Who was Hedy Lamarr and what is Bombshell about? Ecstasy actress who had the first on-screen orgasm
Austrian-born actress Hedy Lamarr stole hearts on screen and made technological advancements which changed the course of history
A NEW documentary delves deep into the life of the breathtakingly beautiful actress (and inventor) Hedy Lamarr.
The Austrian-born actress, who died aged 85 in 2000, captivated audiences for almost three decades and became the first woman to have an "on-screen orgasm". Here's all you need to know about her...
Who was Hedy Lamarr and where did she come from?
Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in a well-to-do Jewish banking family in Vienna, Austria, in 1914.
Her father was a successful banking director and her mother Gertrud a Budapest-born pianist who came from an upper-class Jewish family.
With the Nazi Party was on the rise in Austria, Hedy married the country’s biggest arms manufacturer Fritz Mandl, in 1933.
But his jealousy made his young wife’s life a misery and in 1937, months before Austria became part of the Third Reich, Hedy and her family fled.
Her son Antony, from a later marriage, later explained: "She put jewellery in the lining of her coat, gave her maid sleeping powder, got on her bicycle and rode off."
Hedy went to Paris and then - fearful of the Nazis - travelled on to London, where she met Hollywood studio boss Louis B Mayer.
She and her mother eventually reached the United States where Hedy later became an American citizen.
She put "Hebrew" as her race on her petition for naturalisation.
How successful as Hedy Lamarr's film career?
Hedy began acting long before she moved to the United States.
Producer Max Reinhardt discovered her in the late 1920s and brought her to Berlin where she trained in theatre before returning to Vienna to act.
In 1931, aged 18, she appeared in notorious Czech film Ecstasy, which features scenes of her running and swimming in the nude, as well as having a close-up orgasm - a movie first.
Mayer convinced her to change her second name to Lamarr and brought her to Hollywood in 1938, promoting her as the "world's most beautiful woman".
Her Hollywood movie debut in Algiers, opposite Charles Boyer, created a "national sensation", according to her biographer Stephen Michael Shearer.
According to one cinema-goer at the time, "everyone gasped" when they first saw her on screen: "Lamarr's beauty literally took one's breath away."
From 1940 to 1949, she made 18 films including her title appearance in Samson and Delilah, the highest grossing film of 1949.
She apparently turned to inventing because she was bored of the the lack of acting challenges.
What is Bombshell and what does Susan Sarandon have to do with it?
Lamarr's astonishing life story is being told in new documentary Bombshell, produced by actress Susan Sarandon.
Sarandon, 71, said: "This is the story of a Hollywood actress, defined by her appearance, who is secretly a brilliant inventor and changes the course of history."
Speaking about Lamarr as being an inspirational story for women, Sarandon told The Big Issue: "Even more compelling in her story was the injustice of the idea that just because you're beautiful you can't have brilliant ideas.
Sarandon added: "She tried to be a producer, at a time when all the producers were men. I think women are depending less and less now on men for their power."
What scientific breakthroughs did Hedy Lamarr make?
At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes.
Their work was arguably incorporated into Bluetooth technology, and led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
Armed with knowledge picked up from the military work of her first husband, she even helped reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes with some of his aircraft designs.
And among her inventions that never went into production were an improved traffic light, a better design for Concorde, and "a skin-tautening technique based on the principle of the accordion".
What about Hedy Lamarr's many marriages and sex life?
Married six times, she was matter-of-fact about spending a lot of time thinking about sex herself.
In 1939 she married screenwriter Gene Markey and had a son, James, now 79, but he soon cheated on her and they divorced in 1941.
A third marriage, to British-born actor John Loder, came in 1943 and produced two more children, Denise, now 72, and Antony, 71.
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They divorced in 1947 and Hedy then wed jazz musician Ted Stauffer, in 1951. Hedy claimed he beat her and it lasted less than a year.
Next to tie the knot with the actress, in 1953, was alcoholic Texan oilman William Howard Lee who she divorced in 1960.
After a brief fling with JFK, with whom she had sex in a bathtub, she wed her sixth and final husband — her divorce lawyer — in 1963. They split in 1964.