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Hedy's Folly: The Life And Breakthrough Inventions Of Hedy Lamarr, The Most Beautiful Woman In The World
What do Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common? The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary invention based on the rapid switching of communications signals among a spread of different frequencies. Without this technology, we would not have the digital comforts that we take for granted today. Only a writer of Richard...more
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(first published November 1st 2011)
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Read by Bernadette Dunne
Austro-American actress and mathematician, celebrated for her great beauty, who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age."
9 November 1913 – 19 January 2000
Read by Bernadette Dunne
Austro-American actress and mathematician, celebrated for her great beauty, who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age."
9 November 1913 – 19 January 2000
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Feb 29, 2012
The Library Lady
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adult-non-fiction
This book suffers from schizophrenia. It is subtitled "The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr", but Rhodes does not manage to smoothly incorporate the two.
Having done a pretty good job on Lamarr's early life, he abruptly switches to the life of her co-inventor George Antheil. And while Antheil may have been a heckuva interesting guy, we don't need to hear about the ups and downs of his life as a composer, details about Sylvia Beach's "Shakespeare and Company" store and his life in P...more
Having done a pretty good job on Lamarr's early life, he abruptly switches to the life of her co-inventor George Antheil. And while Antheil may have been a heckuva interesting guy, we don't need to hear about the ups and downs of his life as a composer, details about Sylvia Beach's "Shakespeare and Company" store and his life in P...more
A short history of Hedy Lamarr's an George Antheil's invention of Spread Spectrum radio. I spent a decade designing direct sequence spread spectrum radios for cordless phones, and was already aware of the underlining technology. This book gives some insight about where Hedy Lamarr got her inspiration. This book also gives us a mini biography of the American composer George Anhteil. I would liked to have read more about the invention but it appears that significant parts of the story are still cl...more
If you are like me, you remember Hedy Lamarr as a beautiful actress from the 1930s to the 1960s. But did you know that Lamarr was also an inventor? Read HEDY’S FOLLY (ISBN 978-0385534383, $26.95, hardcover) by Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winner for THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB, to find out her contributions to the world of 21st Century communication systems.
Hedy Lamarr dropped out of school when she was 16 to begin her acting career. Her parents did not necessarily approve that decision but...more
Hedy Lamarr dropped out of school when she was 16 to begin her acting career. Her parents did not necessarily approve that decision but...more
In this book, we have a movie star, a composer (both of which are inventors), the fall of Austria, World War II, spread spectrum techology, and computer BBSes. With such a wide breadth of subjects in this book, I wonder if readers, all with their own varied backgrounds, will have different feelings about each part of the book depending on their own knowledge of each subject.
This book starts out with an introduction to the life of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil. The sequence of stories followi...more
This book starts out with an introduction to the life of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil. The sequence of stories followi...more
Who knew that "the most beautiful woman in the world" was an inventor? Try not to assume immediately that Hedy Lamarr (née Hedwig Kiesler) was the most fortunate person on earth. This book follows Hedy from her beginnings in Austria to her flight from Nazism to Hollywood (it wasn't a cakewalk) and describes how she came up with the idea of frequency-hopping signaling devices that were perfect for allowing missiles to fly through the air without detection.
To be fair, this book is also about Geor...more
To be fair, this book is also about Geor...more
A very good story of ambition and the drive to follow one's dreams. Hedy Lamarr (nee Hedwig Kiesler in Austria)focused on one dream (film acting) and one "hobby": inventing, a pursuit one would not expect from an actress described as "the most beautiful woman in the world".
Lamarr's eventual Hollywood stardom is not surprising, although her refusal to cooperate with the studio's contracts system, especially MGM's, did limit her opportunities
Most surprising is that her field of invention was highl...more
Lamarr's eventual Hollywood stardom is not surprising, although her refusal to cooperate with the studio's contracts system, especially MGM's, did limit her opportunities
Most surprising is that her field of invention was highl...more
Hedy's Folly is a short work of non-fiction from Richard Rhodes [he usually writes epics connected to science about the atom bomb] that looks at the unlikely inventor Hedy Lamarr, movie star from the 1930s and 1940s. Hedy's Folly is more a 2.5, but no half scores on goodreads, so I'm going 2 stars for this due to the fact that no matter how brief, it still feels a little flimsy as it unfolds. It almost feels like an extended essay to me rather than that of a book. She co-invented an early versio...more
Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000) is probably the only Hollywood star who had a drafting table in her home and a dedicated work space to concentrate on her inventions. Her unusual collaboration with composer George Antheil during WW II, when she conceived of a weapon that could attack German submarines that were devastating Allied shipping, has received the full attention of biographers Ruth Barton (Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film) and Stephen Michael Shearer (Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lam...more
A brief but often frustrating book about Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil inventing signal hopping frequencies. The author goes into biographical detail of both inventors and places their inventing hobbies in context of their lives and frustrations. The author often has access to great primary sources like the unpublished autobiography of Antheil's widow, but just as frequently quotes other biographies of Hedy, including one published as recently as 2010. If you are interested in their invention o...more
Apr 10, 2012
Lianne
added it
I loved this improbable but real story of the Hollywood femme fatale with a drafting board in her dining room scheming how to design torpedos that could defeat the Nazis.Hedy never much valued being seen as a beautiful woman. Her father had encouraged her interest in science and this interest continued all her life.She became driven by an idea that first came to her when she was married to an Austrian arms manufacturer in the 1930's and overheard plans for weapons systems during boring dinner pa...more
A short and brief introduction to Hedy Lamarr the inventor, not Hedy Lamarr the screen actress. The book can be divided into three parts. The first part alternates between biographical sketches of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil. The middle part is about their collaboration inventing their Secret Communication System and the third part (the last chapter) is about latter day applications of the technique Lamarr and Antheil invented.
The book is an easy read with the bulk of it taken up by the biogr...more
The book is an easy read with the bulk of it taken up by the biogr...more
Hedy's Folly is an unusual book, to say the least. It is a combination Hollywood film star biography and explanation of spread spectrum communications technology.
Born in Vienna Hedwig Kiesler, Hedy Lamarr more or less ran off from her upper middle class family to become a motion picture actress in the 1920s. She quit her career and married the third richest man in Austria, an arms merchant. But as the 20s turned to the 30s and Nazism began to become more of a threat she fled to London and then t...more
Born in Vienna Hedwig Kiesler, Hedy Lamarr more or less ran off from her upper middle class family to become a motion picture actress in the 1920s. She quit her career and married the third richest man in Austria, an arms merchant. But as the 20s turned to the 30s and Nazism began to become more of a threat she fled to London and then t...more
Beautiful, driven and smart, Austrian-born Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr liked to spend her spare time inventing things. Since she had listened when her first husband and his commercial cronies talked about weapons systems and the armaments business at their fancy, formal dinner parties, Hedy knew a surprising amount about the working mechanisms of the submarines Germans were using with such destructive force in the early days of WWII, so when she met iconoclastic and perennially broke compos...more
Larry Summers Eat Your Heart Out: Hollywood Bombshell Hedy Lamarr Invented A Sophisticated Weapons Technology Between Films
What do Caroline Herschel, Ada Lovelace, Mary Somerville, Mary Anning, Lise Meitner, Emmy Noether, Jocelyn Bell, Rosalind Franklin, Vera Rubin, and Hedy Lamarr (among others) have in common? They each made extraordinary scientific discoveries that went unrecognized because they were women, many of them having to endure male colleagues taking credit for their work, then winni...more
What do Caroline Herschel, Ada Lovelace, Mary Somerville, Mary Anning, Lise Meitner, Emmy Noether, Jocelyn Bell, Rosalind Franklin, Vera Rubin, and Hedy Lamarr (among others) have in common? They each made extraordinary scientific discoveries that went unrecognized because they were women, many of them having to endure male colleagues taking credit for their work, then winni...more
When I heard from the publisher rep that this book was coming out, I could hardly wait to read it. Can you imagine one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood's also being a talented inventor? I have always enjoyed Hedy Lamarr's films and reading about her amazing life was a joy. I learned not only about the inventions helping the U.S. Navy, Hedy's other interests and life, but George Antheil, was new to me even though I've seen many films he scored. The way Rhodes sets up their incredible...more
It makes a remarkable story is the way the author describes Hedy Lamarr’s partnering with George Antheil “to invent a fundamental new wireless technology.” Indeed, it is a remarkable story and ably told by Richard Rhodes. Hedy’s Folly is a unique pairing in more ways than one. First, who would believe that the woman who owned the sobriquet “the most beautiful woman in the world” and created a scandal by baring all in an erotic 10 minute film scene when she was but 17 could possibly be intellige...more
Nazi Generals, Wireless Torpedoes, and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"
A quarter-century ago Richard Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for a masterful history, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and he has received numerous plaudits in the years since, both for nonfiction and fiction. But I don’t see any prizes in his future for this half-hearted little effort.
There’s nothing lacking in the material. It’s relatively well-known that Hedy Lamarr, a stunning film superstar of MGM’s Gol...more
A quarter-century ago Richard Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for a masterful history, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and he has received numerous plaudits in the years since, both for nonfiction and fiction. But I don’t see any prizes in his future for this half-hearted little effort.
There’s nothing lacking in the material. It’s relatively well-known that Hedy Lamarr, a stunning film superstar of MGM’s Gol...more
Hedy Lamarr, a legend of Hollywood's Golden Age and siren of the silver screen who starred in movies such as "Algiers," "White Cargo" and "Samson and Delilah" in the late 1930s and '40s, is remembered today mostly for her exquisite feminine pulchritude. Think of her as the Farrah Fawcett (the red bathing suit pinup-poster version) of her day — a Viennese-born actress whose physical attributes earned her the sobriquet of "the most beautiful woman in the world."
And, in the seven decades since Lama...more
And, in the seven decades since Lama...more
Hedy's Lamarr was far, far more than a pretty face. She was a human sponge, seemingly remote and beautiful but always listening and storing away information. Especially during her first marriage, to the head of a munitions company. It helped her to build a better torpedo, though no one knew that for years as the patented technology languished in the Navy's classified files. Finally, in 1999, she was recognized as being a Pioneer of Science. We should think of her every day, because her idea is t...more
Feb 23, 2012
Ben
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
history-and-non-fiction,
i-own
The only two differences between this and Rhodes's quadrilogy on nuclear history are "Hedy's Folly"'s very short length, and the relative speed at which it reads. Though his other books are by no means slow reads, his latest work simply blows by--and in a very good way. Rhodes's usual voluminous research--both in depth and scope--shines through his eminently readable prose in the true story of two of the most enigmatic and interesting characters of the first half of the 20th century--whose inven...more
This was an entertaining little book offering vignettes into the interesting lives of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil in 1920s Vienna and Paris, 1930s NYC and Hollywood, and beyond. It also offered an interesting exposition of their contribution to technology - frequency hopping or spread spectrum transmission - and follow up on how the technology developed and provides the electrical infrastructure of modern day communications, such as cell phone service. It did not offer much in the elaboration...more
Richard Rhodes's "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is one of my favorite books. I admire it and his "Dark Sun" (about the hydrogen bomb) for their ability to explain complex science and technology, as well as to bring to life the people who discover and apply them. With the brief "Hedy's Folly," Rhodes gives a pretty good sense of actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr as a person, and also fleshes out her inventing partner, composer George Anthiel. But Rhodes is less than thorough in explaining how their i...more
I did not care much for this novel, but yet it had so much potential for me to like it. I enjoy watching classic Hollywood films, and hold Bachelor and Masters Degrees in music (20th Century/Modern is my favorite). This book was poised to combine both of these things as a non fiction account of the inventions of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil.
Hedy Lamarr was born in Austria as Hedy Kiesler, was encouraged by her father to explore the mechanical engineering of complex machinery as a youngster. W...more
Hedy Lamarr was born in Austria as Hedy Kiesler, was encouraged by her father to explore the mechanical engineering of complex machinery as a youngster. W...more
Who knew that the glamorous Hedy Lamarr was an inventor? The communications device she and a co-inventor patented during World War II was the precursor of technology now used in cell phones and GPS. She had wanted it used to improve the accuracy of torpedoes against the Germans in that war, but it was disregarded by U.S. military experts, perhaps because her star status and gender led them not to take it seriously. It was not used until decades later, and she was not acknowledged for it until 19...more
Many people under the age of 50 or 60 (unless they be classic film buffs) will not be particularly familiar with the name Hedy Lamarr. Yet to the generation that grew up in the 1940s and 50s, she was a household name, synonymous with glamour and beauty. What's not generally known is that this international beauty had a passion for inventing, a passion which led to a patent for a fundamental electronics technology in use in virtually every gadget we enjoy in the 21st century. Richard Rhodes makes...more
I enjoyed this book, but am not completely satisfied with it. From the title, I expected a comprehensive biography of this fascinating woman. The first chapter was a detailed history of her early life in Austria, beginnings in theater, and marriage to the wealthy and domineering Fritz Mandl. So far, so good. Chapter two was an equally detailed treatment of the early life and struggles of George Antheil, the American composer who later became her partner in developing spread spectrum radio techno...more
Such a disappointment. But I suppose if it had been titled "A little bit about Hedy Lamarr and a lot about some composer you've never heard of" not as many people would pick it up. Rhodes is so focused on the invention that we get whole chapters in which Lamarr doesn't appear at all. It's also disappointing that several times the story looks like it's building to some exciting climax--Hedy is gathering secret information she can use to blackmail her husband so she can escape, they're perfecting...more
Other’s have said that the first third of this book is slow but if you’re interested in reading a who’s who in the arts in the few decades before the second World War, especially in Vienna and Paris, you’ll find nothing slow about the first section. They’re all here: Stravinsky, the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Picasso, etc.* There’s nothing in depth about them…..it’s more a splash of color. The story is centered on Hedy and the very beginning of her acting career as well as that of her soon to be co...more
5 likes · like · see review
I was greatly disappointed by this book. It presents itself as the story of Hedy Lamarr as more than just beauty, but instead meanders all over history of those years in a poorly connected narrative. At least half of the book is devoted to George Antheil and his self-promotional life, including an afterword addressing his music and his family after his death. The rest of the book largely looks at Hedy as a woman who flitted through life, with out much exposition her her achievements and intellig...more
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Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction (which he prefers to call "verity"), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), and most recently, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007). He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation a...more
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