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->''"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."''

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000), [[StageNames better known as]] Hedy Lamarr, was an Austrian-born American actress in UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood, active from the 1930s to the '50s.

She was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, and acted in a number of Austrian, German, and Czech films in her brief early film career, including the controversial ''Film/{{Ecstasy}}'' in 1933. (One of her first starring roles, it featured a long scene of Lamarr fully nude.) While the introduction of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode the following year made a repeat performance in America impossible, a reputation as a dark and glamorous MsFanservice did follow her.

In 1937, Lamarr fled from her then-husband Friedrich Mandl, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, secretly moving to Paris and then on to London. There, she met Louis B. Mayer, the head of Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer, who offered her a Hollywood movie contract, where he began promoting her as "the world's most beautiful woman". Subsequent films included an adaptation of Creator/JohnSteinbeck's ''Tortilla Flat'' and the Creator/CecilBDeMille film ''Film/{{Samson and Delilah|1949}}'', which was said to be her personal favorite of all her films and arguably the film for which she is best remembered. Sadly, her career went into decline after that particular high point (it was the highest grossing film of the year for Paramount), and a decade later she retired from Hollywood.

Lamarr wasn't just an actress, however. She was also very mathematically talented; her most notable non-screen achievement was inventing (with composer George Antheil) a form of radio frequency-hopping that is the basis for components of wi-fi and cordless phones today. Her idea was that it could be used by the Allies during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to track German torpedoes, but the Navy Department wasn't interested at the time; as Lamarr's biographer noted, the Navy Department during the war didn't even listen to suggestions from its own officers, let alone a Hollywood star.[[note]]It did, however, adopt the technology after the war.[[/note]] Nevertheless, as Website/{{Cracked}}.com put it, she was basically the world's sexiest MadScientist.

In terms of personality, she was remembered for having a strong-willed character and [[DeadpanSnarker a sarcastic wit]]. According to her 2010 bio ''Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman In Film'', [[ThirdPersonPerson she also had a peculiar habit of speaking about herself in the third person]].

Lamarr was married six times and had three children. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1953, and after ending her film career in 1958 spent the later decades of her life in virtual seclusion. She died of heart disease at the age of 85, after which her ashes were returned to her native Austria and scattered in the Vienna Woods.

Fun fact: Creator/DCComics' most famous anti-heroine, [[ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} Selina Kyle a.k.a Catwoman]], is said to have originally been based on Lamarr. Creator/AnneHathaway took this into account and loosely based her portrayal of Catwoman in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' on Lamarr.

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!! Films in which Hedy Lamarr appeared include:
* ''Geld auf der Straße'', as the Girl at the Night Club (1930)
* ''Film/{{Ecstasy}}'', aka ''Ekstase'', as Eva Hermann (1933)
* ''Film/{{Algiers}}'', as Gaby (1938) -- She was the girl whom [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYN27_JDDMU Pepe le Moko]] would have asked to come with him to the Casbah, [[BeamMeUpScotty if he had ever actually said the line]].
* ''Lady of the Tropics'', as Manon deVargnes Carey, aka Kira Kim (1939)
* ''Film/{{Boom Town|1940}}'' as Karen (1940)
* ''Film/ComradeX'', as Golubka, aka Theodore Yahupitz and Lizvanetchka (1940)
* ''Film/ComeLiveWithMe'', as Johnny Jones (1941)
* ''Film/ZiegfeldGirl'', as Sandra Kolter (1941)
* ''Film/HMPulhamEsq'', as Marvin Myles Ransome (1941)
* ''Tortilla Flat'', as Dolores Ramirez (1942)
* ''White Cargo'', as Tondelayo (1942)
* ''The Heavenly Body'', as Vicky Whitley (1944)
* ''The Conspirators'', as Irene Von [''sic''] Mohr (1944)
* ''Her Highness and the Bellboy'', as Princess Veronica (1945)
* ''The Strange Woman'', as Jenny Hager (1946)
* ''Film/DishonoredLady'', as Madeleine Damien (1947)
* ''Let's Live a Little'', as Dr. J.O. Loring (1948)
* ''Film/{{Samson and Delilah|1949}}'', as Delilah (1949) -- Opposite Creator/VictorMature. This was the film that prompted Creator/GrouchoMarx's famous [[DeadpanSnarker quip]]: "I never go to see a picture where the guy's tits are bigger than the [[BigApplesauce goil]]'s."
* ''Copper Canyon'', as Lisa Roselle (1950)
* ''My Favorite Spy'', as Lily Dalbray (1951) -- Opposite Creator/BobHope
* ''The Story of Mankind'', as UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc (1957)
* ''The Female Animal'', as Vanessa Windsor (1958)
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!!Tropes associated with her roles:

* FakeNationality: Everything from Russian to Mexican to South Sea Islander.
* FemmeFatale: Most notably in ''Algiers'', in which she lures Creator/CharlesBoyer to his doom. And of course Delilah in ''Film/{{Samson and Delilah|1949}}''.
* {{Foil}}: To UsefulNotes/HenryVIII interestingly since they both married six times— Henry is heavy-set, strict but generally fun-loving, and ugly who took advantage of his wives and had his final wife outlive him, while Hedy is thin, a partier but smart, and beautiful but was taken advantage of by her husbands and outlived her final husband.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: In her autobiography she wrote "my face has been my misfortune" - as her beauty was valued more than her intelligence.
* ThirdPersonPerson: One of her role, the exotic seductress Tondelayo in the movie ''White Cargo'' (1942), [[YouNoTakeCandle always speaks in pidgin English]] and refers to herself in the third person. Lamarr herself also had this habit, as noted in her 2010 bio ''Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman In Film''.

!!Portrayals in fiction:

* She's played by Creator/AlyssaSutherland in ''Series/{{Timeless}}'' in the episode [[Recap/TimelessS2E3Hollywoodland "Hollywoodland"]], where she helps out the protagonists deal with ''Film/CitizenKane'' being stolen.
* The ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' episode "Helen Hunt" has the evil plot of the week be to bring Helen of Troy to 1937 Hollywood, where her legendary beauty causes her to be cast in Lamarr's place, derailing the rest of her life so that her frequency hopping technique and all the other technology built on it will cease to exist. [[ComicBook/FirestormDCComics Professor Stein]] ([[FreakyFridayFlip who is in Jefferson's body thanks to an accident]]) gets very hot under-the-collar for her, as she'd been his designated "free pass", never expecting to actually meet her.
* Creator/GalGadot is set to portray her in a miniseries for Apple TV. The series will take place during her World War II service.
* She appears in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/XavierRiddleAndTheSecretMuseum'' titled "I Am Hedy Lamarr."

!!References in fiction:

* ''Film/BlazingSaddles'': Villain Hedley Lamarr (Creator/HarveyKorman) regularly gets his name confused with Hedy's, much to his chagrin. ("THAT'S ''HEDLEY''!") One of Governor William J. Lepetomane's lines to the character -- "This is 1874! You'll be able sue ''her!''" -- proved ironically prescient: Hedy was ''not'' amused and did end up suing Creator/MelBrooks' production company for $10 million for invasion of privacy. They ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed amount.
* Dr. Kleiner from ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' has a de-beaked headcrab named Lamarr as a pet. Later in game, you can hear him say "There's only one Hedy".
* Whitney Frost, the BigBad of ''Series/AgentCarter'' Season 2 is heavily inspired by her. Her backstory is that she was a scientific genius who eventually became a movie star. Lamarr herself is also mentioned in the series.
* In ''Film/LittleShopOfHorrors'' Audrey II offers Seymour "a date with Heddy Lamarr" in exchange for some [[HorrorHunger food]]. Seymour declines.
* On ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', a few episodes have Phil reference a longstanding crush he has had on her since his service in World War II. He openly states his regret that he didn't marry her, claiming he did have the chance to do so (once in front of [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} his own wife]], no less).
* In first episode of ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'', while trying to deactivate a portal Red Skull opened, Howard Stark laments the control panel's labels are in German and regrets not also learning German on his weekend with Lamarr.
* Season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekProdigy'' will have the former ''Protostar'' crew train aboard the ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager USS Voyager]]-[[LegacyCharacter A]]''; it's stated to be a ''Lamarr''-class vessel, with the producers confirming the class is named in Hedy's honor.
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