Hedy's Folly

The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman inthe 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 Rhodes’s caliber could do justice to this remarkable story. Unhappily married to a Nazi arms dealer, Lamarr fled to America at the start of World War II; she brought with her not only her theatrical talent but also a gift for technical innovation. An introduction to Antheil at a Hollywood dinner table culminated in a U.S. patent for a jam- proof radio guidance system for torpedoes—the unlikely duo’s gift to the U.S. war effort.

What other book brings together 1920s Paris, player pianos, Nazi weaponry, and digital wireless into one satisfying whole? In its juxtaposition of Hollywood glamour with the reality of a brutal war, Hedy’s Folly is a riveting book about unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world.

Interesting story but, got too technically dry

Hedy Lamar has an interesting life- in Hollywood and on the scientific scene. But, this rendition did get much more into the detailed descriptions of her inventions than I found of interest.

An unexpected treat

Any additional comments?

A fascinating glimpse of a brilliant and beautiful woman and the time she lived in. I recommend this whole-heatedly.

Pretty good

There is a lot of time spent on the biography of her co-inventor Henteil, to the point that I actually checked to make sure I had downloaded the correct biography. Otherwise it's a good book, especially well-performed.

I listened to this book with no breaks and I’ve never done that before.

Amazing story thank you for making sure it was told. I took a lot of notes.

fascinating short bio

I enjoyed this. the narrator was fine, finally. I've had a bad streak of lackluster readers.

But this story is good and there is a good bit of bio on George Antheil as well (helps to understand what he brings to the device) leading up to his and Hedy's meeting and work on the torpedo problem. (you can sample his Ballet Mechanique in itunes to see what he was up to musically, quite different).

but i think the important thing that came across to me was again how short sighted, perhaps in this case misogynistic, men in power were and can be. anyone with the guts and the intelligence to realize what Hedy and Antheil devised could have appreciable shortened WW2. Not to mention kickstarted our electronic age 40 years earlier. It made me think of the Tesla bio Wizard and what a different world we could be living in right now. You don't get a sense of that aspect until the wrap up and that's not what this bio is about except tangentially. But the ideas are presented in a manner that makes them accessible to the layman. the first half is very much the bio aspects of the 2, but the whole thing moves quickly and is short as well so i can recommend it.

and to think that her/their ideas, if they had retained the patent, could have made them billions.