The Controversial Actress Whose Invention Changed The World

She committed completely to the scene, possibly because the director was allegedly poking her in the butt with a pin. (There is perhaps no better portrait of most men's understanding of the female orgasm.) The film would go on to be about as controversial as you'd expect for a movie with a female orgasm in it at a time when most people would head to confession after touching their genitals while pissing. Hedy became known as "Ecstasy Girl," which would bring the worst kind of man into her life.

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When they were talking about using radio frequencies in weaponry and torpedoes and cool-ass shit like that, she was listening. But unlike you or me, who might be hanging around your average torpedo talk nodding like we understand, she had a brain that could actually do things with that knowledge. Unfortunately, she was also increasingly cooped up by her dickhead husband, who no doubt tried to deploy an unsuccessful pinprick technique of his own in the bedroom. So she put on her most expensive jewelry and got her ass out of town, escaping to Paris.

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But it's not Lamarr's success on the screen that is most important during this time; it's what she was up to when the cameras weren't rolling. She was a genuine tinkerer. When she wasn't filming, she'd be in her trailer working on some invention or other. Soon she linked up with a neighbor who was on the same wavelength: George Antheil, a composer. When he wasn't making music, he was doing things like writing a book on endocrinology. That got Lamarr's attention, and when she went to him seeking ways to use his expertise in this field to up her breast size (not a joke!), the two ended up getting down to some more important non-boob science.

They particularly hit it off on the subject that Lamarr had previously been privy to back in her supervillain dinner party days: radio frequencies and torpedoes, baby. Her brilliance came in her ideas around "frequency hopping." She posited that a frequency that's constantly changing and moving would be far more efficient and difficult to jam. The two perfected their invention and eventually acquired a patent before approaching the U.S. Navy with it, with the intention of helping them blow up a fuckload of Nazis. That part didn't happen, but ...

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Lamarr went back to work in film, with no inkling of how important her invention would become. Her career spanned decades, and she of course has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But being wedged in between two actors who absolutely did not invent shit in between takes didn't really do it for the heady Lamarr. The honor she seemed to take the most pride in came late in her life, when was when she was finally recognized with the Electronic Frontier Foundation award in 1997.

I fucking love this. Every single actor's biggest dream is to win an Oscar and give a tearful phony speech in front of a packed house of sycophants and psychopaths. Meanwhile, this badass just wanted recognition from an institution which I'd have to guess consisted of about 28 weirdos huddled around the continental breakfast at a Howard Johnson, handing out awards the recipients would have to give back after the pictures were taken.

Lamarr died in January 2000, and since then, technology using her frequency-hopping patent has pretty much taken over. It makes your WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth devices possible. Oh, and she never made a dime off of it. Here was a woman who wasn't scared to perform the first (fake) onscreen orgasm, take the stigma that came with it, and still go out and put the effort into a side project that changed the world as we know it. I think it's fair to say that if she can do that, you can get your ass out there and reopen your Etsy shop for dream catchers made out of your pubic hair. Maybe people don't appreciate you now, but someday ...

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