Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna. Before becoming a Hollywood star, she was married to Friedrich Mandl, an Austrian arms manufacturer who was friendly with both Mussolini and Hitler. At Mandl's dinner parties, Lamarr silently absorbed conversations about weapons technology and military communications.

She fled the marriage (and Europe) in 1937 and reinvented herself as a Hollywood actress. But the engineering knowledge she had absorbed never left her. After the war began, she was haunted by reports of German U-boats sinking Allied ships — particularly a refugee ship carrying 83 children.

The Invention

Working with avant-garde composer George Antheil, Lamarr developed a "Secret Communication System" that used frequency hopping to prevent the jamming of radio-controlled torpedoes. The concept was brilliant: both the transmitter and receiver would synchronize their frequency changes using a shared pattern, making it nearly impossible for the enemy to jam or intercept the signal.

They used the mechanism of a player piano roll as the basis for the frequency-hopping pattern — Antheil's contribution from his musical background. They received U.S. Patent 2,292,387 on August 11, 1942.

Rejection and Redemption

The Navy rejected the invention. Lamarr was told she could better serve the war effort by selling war bonds (which she did, raising over $25 million). The patent expired in 1959 without being used.

But the core concept of spread spectrum communication was independently rediscovered and became foundational to modern wireless technology. It is used in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and most modern cellular communications. Lamarr was not recognized for her contribution until the 1990s, when she and Antheil were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

When told of the honor in 2000, the 85-year-old Lamarr reportedly said: "It's about time."