






Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000), born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, became an Austrian-American film star and wartime inventor. Encyclopaedia Britannica confirms her death on January 19, 2000, near Orlando, Florida, and describes her co-invention of a radio communications device using frequency-hopping technology during World War II. The National Women's History Museum records her 1937 escape from controlling husband and arms dealer Fritz Mandl, her Hollywood career, and her 1942 patent with composer George Antheil. The National WWII Museum explains the invention's purpose: radio-guided torpedoes whose signals could hop frequencies to resist jamming, a concept later tied to Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Her worth is not the old contrast between beauty and brains. It is sharper: Lamarr turned a life spent being watched into a secure method for hiding a signal from machines of war.






