Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, 9 November 1913 – 19 January 2000) was an Austrian and American film actress and inventor. After a brief film career in Germany, including the controversial film Ecstasy (1933), she fled her husband and moved to Paris, where she met MGM head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a Hollywood contract. She became a film star from the late 1930s to the 1950s, appearing in films such as Algiers (1938), I Take This Woman (1940), Comrade X (1940), Come Live With Me (1941), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and Samson and Delilah.
At the start of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes using spread spectrum and frequency hopping to prevent jamming. Although the US Navy adopted this technology only in the 1960s, it later influenced GPS, Wi-Fi, CDMA, and Bluetooth technologies. Lamarr and Antheil were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014 for this work.
United States
