for me, wasn't nearly as interesting as the novel. This is probably because this book goes into great technical detail on Ms. Lamar's

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inventions, much of which went over my head. If I were to recommend one book, it would be Ms. Benedict's.

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A disappointing book. The actual information on Hedy's invention is very thin, so it's heavily padded in odd ways. The first half or more is a biography of Hedy (reasonable), then a jump back 10 years or so for a biography (with heavy name-dropping) of Antheil, her collaborator on the invention. I

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find his life even less interesting than Hedy's; he wrote weird music and the critics disliked him, for various reasons but the disliking is constant. The occasional comment of "at this point Hedy was 10 and probably hadn't heard of" his music does very little to tie the story together. We also get a review of politics in Austria between the wars - sordid and nasty. Then Hedy manages to get to the US, and the focus of the story shifts to her films - but only in review, very little about what she was actually doing. The constant refrain, when the book actually starts talking about her inventing, is "since she never wrote anything about this (whatever aspect the author is talking about), we are not sure exactly what happened..." Very dull. She (they) invented the torpedo control, it wasn't used but somehow the Navy held the patent, that's all that's known. Scraps of her and Antheil's lives are scattered through this section, but the focus is on numbers - sometimes rather random numbers. The basis for her invention, frequency-hopping, became technologically and economically important (reports on how big the market for it was). Someone finally figured out it was her invention, publicized her connection, got her some awards for it but by that time she didn't want public contact. End of story. It neither evoked the era nor went in to how and why she created what she did (aside from page after page of "things Hedy overheard as a girl that might have been related and therefore gave her what she needed to create her invention" - with an aside about how someone "didn't think she knew A from Z" and tried to assume she'd just borrowed the info. Pot, meet kettle...). Disappointing and annoying - I know very little more than before I read this, and I feel it was a waste of my time.

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Who knew Hedy LaMarre was an inventor? With her collaborator George Antheil, a composer by vocation, she invented a system for radio- controlled torpedoes that would be resistant to jamming. They were awarded a patent, but it was not put to use, and lapsed after the seventeen years. Subsequently,

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their system provided the basis for many technologies we take for granted today - cell phones and wi-fi to name just a few. This book is the story of the two "amateur" inventors. While I enjoyed the story, I didn't think it was particularly well-written.

What better example do we need to show that that BOTH arts and sciences lead to the most creative endeavors?

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The book spends minimal time on Hedy's Hollywood career but focuses on her early life in Austria and her flight to America to make films in Hollywood. Wanting to be an actress by her mid teens, she made the film Esctasy when she was 15. The nude scene in it haunted her for many years.

Her first

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husband was a munitions maker and he hosted meetings with Italian, German and other military leaders to which Hedy had access. It is assumed she used the knowledge learned then to come up with her radio controlled torpedo idea with the assistance of composer George Antheil. From her work on spred-spectrum communications during WW II developed the technology that is today used in cell phones, GPS', Bluetooth and more. In 1997, she and George were honoured for their work with the presentation of the Pioneer Award from the Electronic Pioneer Foundation.

A large portion of this volume is spent on the career of George Antheil and his music which I found as interesting as Hedy's inventions and her early life in Austria.

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Actress Hedy Lamarr was more than a pretty face. In her spare time from filming, she dabbled at inventing. One of her inventions, in collaboration with composer George Antheil, was a frequency-hopping radio control for torpedoes. Although the patent expired without implementation by the U.S. Navy,

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it was a step in the development of the spread spectrum technology that enables wireless communications like cell phones, GPS, Bluetooth, and wireless LANs.

The first part of the book explores the backgrounds of both Lamarr and Antheil, emphasizing the aspects of their early lives that contributed to their invention. Lamarr’s first marriage to an Austrian munitions manufacturer was a stepping stone to the invention. Her subsequent marriages were not, so they are barely touched on in this book. Her films are mentioned only as markers of time in between stages of the invention and the patent application process.

I found George Antheil’s background even more fascinating that Hedy Lamarr’s. He was a talented pianist, an avant garde composer, and an author as well as an inventor, yet for all of his talent he was barely able to provide for his family. His percussive musical style and his experimental composition for numerous player pianos provided inspiration for the patent he designed with Ms. Lamarr.

The invention is the real focus of the book. The technical details may put off some readers, while others will be disappointed with the scant details provided about Lamarr’s personal life, given the subtitle’s seeming promise that the book is about her life. Many readers will be surprised by George Antheil’s prominence, since he isn’t mentioned in the title at all. Readers willing to set aside any preconceived notions about the book’s contents will be rewarded with an introduction to two intellectually curious individuals and their innovations.

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Richard Rhodes, who won a Pulitzer for his book on the making of the atomic bomb, once again turns to technology, but this time tech embodied by the famous Hollywood star, Hedy Lamarr. Ms. Lamarr’s intelligence was often overlooked due to her great beauty, but she was creative and practiced

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inventing as a hobby. Except that she was really good at it.

Her most important invention, frequency-hopping, was a collaboration with the American modern compose George Antheil, who tried to write mechanistic sounding music to reflect the 20th century. When Ms. Lamarr conceived of frequency hopping as a way to guide torpedoes to their targets, Mr. Antheil had the experience to reduce her concept to a working model. The two inventors were awarded a patent in 1942, but the Navy, which acquired and classified the patent, never used it.

Later, the Navy used the patent to inspire spread spectrum technology for various uses. Today that technology lies behind Wi-Fi, cell phones, GPS, etc. But the basic idea that makes it all work begins with a glamorous actress and a struggling composer.

Well written, putting complex ideas into clear language.

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I give this book two-and-a-half stars because it was simply too short. There is a very long and exhaustive explanation of the player piano, while some aspects of Hedy's life are not touched upon at all.

Still it is an interesting enough insight into the society and technology of the time, its

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infancy at the time allowed ordinary people to come up with breakthrough inventions. This is hardly possible anymore in the 21st century where all fields of science and technology have become highly specialized.

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