#spread spectrum

*Photo credit~ Beebee Schastlivtsev

“To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty. I've been an important star and lived a full life, yet I only have three close friends. I guess that's all anyone can expect.” -Hedy Lamarr Remembering Hedy Lamarr... November 9th, 1914 - January 19th, 2000 ❤

Hedy Lamarr at her dressing table in her home in Bel Air, photo by Clarence Sinclair Bull, 1944.

Hedy Lamarr in a publicity portrait for the MGM/Alexander Hall romantic comedy The Heavenly Body, 1944.

Hedy Lamarr in the MGM romantic drama I Take This Woman, 1940.

Hedy Lamarr and Bob Hope in the Paramount Pictures/Norman Z. McLeod comedy My Favorite Spy, 1951. Lamarr and Hope decidedly did not get along during production of this movie, which was written, produced, and directed by Hope’s Hollywood cronies (Bob held the belief that "women aren't funny"---with the exception of his friends Lucille Ball and Phyllis Diller---and Katharine Hepburn later had a falling-out with him while making The Iron Petticoat in 1956 for much the same reasons that Lamarr did). An indication of the tension on the set can be found in the following exchange that occurred during filming one day: Bob to Hedy: “You’re not funny!” Hedy to Bob: “Either are you, and neither is this script!” (Hedy then threw the script at Bob and stomped off to her dressing room; it should be noted that Hedy once also very bravely dumped a glass of water over MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer’s head in the 1940s when she took offense to something he said, telling him to “Go to hell!” in a room full of fellow MGM stars who were shocked but impressed by her daring act.) Hedy, who’d had enough of Hollywood by 1951, hated making this movie so much that she announced her retirement from the screen, auctioned all of her belongings (including the bulk of her art collection and jewelry), and moved to Acapulco, Mexico for a time. Though she appeared in two European-made films (one of which was never released) in the 1950s, she didn’t star in another Hollywood-made production until the Warner Bros. fantasy The Story of Mankind in 1957 (in which she played Joan of Arc; the film featured a number of Hollywood greats near the end of their screen careers and is unfortunately widely considered to be one of “the worst movies ever made”), followed by the Universal Pictures drama The Female Animal in 1958 (which ultimately ended up being Lamarr’s very last movie). Hedy and Bob didn’t speak to each other again until she appeared on one of his ubiquitous NBC television specials in 1966. She was invited to be a guest at the insistence of Hope and Lamarr’s mutual friend Lucille Ball, who also appeared on the show and sought to obtain a truce between the feuding stars (which was only partially successful).

Hedy Lamarr during production of the MGM/Jack Conway film noir Crossroads, 1942.

Hedy Lamarr in a publicity portrait for the United Artists/Robert Stevenson film noir Dishonored Lady, 1947. Miss Lamarr’s gowns in the movie were designed by Elois Jenssen.