Hedy Lamarr

Austrian-born American film actress and inventor once considered to be the most beautiful woman in motion pictures, whose film "Ecstasy" (1933), had been banned in the U.S. for a nude scene. In remarkable contrast to her on-screen image, she co-owned the patent together with composer George Antheil on which wireless data networking is based, after they conceived the idea of transmitting information in such a way that instead of being transmitted on a single frequency, it could be sent on several.

Lamarr was born in 1913, 1914, or 1915 depending on which bio you can believe (1914 has been the year most astrologers use) to a comfortably-fixed Viennese family, an only child. Permitted to appear in a few plays by her disapproving parents, she always wanted to be an actress.

At age 15, she ran away from school, went to the Sascha Film Studio and was hired as a script girl. A producer saw her, gave her a screen test, and after several insignificant parts she was given the lead in a movie that became known as "Ecstasy," which contained the famous scene in which she swam nude.

She came to the U.S. in 1937, not speaking English, with a film debut the following year in "Algiers." Movies that followed included "Lady of the Tropics" (1939), "I Take This Woman" (1940), "Boom Town" (1940), "Comrade X" (1940), "Ziegfield Girl" (1941), "Come Live with Me" (1941), "Tortilla Flat" (1942), "White Cargo" (1942), "Crossroads" (1942), and "The Heavenly Body" (1944).

Forming her own production company, Lamarr made two mediocre movies, "The Strange Woman" (1946), and "Dishonored Lady" (1947). Cecil B. DeMille cast her in the title role in "Sampson and Delilah" (1949), followed by "Copper Canyon" (1950), "My Favorite Spy" (1951), and an Italian flop, "The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships" (1954). She didn't appear in another production until 1957, "The Story of Mankind," which also flopped.

Lamarr's connection with technology first surfaced in 1940.