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00:03Hedy Lamarr was box office dynamite, a smoldering femme fatale known as the most beautiful woman
00:10in film and cinema's very first nude. But when her looks began to fade Hollywood rejected her
00:20and in her mid-30s her life fell apart. Her endless search for love and stability led to
00:29six disastrous marriages and her struggle to combine her career with motherhood ended
00:35with her rejecting her children. I think Hedy saw herself towards the end of her days as a beauty
00:42whose beauty had been lost and she became very reclusive. Cosmetic surgery to return her good
00:49looks had disastrous results and alone and on the breadline a bewildered Hedy found herself on
00:56trial for shoplifting. This could have been the tragic end to a once glamorous life on the silver
01:10screen but then came redemption. Because Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood movie star, had also been an inventor
01:18and her remarkable invention was to place her amongst the greatest minds at the forefront of modern
01:24communication technology because all laptops and mobile phones can serve the internet thanks to an
01:31invention of Hedy Lamarr's. The role of inventor was the best she had ever played.
01:37Hedy Lamarr
01:40Hedy Lamarr
02:12Mr Polster, in the knee, beat me in, beat me in, till I thought I...
02:20Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood film star and inventor, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on the 9th of November 1914 in
02:30Vienna, Austria.
02:32Her parents were Jewish, her mother a pianist and her father a successful banker.
02:39And the Kieslers lived in a fashionable, cultured and middle-class district in the heart of Vienna's artistic quarter.
02:48Hedy's childhood was filled with music and the performing arts.
02:54One day, mother promised me a nice present, if I were good.
02:59The present was a visit, my first to the theatre.
03:02I was thrilled and speechless.
03:07It was on that day that she first dreamed of a life on the silver screen.
03:24The young Hedy was beautiful.
03:27And in 1930, aged just 16, she found she was getting noticed.
03:34She began to land small roles in Vienna's lively film industry.
03:41Critics reported that this unknown, unnamed actress had eyes as pretty as a picture.
03:47One critic even declared Hedy to be the most beautiful girl in the world.
03:53Hedy, almost without trying, had made her mark as an actress in Vienna.
03:58But she had greater ambitions.
04:02She knew that if she wanted to make it big, she couldn't remain in Austria.
04:08So in August 1931, the teenage Hedy left Vienna and headed to Berlin, the heart of Europe's film industry.
04:26Germany in the 1930s was politically unstable and near collapse, crippled by the poverty of the Great Depression.
04:36And when Hedy arrived there in 1931, the Nazis were on the rise and blaming the Jews for Germany's economic
04:43plight.
04:45Hitler appealed directly to both the working and middle classes, and was using propaganda to gain support for his anti
04:52-Semitic policies.
04:57His now immense Nazi party was poised to take over German politics.
05:06But despite the dire economic and political situation, German filmmakers were still managing to fill the cinemas.
05:18For a time, Hedy worked in both theatre and film in Berlin.
05:23But in 1932 came a breakthrough.
05:27Hedy was cast in the central role of Eva in a highly controversial Czech film, Ecstasy.
05:38Eva was a beautiful young woman who marries an older man, only to find a younger lover.
05:44But it wasn't the plot that made the film so controversial.
05:48It was the sex.
05:59This was the film that she ran nude from bushes to the lake for a dip, and the film that
06:05she has an orgasm in.
06:07And for audience at the time, this was truly shocking.
06:11This was the 1930s.
06:13This was not a time where people behaved like this on screen, even if it was a European art film.
06:20The film was released on the 18th of February 1933 in Vienna.
06:25Some critics said it was tasteful, erotic art.
06:29Other critics claimed it was pornography.
06:32The film was banned in Germany, in America, and by the Pope.
06:39This made her name, and it made her name in the outer circles where the film was highly regarded.
06:44But it made her name as a scandal in Hollywood and in America, where people only heard about these sequences.
06:49They probably never saw the film.
06:52But ecstasy got Heddy in the headlines and seemed to launch her on the path to stardom.
06:58But then, Heddy fell in love.
07:14Fritz Mandl was a wealthy Austrian businessman, 13 years Heddy's senior, a Catholic, but of Jewish descent.
07:21He had seen Heddy on stage and screen and pursued her.
07:28Heddy, aged just 19, was soon head over heels in love.
07:33It's hard to know why she fell for Fritz Mandl, but she does seem to have been attracted to powerful
07:37men.
07:38And I think she may have seen him as a way out, as a way forward, as maybe somebody who
07:42could help her career.
07:43Maybe he was very rich.
07:45Maybe that was what she was attracted to.
07:52By May 1933, the couple were engaged, and Heddy announced her early retirement from the movies.
08:00I'm so happy about my engagement that I'm unable to be sad about my departure from the stage.
08:09Heddy's film career seemed to be over almost before it had begun.
08:16The happy couple were married in Vienna on the 10th of August, 1933.
08:26Heddy and her new husband spent an extended honeymoon visiting Europe's most exclusive resorts.
08:32They toured Paris and Nice, and yachted around Cannes and Venice.
08:40We spent many golden, glamorous weeks at Lido, dining, dancing, swimming, gliding along the Venetian canals on our own.
08:56And when they returned to Austria in January 1934, Mandl gave Heddy everything he thought a young wife could want.
09:05A huge house and a sprawling estate, servants, fine clothes and jewels.
09:12But Heddy did not have her freedom.
09:16Fritz Mandl saw a beautiful young film star, somebody who was being talked about, somebody who was already being mentioned
09:22as a great beauty.
09:24Somebody he could bring to his dinner table, produce as his trophy bride, who could be relied upon to dress
09:30up, look beautiful, make conversation, be knowledgeable, but who wouldn't step out of her place.
09:36And that's why he married her.
09:40Mandl refused to allow her to return to acting, and she was practically a prisoner in her own home.
09:46Outings were restricted to visits to his workplace and the lavish suppers they held at their sprawling mansion.
09:55Guests for dinner at the Mandl estate included eminent Austrian figures like psychoanalyst Siegmund Freud and politician Count von Starenberg.
10:06But they also included men like Benito Mussolini.
10:12Because Mandl, known as the merchant of death, was arms dealer to Europe's fascist regimes.
10:23By the mid-1930s, fascism was on the rise across Europe.
10:28We must crystallize a position of powerful justice.
10:35In Italy, Mussolini, as the head of the fascist party, had used extreme violence to crush all opposition.
10:46In Germany, Hitler had proclaimed himself the Führer, chancellor and supreme leader of all Germany.
10:53Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, not to us!
11:08And in 1935, as a first step to solving what he saw as the Jewish problem,
11:14Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews of their rights as German citizens.
11:23Throughout much of Europe, fascism was taking a stranglehold.
11:33Jewish by birth, Hedy loathed fascism.
11:37And she hated what Hitler was doing to fellow Jews in Germany.
11:42And by 1936, she could no longer bear to be married to Fritz Mandl, a man making his fortune, sending
11:50weapons to evil regimes.
11:53To her, I believe his politics were repellent.
11:57She seems to have known from a very early age that his dealings with Mussolini, his dealings with the Austrian
12:02fascist party,
12:03that his, I mean, he was a munitions baron.
12:06He was selling arms to whoever was ready to buy, and those weren't the people that she approved of.
12:12So I think she realized very early on that this was not the man for her, that she'd made a
12:16mistake.
12:19I can't go on, Chris. You're not helping me. You're insulting me.
12:27After several failed attempts to escape, she disguised herself as a maid and fled Mandl.
12:34But not without taking the huge bag of jewels he had given her.
12:41And in the summer of 1937, Hedy arrived in London, where she would meet a man who would change her
12:48life.
12:55Because in London was the top man from MGM, one of Hollywood's greatest studios, Louis B. Mayer.
13:03He was there to sign up the very best of the European actors who had fled the oppressive German regime.
13:10Hedy was introduced to him.
13:13But Mayer was only interested in giving her a standard contract on a standard wage.
13:20Hedy had a better idea.
13:22She had to get him on his own.
13:29She knew Mayer was bound for New York on the transatlantic liner, the Normandy,
13:34leaving Southampton in September 1937.
13:39She made sure she was on that boat, and that this time, she really got noticed.
13:52During that journey, Mayer agreed to give her a lucrative contract and to set her on the path to stardom.
13:58But there were two conditions.
14:00She had to fulfil certain Hollywood requirements, lose a little bit of weight, look a little bit more glamorous,
14:06and, of course, her name.
14:07Jewish, obviously.
14:09German, obviously, if that wouldn't do.
14:13Hedy Kiesler would have to change her style and her name.
14:18Mayer demanded perfection, and he got it.
14:27When they arrived on the 30th of September 1937,
14:32Hedy Kiesler had become Hedy Lamarr.
14:36She was just 22 and poised to take Hollywood by storm.
14:45On the 13th of July 1938,
14:48Hedy appeared in her first Hollywood film,
14:52Algiers.
14:58The film was a classic romance,
15:01and Hedy took the lead role.
15:04They needed a beauty for this film.
15:05They needed someone who would look glamorous, exotic, mysterious.
15:09They didn't have to be able to act this person.
15:12They just had to look beautiful.
15:13And so they took on Hedy Lamarr,
15:16and that was the making of her.
15:25Algiers made her a star overnight.
15:27It made her face familiar.
15:29She was on notice boards.
15:31She was on posters.
15:32She was on the front of film style magazines.
15:35She was every girl's dream.
15:37Everybody suddenly wanted to look like Hedy Lamarr.
15:44The film was an overnight sensation.
15:48The critics loved her.
15:51Hedy had achieved what few others had,
15:54and made the transformation
15:55from European art house actress to Hollywood star.
16:02But Hedy, alone in a foreign country,
16:05couldn't truly enjoy her success,
16:07because back home,
16:09a shocking chain of events was unfolding.
16:19By 1938, Nazi Germany had annexed Hedy's native Austria.
16:26Her fellow Jewish neighbors, her family,
16:29everyone in her childhood community,
16:31were now classed as enemies of the state.
16:36On the 9th of November, 1938,
16:39Jewish homes were ransacked.
16:45Nazi brownshirts attacked shops and synagogues with sledgehammers,
16:49leaving the streets deep in shattered glass
16:51in an event that was to become known as Kristallnacht.
16:55The night of broken glass.
17:0130,000 Jewish men,
17:03a quarter of all Jewish men in Germany,
17:05were rounded up
17:06and taken to the newly formed concentration camps.
17:10Kristallnacht was a turning point,
17:12the beginning of a vicious new phase of Hitler's anti-Semitism
17:15that foreshadowed the genocide to come.
17:25Hedy was appalled by the violence,
17:27but in Hollywood,
17:28could do nothing more than to watch the disintegration
17:31of her homeland from a distance.
17:34Often, Hedy would be going on set,
17:36having to make a film,
17:37knowing that her country was being destroyed,
17:40and particularly her own Jewish inheritance being wiped out.
17:43We may guess that many of her neighbours met their end
17:46in the concentration camps.
17:48It must have been devastating for those people,
17:51working in America, far away from Europe,
17:53hearing about events secondhand,
17:55and not able to do anything.
17:59Hedy, by now divorced from her first husband, Fritz Mandl,
18:03was feeling vulnerable and alone.
18:05She was in need of stability and in search of love.
18:09It was time to find husband number two.
18:17Jean Markey was a charming socialite and playboy,
18:20as well as a Hollywood screenwriter,
18:22and in the spring of 1939,
18:25he and Hedy began a whirlwind romance.
18:32On the 4th of March 1939,
18:35just one month after their first meeting,
18:38they were married at the Governor's Palace in Mexico.
18:43The wedding was a spontaneous affair,
18:45with only three witnesses.
18:48Hedy even went back to work at the studios the following day.
18:54Later that year, the couple adopted a son, James.
18:58Almost overnight, Hedy had an American husband and family.
19:05But Hedy and Markey's relationship was short-lived.
19:09Just four months later, on the 3rd of October 1940,
19:13they were divorced.
19:17Hedy, aged just 25,
19:19had clocked up another failed relationship.
19:25But very soon, events would unfold
19:28that would transform Hedy from Hollywood starlet
19:30into one of the most important inventors of all time.
19:50By 1940, Europe was at war.
19:57Poland had fallen,
19:59and the German army had invaded and conquered
20:02much of Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Belgium,
20:04and had overthrown France.
20:08Hitler's allies, the Japanese,
20:10were already at war with China
20:12when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
20:20The war had gone global.
20:26In America, President Roosevelt
20:29was holding on to his policy of non-intervention,
20:31but all that was about to change.
20:40On the morning of the 7th of December 1941,
20:44Japanese enemy aircraft launched a surprise attack
20:47on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
20:59Within just 24 hours,
21:02Roosevelt's non-interventionism was over.
21:05America had no choice but to declare war on Japan.
21:13But the Congress declare that since the unprovoked
21:19and dastardly attack by Japan,
21:25a state of war has existed
21:29between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
21:39Roosevelt's government now had to find a way
21:41to finance the war,
21:43and it was clear that everyone, Hollywood included,
21:46was going to have to contribute.
21:56Hollywood's most famous movie stars
21:58leave the film capital
21:59to help the government sell war bonds.
22:02Irene Dunn, Ronald Coleman,
22:04Hedy Lamarr, Greer Garson,
22:06all part of a contingent of some 50 screen celebrities
22:09giving their time and talents
22:11to aid the national war effort.
22:14Roosevelt's big idea was war bonds,
22:16a voluntary loan system
22:18that generated instant cash for his government
22:20at the same time as making the American people
22:23feel more involved in the war effort.
22:26And all the Hollywood stars
22:27stepped up to boost sales.
22:44Hedy was especially determined
22:45to prove her loyalty to her new home country
22:48by putting her face and name
22:49to the war bond sales drive.
22:51And how that crowd lines up
22:53to buy bonds from their favourites.
22:55They buy knowing that every dollar invested
22:57helps send more planes,
22:58tanks and ships to the United Nations.
23:00Get a buy your share of free...
23:01Over the course of the war,
23:0385 million Americans purchased bonds
23:05totaling over $180 billion.
23:08We all invest in the USA.
23:11Hedy alone raised $25 million in bonds,
23:15visiting 16 cities in just 10 days.
23:19But Hedy would do so much more.
23:28A million American citizens enlisted into the armed forces,
23:32knowing the gruelling conditions
23:34and extreme suffering that awaited them on the front lines.
23:39So the Hollywood greats decided to do something for them.
23:49On the 3rd of October 1942,
23:52the Hollywood canteen opened.
23:54It was a club for entertaining allied servicemen
23:57on their way to war.
23:59The servicemen's ticket for admission was his uniform.
24:02Everything at the canteen was free of charge.
24:05And cooking the food and waiting the tables
24:07were the Hollywood greats.
24:13In the Hollywood canteen, just like everybody else,
24:15she had to wait tables, she had to cook,
24:18she had to wash up,
24:19and she had to kiss the soldiers.
24:22Something that she said she found very uncomfortable,
24:24but that she got used to doing.
24:25So a kiss from Hedy Lamarr was your send-off to the front,
24:29and many soldiers remembered it to the end of their days.
24:35I constantly worked at the canteen, and I worked hard.
24:38Some nights I signed so many autographs,
24:40I thought my arm would drop off,
24:42but I couldn't resist those boys,
24:44and in the end, I was able to dance with pleasure.
24:51But Hedy was frustrated.
24:53She didn't feel at ease in Hollywood
24:55while the rest of Europe was suffering,
24:57and she was convinced she could play a more useful role
25:00in ending the war.
25:04Particularly as she'd been keeping a close eye
25:07on how the Battle of the Atlantic was developing.
25:22The Allies in Europe
25:23were in desperate need of vital supplies
25:26of food, equipment, and troops from America.
25:37But by the end of 1942,
25:40German enemy U-boats were perilously close
25:42to completely severing the lifeline
25:44that stretched across the Atlantic from America to Britain.
25:50The U-boat torpedoes were sinking thousands of merchant ships.
25:58Over the course of the war,
26:0075,000 lives were lost
26:03and over 14 million tonnes of goods
26:05sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
26:11Even Churchill later admitted
26:13that the only thing that really frightened him during the war
26:16was the U-boat peril.
26:22The Allies needed a way of hitting back
26:25and believed the answer
26:26lay in developing super-accurate torpedoes.
26:32Fire one. Fire two.
26:37Most torpedoes once launched couldn't be guided.
26:42But the Allies knew
26:44if they could develop a revolutionary new guidance system,
26:47they could be sure of destroying their enemy targets more often.
26:54Critically, that system had to be a secret one,
26:58so the enemy would never be able to intercept or jam it.
27:02All U.S. Navy activity. Torpedo trial.
27:06But the Allies simply couldn't find a way
27:08of secretly guiding their torpedoes.
27:12Hedy, though, was certain she had the answer.
27:16She just needed to find the right person
27:18to help her put it together.
27:30George Antile was the self-styled bad boy of music.
27:34He was one of the most talented composers
27:36and concert pianists of his time.
27:38But his avant-garde, atonal style
27:41had gained him a reputation
27:43for being radical and unpredictable.
27:57His best-known composition,
27:59Ballet Mécanique,
28:01was not a ballet for human dancers,
28:03but for 16 synchronised automated pianos.
28:07And knowing Antile's cutting-edge musical style
28:10had given Hedy an idea.
28:15So at a Hollywood dinner party, she met George Antile.
28:19She realised he was the man who could help her.
28:21She scrawled her name on his car in lipstick
28:25and her telephone number,
28:26said, contact me, which, of course, he did.
28:31Antile may have been bowled over by Hedy's beauty,
28:33but he was equally impressed by her mind.
28:37The Hedy whom we know
28:39is not the Hedy you know.
28:41You know something which the MGM publicity department
28:44has, in all its cunning, dreamt up.
28:47There is no such Hedy.
28:50They have long ago decided that
28:52in order to give her sufficient sex appeal,
28:55they will make her faintly stupid.
28:57But Hedy is very, very bright.
29:01Hedy is an intellectual giant.
29:08Hedy persuaded Antile
29:09to work with her on an invention
29:11which she believed could protect shipping
29:13and win the Battle of the Atlantic.
29:19Because Hedy had an idea
29:21for a secret radio-controlled torpedo guidance system.
29:29It seems that when she was in Vienna,
29:32when she was still married to Fritz Mandel,
29:34she had been listening to some interesting conversations
29:36that took place around the dinner table.
29:38In particular, the Germans and the Austrians at that time
29:41wanted to develop the technology
29:44for launching missiles to attack, say, a submarine.
29:50Hedy had realised that any torpedo guidance system
29:53that communicated on one single radio frequency
29:56could be easily detected and therefore jammed by the enemy.
30:01But she had worked out that if the signal was spread
30:04so that many seemingly random frequencies were used,
30:07one after the other,
30:08then the enemy would find intercepting the signal
30:10almost impossible.
30:16And that's where George Antile stepped in.
30:20He realised Hedy's idea of hopping quickly
30:22from one radio frequency to another
30:24could be coordinated in the very same way
30:27that he had coordinated the automated pianos
30:29in his ballet mécanique.
30:39In Hedy and Antile's design,
30:41a piano paper roll will be placed in both the transmitter
30:44and in the torpedo receiver.
30:49Each paper roll would be perforated
30:52with the same complex random pattern,
30:54a set of secret instructions
30:55for switching communication frequencies.
31:00Because the rolls were identical
31:02and were started at exactly the same time,
31:05the transmitter and torpedo would communicate
31:07in perfect synchronisation.
31:10If the enemy chanced upon one part of the signal,
31:13it was almost impossible for them to follow the signal
31:16to the next random frequency.
31:20Hedy and Antile's frequency hopping,
31:22or spread spectrum invention, as they called it,
31:25was almost impossible to jam.
31:49Hedy and Antile sent their revolutionary spread spectrum idea
31:53to the patent office in Washington, D.C. in 1940.
31:57Hedy and Antile sent their revolutionary spread spectrum idea
31:57The idea was leaked to the press, who proclaimed,
32:00So vital is her discovery to national defence
32:03that government officials will not allow publication of its details.
32:08Her invention, held secret by the government,
32:11is considered of great potential in the national defence programme.
32:17A patent for Hedy and Antile's secret communication system
32:20was granted on the 11th of August 1942.
32:25Antile then presented it to the American government.
32:29George Antile went to Washington and negotiated as best he could,
32:33sold the idea as best he could.
32:34But in the end of the day, people thought,
32:36well, that's funny, that's funny, the modernist composer,
32:40the Viennese actress,
32:41and they think they're going to solve the war problem.
32:43So I think they were listened to,
32:45but they were not really listened to.
32:48But for all the hype, Hedy and Antile's idea was rejected.
32:56Hedy, deflated, went back to the day job.
33:01She had learned one lesson,
33:04that people considered her brain to be less important than her looks.
33:17In 1942, Hedy was cast as Tondaleo in White Cargo.
33:24The film was one of her biggest hits
33:26and secured her reputation as an exotic, erotic fantasy.
33:33And it was while she was filming for White Cargo
33:35that on Christmas Day in 1942,
33:38just after her 28th birthday,
33:41Hedy met Eton-educated Englishman John Loder.
33:46Apparently, Betty Davis introduced him to her,
33:48and she was very attracted to this man.
33:51He was a debonair Englishman,
33:53very much the sort of Clark Gable looks of the day.
33:56And he had a minor career, nothing too extravagant,
33:59but I think he represented stability for her.
34:10John Loder became husband number three
34:12on the 27th of May, 1943.
34:17It was a quiet, civil wedding with only five guests.
34:21Once married, Hedy and Loder adopted a more down-to-earth lifestyle,
34:25as far removed from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood as possible.
34:35Hedy was happy.
34:36Her invention may have been rejected,
34:39but as well as a flourishing movie career,
34:41she had a comfortable home
34:42and the stability she had always craved.
34:44It was a high point in her life.
34:50And then, in the spring of 1945,
34:53Hedy and Loder had a daughter, Denise.
34:56By the winter of 1945,
34:59Hedy was pregnant again,
35:00this time with a son, Anthony.
35:04I think, just for a short period,
35:06it seemed to her like she had got everything.
35:08She had emigrated,
35:09she had made her way in Hollywood,
35:11she was a star,
35:12she was a name on everybody's lips,
35:14she had a husband,
35:16had a perfect home,
35:17and the future looked very rosy.
35:19And just for a short period,
35:20she seemed to have it all.
35:30Throughout the world,
35:31throngs of people
35:32hailed the end of the war in Europe.
35:34It is five years and more
35:36since Hitler marched into Poland.
35:39By now, the war was over.
35:42It should all have been perfect.
35:45But things weren't working out
35:47between Hedy and husband number three,
35:50John Loder.
35:52They couldn't even agree
35:54on the story of their breakup.
35:59According to Hedy,
36:00in the Christmas of 1945,
36:02she told Loder she was both pregnant
36:04and wanted a divorce.
36:07Loder removed his pipe from his mouth,
36:09told her she was a cold bitch,
36:11and then returned to reading his book.
36:14But according to Loder,
36:17Hedy told her agent
36:18to break the news by phone.
36:20Explaining the breakup
36:21was because Loder was both
36:23a mediocre actor
36:24and a terrific bore at home.
36:28Either way,
36:30on the 17th of July, 1947,
36:32Hedy and Loder finalised the paperwork.
36:37She gained custody of her three children,
36:40adopted James, Denise,
36:41and baby Anthony.
36:45At just 32 years old,
36:47Hedy was divorced for the third time
36:49and desperate not to lose her reputation
36:52as an A-list star.
37:03Okay, cut.
37:05Camera.
37:05All right, Houston.
37:06Sounds.
37:07Okay, sir.
37:08All right, printed.
37:11In 1947,
37:12one of Hollywood's greatest directors,
37:15Cecil B. DeMille,
37:16began casting for his biblical extravaganza,
37:19Samson and Delilah.
37:23She saw it as one last chance
37:25to really make her mark.
37:28She is ravishing as Delilah.
37:31This is Cecil B. DeMille
37:33with all his camp classic glory.
37:36This film is to die for.
37:39This is a film all about spectacle,
37:41it's about indulgence,
37:43it's about decadence,
37:44and she just lays back,
37:46letting the camera caress her.
37:48The camera loves her in this film
37:50and she is seductive,
37:52she's beautiful,
37:53she's languid,
37:55she is the temptress,
37:56she's the perfect Delilah
37:57and it was a great coup
37:58to cast her in that film.
38:03This was Hedy's best-ever performance.
38:05The critics loved her
38:07and the audience loved her.
38:09Samson and Delilah
38:10was the highest-grossing film of the year.
38:13Better still,
38:14the film received Hollywood's greatest recognition,
38:17two Oscars.
38:20It did hugely well with audiences,
38:22they flocked to see it
38:23and just for a moment,
38:25just for a moment,
38:25it looked like she'd re-entered Hollywood,
38:28she was big again.
38:28And I think she thought,
38:30I'm back.
38:31But of course she wasn't.
38:34By now,
38:35Hedy was 35 years old
38:37and her life was beginning to unravel.
38:41Her career had been based
38:43largely upon her extraordinary beauty,
38:46but Hollywood now wanted
38:47not just a younger look,
38:49but a different look altogether.
38:54Women like Marilyn Monroe
38:56would be the new leading ladies.
38:58Let her go.
39:00I'll give you the money.
39:01You're Mrs. Poston.
39:02Yes.
39:04Hedy was having to fight
39:05harder and harder
39:06for the strong woman roles
39:08at which she excelled.
39:11She realised her time at the top
39:13was coming to an end.
39:14She wanted a fresh start.
39:20Time for husband number four.
39:31Ted Stauffer was a ladies' man,
39:33a nightclub owner
39:34and former bandleader.
39:36He'd made his name
39:37in swing and jazz.
39:40In 1949,
39:42Stauffer was living the high life
39:44in Acapulco, Mexico.
39:46Hedy visited,
39:47fell in love
39:47and on the 11th of June 1951,
39:50they were married.
39:56But it didn't last.
39:58Very soon,
40:00both Hedy's marriage
40:01and relationship with her children
40:02would collapse.
40:06Back in Hollywood,
40:08she found she had to earn the money
40:09to support her family.
40:14She also regularly
40:15visited a psychotherapist
40:17and was beginning
40:17to feel overwhelmed
40:19by the pressures
40:19of combining work
40:20and motherhood.
40:22By February 1952,
40:25she had moved back
40:26to Beverly Hills
40:26and had placed
40:28all three of her children
40:29at a boarding school there.
40:32I think she was
40:33under a lot of pressure
40:34at this time.
40:34She was the breadwinner
40:35in the family.
40:36She had to find roles
40:39in an industry
40:40that was largely rejecting her
40:42and she was really losing it
40:45and the children
40:46were an aggravation.
40:48So I think,
40:49although she always
40:50saw herself as a mother,
40:51the actual nitty-gritty
40:52of parenting
40:53really eluded her
40:54and it became more convenient
40:56to have somebody else
40:58look after these children.
41:02Hedy's eldest child,
41:03James,
41:04was disruptive at school
41:05and found it difficult
41:06to settle in
41:08and Hedy didn't seem
41:09to know quite
41:10what to do with him.
41:12She seems to have
41:13been always
41:14just a little bit
41:14less fond
41:15of the adopted child,
41:16James Loder,
41:17than she was
41:17of her own birth children
41:19and he seems to have
41:20been a troubled child.
41:21Maybe he sensed this,
41:22maybe he sensed
41:22that he was a little different,
41:24a little bit less favoured
41:25and there seemed
41:26to have been
41:26constant frictions,
41:28just little run-ins
41:29between her and him
41:30and then just inexplicably
41:33and really unforgivably
41:35she then offloaded him.
41:37She more or less
41:37told him not to come
41:38home from school
41:39and seems to have
41:40found a surrogate family
41:42to bring him up.
41:45Hedy simply abandoned
41:46her adopted son.
41:48He was rescued
41:49by his teacher
41:49and her husband
41:50who took him in
41:51to live permanently
41:52with them.
41:54It would be 40 years
41:56before they would
41:57repair their relationship.
41:59It says one
42:00beating me on the bike.
42:08Mr. Booster!
42:10In the knee!
42:11Beat me in!
42:12Beat me in!
42:12Tell her, daughter!
42:16Husband Storfer
42:16was next on the list
42:18to go.
42:21Claiming that he had
42:22hit her on several occasions,
42:24Hedy began divorce proceedings
42:25in March 1952.
42:29Alone and with no calls
42:31from Hollywood,
42:32the money began to run out.
42:41So J. Howard Lee,
42:43oil baron and millionaire,
42:45became husband number five
42:47on the 23rd of December
42:491953 in New York.
42:51The happy couple settled
42:52in Texas in luxury.
42:56But by August 1958,
42:59Hedy was again
43:00seeking divorce
43:01and with it
43:02a large sum of money.
43:06Hedy, alone yet again,
43:08managed to hold fire
43:09for over four years
43:11before looking for
43:12husband number six.
43:13But she didn't look far.
43:17On the 4th of March 1963,
43:19she married her divorce lawyer,
43:22Lewis Boyes Jr.
43:26This marriage lasted
43:27just over a year.
43:30In 1964,
43:31she sued for divorce,
43:33claiming she had suffered
43:34extreme cruelty.
43:37I think anybody who came
43:38from a background
43:39as she had,
43:40where her whole culture,
43:41her country,
43:42everything that she knew
43:44was destroyed.
43:45I think she was always
43:46searching for security,
43:48maybe even searching
43:49for someone to replace
43:50the father that she had
43:51loved as a child.
43:53And she never found
43:54that person.
43:55It was always a dream.
43:56It was a figment
43:56of her imagination.
43:57So each marriage turned out
43:59to be a disappointment,
44:00often very quickly.
44:03Hedy, aged 50,
44:05was alone.
44:06She had spent
44:07over three decades
44:08in and out of divorce courts.
44:10Then just when she thought
44:11her life couldn't unravel further,
44:13she found herself
44:14in court once again.
44:16But this time,
44:17for a very different reason.
44:19Because in 1966,
44:21Hedy was charged
44:22with shoplifting.
44:26It began on the 27th of January,
44:29when at the May Company
44:31department store,
44:32item after item
44:33found their way
44:34into her bag
44:35to the value
44:35of just $86.
44:37Hedy appeared
44:38bewildered at the events.
44:41Pardon me?
44:41Did you have a shopping bag
44:42in your possession
44:43outside the store
44:44as the security guard claims?
44:47I'm in a shopping bag.
44:48A shopping bag
44:49containing eight items?
44:51Oh, I don't know.
44:53That April,
44:55she was summoned
44:55to the courtroom.
44:56The trial lasted six days.
44:59Hedy put in
44:59the performance
45:00of her lifetime.
45:02I was my most natural
45:03and convincing in court.
45:06After a five-hour
45:07deliberation from the jury,
45:09Hedy was declared
45:10not guilty.
45:13I think that Lamar
45:14has been more than generous.
45:16Thank you very much.
45:18Of course,
45:19it made the headlines
45:19in a way that nobody
45:20could have anticipated.
45:22And it did nothing
45:23for her reputation.
45:23It was shocking.
45:24Here was a name
45:25that people had kind of forgotten.
45:27She had been out of the headlines
45:28for a while
45:28and suddenly she was back
45:30and she was being arrested
45:31for shoplifting.
45:32It was ignominious.
45:36Today,
45:36I am a woman over 50
45:38with no money
45:39for the next meal
45:40and children
45:41that I'm unable to help.
45:46By the 1970s,
45:48Hedy was in increasingly
45:49poor health.
45:51Years of plastic surgery
45:52had taken their toll
45:53on her looks.
45:57I think Hedy saw herself
45:58towards the end
45:59of her days
46:00as a beauty
46:01whose beauty
46:02had been lost
46:03and she became
46:04very reclusive.
46:05She looked back
46:06on her film roles
46:07and I think she regretted
46:08what might have been
46:10and I think she always thought
46:12that Hollywood
46:12hadn't made the best use of her.
46:14So she had a certain resentment
46:15always towards Hollywood.
46:17It had made her
46:18but it hadn't made her enough.
46:22By the early 1980s,
46:24Hedy was living alone,
46:26largely housebound,
46:27a name from the past.
46:29Few of her neighbours
46:30realised they had
46:31a former Hollywood star
46:32living just next door.
46:36But then came redemption.
46:43And redemption
46:44came from mobile phones.
46:48In the 1990s,
46:50mobile phone developers
46:52needed to find a way
46:53of allowing phones
46:54to communicate wirelessly
46:56without jamming
46:57or interference.
46:58They chose a method
46:59known as
47:00Code Division Multiple Access
47:03or CDMA
47:04as the industry standard
47:06for wireless communication.
47:08And it turned out
47:10that CDMA
47:11was in fact simply
47:12a modern development
47:13of Hedy and Antal's
47:14frequency-hopping
47:15spread spectrum idea
47:17of 50 years earlier.
47:22What Hedy had intended
47:23as a way of secretly
47:24guiding torpedoes
47:25to their targets
47:26in World War II
47:27was now being adapted
47:28for Wi-Fi networks
47:30and mobile phone communication
47:31the world over.
47:33So suddenly,
47:35what had been
47:35purely speculative,
47:38what had been
47:38the crazed idea
47:39of a Viennese star
47:40and a modernist composer
47:42was back in the headlines
47:44and she was being recognised.
47:46It was wonderful
47:47because one after another
47:48the awards came in,
47:50the recognition came in,
47:51people were writing about it.
47:55So important
47:56was her invention
47:57that her birthday,
47:58the 9th of November,
48:00was celebrated
48:00as Inventors' Day
48:01in her home country,
48:02Austria.
48:13Now in her 80s,
48:15she was once again
48:16rich and famous.
48:19And of course,
48:20from that moment onwards,
48:21it's wonderful
48:22because she began
48:23to get the recognition
48:23that she'd never got.
48:25And not only that,
48:26she got recognition
48:26for her brilliance,
48:27for her genius,
48:28which had certainly
48:29eluded her
48:30in her professional life.
48:32And people were talking
48:33about her
48:33not as a beauty,
48:34not as a failed film star,
48:36but as the mother,
48:38if you like,
48:39of modern technology.
48:44Hedy Lamarr,
48:45the Hollywood star
48:47famous for her good looks,
48:48was now being recognized
48:49for having a brilliant mind.
48:53When she died
48:55on the 19th of January,
48:562000,
48:57Hedy left three children,
48:59a multi-million dollar estate,
49:02and a technological legacy
49:03that changed the way
49:05the world communicates.
49:36and the believes
49:36was now being recognized
49:36as a place.
49:37From the 19th of January