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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm fair Dowdy and I'm debling a chalk re Bardy.

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Speaker 1: And when you think about old Hollywood and the most

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Speaker 1: beautiful actresses of all time, there are probably a lot

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Speaker 1: of well known names that immediately come to mind. For example,

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Speaker 1: maybe Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace, Kelly, Audrey Hefburne is

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Speaker 1: my personal favorite. And I just saw Roman Holiday, a

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Speaker 1: great one and so pretty in that it's like the

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Speaker 1: first thing you notice. But it was actually an actress

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Speaker 1: who's probably lesser known today, Hetty Lamar, who was billed

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Speaker 1: as the most beautiful girl in the world during the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. In the introduction to Stephen Michael Shear's recent

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Speaker 1: biography Beautiful, The Life of Hetty Lamar, there's a description

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Speaker 1: of the author's mother's experience seeing Lamar's first American film,

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Speaker 1: which was Algiers came out in night and she saw

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Speaker 1: in a theater in Illinois, and she described the experience

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Speaker 1: of the first moment in the movie when Lamar kind

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Speaker 1: of steps out of the shadows and you see her

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Speaker 1: face for the first time. And the author's mother says

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Speaker 1: that the whole audience just gasped her beauty. It was

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Speaker 1: an audible experience. And I don't know if many of

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Speaker 1: us have had an experience like that in a movie theater.

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Speaker 1: No a uniform gasp like that. But even though Lamar's

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Speaker 1: star may have faded a bit since then, many people

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Speaker 1: realized in the late nineteen nineties, just a few years

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Speaker 1: before her death, that she was probably a lot more

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Speaker 1: than just a pretty face. Yeah, definitely, it came to

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Speaker 1: light at that time that many years ago she actually

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Speaker 1: invented something called spread spectrum technology, which was used by

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Speaker 1: the military and has become a component of modern mobile

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Speaker 1: phone technology. So definitely relevant to what we do every day.

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Speaker 1: But what we want to look at in this episode

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Speaker 1: it is how did a Hollywood starlett pull off a

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Speaker 1: contribution of this caliber in the first place and why?

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Speaker 1: And of course take a look at her glamorous, sort

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Speaker 1: of bizarre life. She led a very fascinating life and

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Speaker 1: we can't even begin to touch on all of the

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Speaker 1: details of it here. Again, the Sheer biography that I

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Speaker 1: mentioned it actually came out last year along with another biography,

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Speaker 1: and I would definitely recommend picking that up if you

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Speaker 1: find her life of interest at all, because it is fascinating. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but we'll give you the basics. Well, we'll take you

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Speaker 1: back to the beginning like we usually do, and kind of,

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Speaker 1: I guess, show you how the seeds of this innovation began.

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Speaker 1: So Hetty Lamar was born head vig Eva Maria Keisler

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Speaker 1: on November nine, nineteen fourteen, in Vienna, Austria. And she

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Speaker 1: couldn't say head VIGs that she called herself Hetty, which

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Speaker 1: was actually pronounced Haiti. Over there, we're going to go

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Speaker 1: with the more angle size, Yeah, the angl size, better

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Speaker 1: known version of her name, Hetty. Um. But that little

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Speaker 1: nickname stuck, and I say she's kind of lucky for that. Um.

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Speaker 1: She had a nice, a nice enough childhood, definitely. Her

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Speaker 1: family was pretty well to do. They weren't extremely super wealthy,

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Speaker 1: but they were well off. Her dad, Emil, was a

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Speaker 1: prominent Jewish banker, and her mother, Gertrude, was a talented pianist.

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Speaker 1: Gertrude had given up her dreams of having a career

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Speaker 1: in music when she got married, and she got pregnant

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Speaker 1: very quickly after that, but she still helped to instill

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Speaker 1: a love of the arts and Hetty, who learned to

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Speaker 1: dance and play the piano from a very young age.

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Speaker 1: And because she was an only child too, Hetty grows

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Speaker 1: up basically like this little princess and her parents were

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Speaker 1: out socializing quite a bit, but her dad really doated

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Speaker 1: on her when he was around and played make believe

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Speaker 1: with her, told her stories, and according to Shearer, he

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Speaker 1: would also spend hours explaining how things worked to her,

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Speaker 1: everything from quick printing presses to street ours. Um. That's

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Speaker 1: that's the first thing that sort of stands out in

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Speaker 1: this early biography, this careful attention to detail. Yep, her

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Speaker 1: curiosity is sparked at this point. But her first love,

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Speaker 1: even from a young age, is acting. Her parents, however,

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Speaker 1: were dead set against it. They did not want her

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Speaker 1: to be an actress, so she had to actually trick

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Speaker 1: her mom into signing a slip and cut school to

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Speaker 1: get her first movie job as a script runner for

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Speaker 1: Sasha Film Studio in Vienna, and it was through this

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Speaker 1: connection that she picked up her first bit part as

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Speaker 1: an extra in the film Gueld after Strassa, which translates

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Speaker 1: to money in the street. And it was I think

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Speaker 1: originally a silent film, but they added sound into it later,

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Speaker 1: so she was just a I think a person sitting

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Speaker 1: on a stool or something like that in that movie,

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Speaker 1: but a start nonetheless, and at that point she realized

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Speaker 1: that she she was going to be a serious actor,

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Speaker 1: she needed to learn a little bit more about her craft,

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Speaker 1: so she enrolled at the legendary theatrical producer Max Reinhardt's

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Speaker 1: press Stags, Berlin based drama school in about nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: and initially she got some bit parts in Renhart shows

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Speaker 1: and followed him to Vienna and started to take on

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Speaker 1: larger roles. And it was he who told the press quote,

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Speaker 1: Hetty Keithler is the most beautiful girl in the world,

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Speaker 1: so sort of making that reputation for her early on.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't until ninety two that she got her

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Speaker 1: really big break in a check film called Ecstasy, and

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Speaker 1: this is something that she's still famous for because it

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Speaker 1: was very controversial at the time for the fact that

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Speaker 1: she appeared nude in it. Um this was very scandalous,

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Speaker 1: especially it would have been very scandalous to say an

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Speaker 1: American because Hollywood was comparatively very conservative at the time.

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Speaker 1: So the fact that she is naked in it, and

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Speaker 1: there's also a very racy sex scene. Kind of put

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Speaker 1: her on the map in a lot of ways, sometimes

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Speaker 1: not necessarily good ways, but there it was. So at

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Speaker 1: this point her star is definitely on the rise. But

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Speaker 1: the next step she takes in her personal life, which

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Speaker 1: is marriage, kind of puts her acting career on the

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Speaker 1: back burner for a little while. Yeah, she had a

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Speaker 1: reputation for maybe not picking the best of guys, and

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Speaker 1: she ended up getting married six times, but her first

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Speaker 1: marriage is the one we're going to focus on. It's

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Speaker 1: very significant because it probably planted the seed for her

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Speaker 1: eventual invention. So she married this millionaire arms stealer named

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Speaker 1: Fritz Mondel in nineteen thirty three, and at first the

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Speaker 1: two were, as you put it earlier, they're just kind

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Speaker 1: of playing house with each other. Yeah, they're wealthy. As

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Speaker 1: we mentioned, she he's just buying jewels for her, and

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Speaker 1: she's traveling on his arm, on his work trips and

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Speaker 1: everywhere that he goes. And she's sort of happy because

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Speaker 1: of this, but that doesn't last. Mondel was really controlling.

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Speaker 1: He kept her from acting and even tried to buy

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Speaker 1: up all the copies of Ecstasy in existence because he

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Speaker 1: was so jealous about it after he saw it. He

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Speaker 1: paid figures like up to sixty dollars per copy to

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Speaker 1: get all of these, and rumor has it that even

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Speaker 1: Mussolini had a copy of Ecstasy, but he refused to

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Speaker 1: sell it to Mondel for any price that he would pay. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: don't marry Starlet's if you don't like their movies. Yeah, dealers,

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Speaker 1: you tell them, Sarah. But Hetty really lost all her

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Speaker 1: respect for Mondel when she found out that he was

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Speaker 1: making arms agreements with the Nazis, and this seemed especially

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Speaker 1: wronged her. It's it's not just she that's of Jewish heritage,

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Speaker 1: but Mondel was himself of Jewish heritage, and according to Shearer,

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Speaker 1: he had become an honorary Arian, which was special status

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Speaker 1: created for Jewish people who served Hitler. Personally, it seemed

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Speaker 1: like the ultimate betrayal to Hettie absolutely, and towards the

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Speaker 1: end of their marriage she was very displeased with him

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Speaker 1: and was practically a prisoner in her own um. Mandel

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Speaker 1: was afraid that she would flee, so he made the

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Speaker 1: servants watcher and she couldn't leave, but actually him forcing

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Speaker 1: her to attend these meetings with technicians and his munitions

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Speaker 1: business partners while they were married is part of how

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Speaker 1: she got the idea and the knowledge to help create

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Speaker 1: spread spectrum technology. Yeah, but to do anything with all

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Speaker 1: this knowledge she had, she had to get away from

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Speaker 1: her husband. But what she really wanted to do was

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Speaker 1: get back into acting at that time. So she got

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Speaker 1: a maid to help her escape from Londel's house, and

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Speaker 1: she was able to meet up with Hollywood producer Louis B. Meyer,

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Speaker 1: who she had met previously through Reinhart, and she got

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Speaker 1: signed to MGM Studios. It wasn't a great deal, but

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Speaker 1: she was signed at least in back on track with

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Speaker 1: her career, and so in seven she was on her

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Speaker 1: way to the States where she became known as Hetty

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Speaker 1: Lamar for the first time. Yeah, and she did a

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Speaker 1: few Hollywood movies that did reasonably well at the box office.

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Speaker 1: Al Jeers eight, which you mentioned earlier, H M. Pullman

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Speaker 1: Esquire nineteen forty one, Tortilla Flat in nineteen forty two,

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Speaker 1: White Cargo also in nineteen forty two, the most commercially

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Speaker 1: successful film she was in there with Sampson and Delilah

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty nine, Um but even though you know

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Speaker 1: this is a certain amount of success, she probably never

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Speaker 1: reached her full potential as a Hollywood glamorous actress, right.

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Speaker 1: I think most people think that she probably doesn't get

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Speaker 1: the credit that she deserves. And she had a tough

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Speaker 1: time coming in And there were three possible reasons for that.

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Speaker 1: One was that when she initially came to the US language,

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Speaker 1: the language barrier and the accent, they were both problems

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Speaker 1: for her when it came to certain roles. It's been

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Speaker 1: said that she often didn't know what she was saying

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Speaker 1: and she recited her lines phonetically, so in her earliest

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Speaker 1: that would be really tough. And her beauty was one

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Speaker 1: of her greatest assets. But Meyer and MGM really didn't

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Speaker 1: know what to do with her. By most accounts, they

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Speaker 1: saw her as a casting challenge, which seems so strange

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Speaker 1: considering that she was so beautiful and so marketable, But

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Speaker 1: they had to end up putting her mostly in I

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Speaker 1: Candy type of roles rather than really substantive ones because

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Speaker 1: they thought that she was basically too beautiful to be

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Speaker 1: playing someone who was normal. She couldn't be a real person. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she couldn't be a department store clerk or someone who

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Speaker 1: was serving you coffee because she was just so gorgeous.

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Speaker 1: They thought that no one would believe it. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just the bosses who saw her beauty as

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Speaker 1: a hindrance. She herself viewed her beauty as a weakness.

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Speaker 1: She's quoted as saying, my faith has been my misfortune,

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Speaker 1: A mask I cannot remove. I must live with it.

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Speaker 1: I curse it. Yeah. I never thought I'd feel sorry

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Speaker 1: for someone who's so gorgeous, but that sounds awful. And

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Speaker 1: she really thought that a girl should have brains as

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Speaker 1: well as a body, and she wanted people to know

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Speaker 1: her for that. Um. One of her role models I

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Speaker 1: read somewhere was Mota Harri. One of she really admired

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Speaker 1: Mata Hary, who was a World War One spy. Admired

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Speaker 1: her because she was made Harry was both a military

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Speaker 1: expert and a sad dress so she used the mind

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Speaker 1: body connection. Yeah. And Hettie Lamar also had just some

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Speaker 1: playing bad luck or maybe bad choices with her film roles.

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Speaker 1: She had an opportunity for some to start in some

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Speaker 1: really memorable films. The main one is the lead in Casablanca. Um.

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Speaker 1: Either she turns it down or MGM wouldn't loan her out,

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Speaker 1: but she doesn't take the role. I mean, that's you

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Speaker 1: almost think her career could have been entirely different if

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Speaker 1: she had taken that role. But I guess, I guess

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Speaker 1: you never know. Maybe Casablanca just would have been entirely

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Speaker 1: different and not as memorable. But still that that looks

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Speaker 1: like a one to regret. Well, Lamar did finally get

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Speaker 1: the chance to put her brains to work a little

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Speaker 1: bit more when she met aunt Guarde pianist and composer

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Speaker 1: George aunt hyle at a Hollywood dinner party. Now, aunt

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Speaker 1: Hyla was known for his hit Ballet Mecanique, a music

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Speaker 1: piece that was intended to be performed by several synchronized

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Speaker 1: player pianos. He also shared Lamar's hatred of the Nazis,

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Speaker 1: and they started chatting about World War Two, which had

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Speaker 1: just begun at that time in Europe, and Lamar shared

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Speaker 1: with him her idea for a problem with torpedo control

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Speaker 1: that she'd seen Mondel struggle with. She proposed creating a

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Speaker 1: system in which the torpedo and the controller were constantly

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Speaker 1: switching frequencies so that the enemy couldn't intercept or jam

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Speaker 1: the signal. Yeah, which is a pretty intense conversation to

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Speaker 1: be having at this Hollywood dinner party. Definitely, um, heavy

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Speaker 1: dinner conversation. But Aunta was intrigued with this concept and

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Speaker 1: they met many times after that to refine this frequency

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Speaker 1: hopping technique that she had proposed and apply the concepts

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Speaker 1: of from his work, from his player piano work and

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Speaker 1: sound synchronization to to what she had suggested. And so

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Speaker 1: before we go any further, because this all gets pretty

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Speaker 1: technical and um, if you're like me, you need a

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Speaker 1: little simplification of it. So just a little explanation of

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Speaker 1: frequency hopping. And this is from a Georgia tech engineering professor,

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Speaker 1: Ian Killed is quoted in the Atlantic and sorry Ian

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Speaker 1: if we have mispronounced your name, because it's a tough one.

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Speaker 1: He says, suppose you're sending something on channel five. When

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Speaker 1: an intruder finds out that you're sending the entire information

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Speaker 1: on channel five, then he or she can take everything

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Speaker 1: you're sending off channel five and reconstruct it. But when

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Speaker 1: you hop around, the intruder cannot capture this hopping and

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Speaker 1: he cannot reconstruct the information. So from a security perspective,

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Speaker 1: it's perfect. Yeah. And the way that Lamar and Auntill

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Speaker 1: figured out this system, the way they conceptualized it involved

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Speaker 1: paper rolls that were perforated with a random pattern to

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Speaker 1: delineate the frequency path, So roles with the same pattern

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Speaker 1: would be installed in the transmitter and in the receiver,

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Speaker 1: and then just like a conventional player piano, there would

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Speaker 1: be eight roles of preparations for keys, and the system

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Speaker 1: allowed for the use of eighty eight different frequencies that

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Speaker 1: could be changed at different intervals so they couldn't be intercepted.

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Speaker 1: So everything was on the move constantly and it was

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Speaker 1: all radio controlled. So they filed for and they received

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Speaker 1: a patent for the system, which they called Secret Communications System.

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Speaker 1: But the Navy, basically they weren't into this idea at all,

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Speaker 1: so the patent lay dormant basically after that for several

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Speaker 1: years until the nineteen fifties, and that was after the

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Speaker 1: invention of the transistor and others began to experiment with

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Speaker 1: the concepts that basically Lamar had laid out in the patent,

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Speaker 1: but they replaced the paper rolls with transistor based digital system.

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Speaker 1: So there were all these subsequent patents on frequency hopping,

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Speaker 1: but they did refer to the Lamar ontil one as

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Speaker 1: the generic patent, even though unfortunately it had since expired,

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Speaker 1: and we see the applications of their research all over

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Speaker 1: the place after that. By nineteen sixty two, the military

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Speaker 1: was using the same principles that Lamar and aunt hyle

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Speaker 1: had used for secure communications. For example, I think they

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Speaker 1: used it during the Cuban Missile crisis that was mentioned.

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Speaker 1: And now frequency hopping is known as spread spectrum technology

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Speaker 1: as we mentioned before, and it's used in everything from

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Speaker 1: cell phones to wireless networking systems. For example, c d

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Speaker 1: M A cell phone networks like Sprint and Verizon use them.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna have to go back through the tech

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Speaker 1: stuff archives to see if we can find anything more

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Speaker 1: on spread spectrum. Yeah, the current uses of this Glamorous

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Speaker 1: Starlets technology definitely. As Sarah mentioned, Lamar and aunt Hyle's

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Speaker 1: original patent expired and they never made a dime off

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Speaker 1: of this, which is kind of sad. Yeah, no money,

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Speaker 1: no recognition until later, much later, recognition, much later, not

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Speaker 1: too long after creating her invention, which didn't go anywhere

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Speaker 1: at the time that they actually created it. Lamar's Hollywood

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Speaker 1: career took kind of a downward charm and she sort

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Speaker 1: of flamed out at that point. Soon after that, she

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Speaker 1: left MGM of her own folition in nineteen forty six.

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Speaker 1: Her last big hit with Samson and Delilah in ninety nine.

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Speaker 1: She does movies after that, but that was kind of

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Speaker 1: her big role that she's remembered for. She retires from

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Speaker 1: acting entirely in nineteen fifty eight, and after retiring, she

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Speaker 1: moved to Florida and lived out the rest of her

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Speaker 1: days there. But she keeps a lot of drama in

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Speaker 1: her life even though she's retired from the movies. As

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Speaker 1: we mentioned, six husbands, divorced six times, three kids to biological,

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Speaker 1: one adopted who she later disowns up. She's arrested twice

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Speaker 1: for shoplifting, once in nineteen sixty six once in nineteen nine.

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Speaker 1: Both times the charges don't stick. Yeah, she was cleared,

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Speaker 1: and she gets into it with a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: She has a strange love for litigation in her later life.

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Speaker 1: Collaborators on her nineteen sixty six autobiography Ecstasy in Me,

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Speaker 1: she sues them from misrepresentation. UM director mel Brooks. Many

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Speaker 1: people I'm sure have seen the film Blazing Saddles. It's

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Speaker 1: a Western spoof and there's a character in that movie

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Speaker 1: called Headley Lamar, and they sort of turned that name

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Speaker 1: into a prank throughout the film, and it's it's a

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Speaker 1: very funny film. But apparently Lamar did not find it

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Speaker 1: to be very funny, so she sued him for that

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Speaker 1: and they settled out of court. But despite all this drama,

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Speaker 1: she's finally recognized for her invention in n when she

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Speaker 1: receives a Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and

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Speaker 1: she also gets some other recognition from other professional engineering

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Speaker 1: groups as well. But she wasn't too impressed by this attention.

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Speaker 1: I don't think her only comment on being honored was

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Speaker 1: it's about time. So sassy to the end, head Lamar. So.

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Speaker 1: Henry Lamar died in two thousand and people close to

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Speaker 1: her say that she continued to make little inventions throughout

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Speaker 1: her life, including a pocket for tissue or Kleenex boxes

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Speaker 1: where you could put your used tissues. Um, none of

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Speaker 1: these little inventions really took off, and certainly not to

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Speaker 1: the extent of her most famous invention. She can still

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Speaker 1: kind of be an inspiration to future inventors. The Boeing

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Speaker 1: Corporation actually launched a series of ads in two thousand

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Speaker 1: three that featured Lamar's image as a woman of science,

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Speaker 1: and the title for the ad campaign was don't let

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Speaker 1: history happen without you, And we can only assume they

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Speaker 1: waited until after her death for fear of law. So true.

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Speaker 1: So that's all we have for today. But as I

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, there's plenty to say about Hetty Lamar and

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Speaker 1: plenty of things that we didn't get to cover today,

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Speaker 1: both from her later life and from the earlier So

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Speaker 1: if you have anything that you want to add, or

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Speaker 1: anything you want to ask, please feel free to email us.

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Speaker 1: Our email us History podcast at how stuffworks dot com,

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Speaker 1: or you can look us up on Twitter at Miston

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Speaker 1: History or on Facebook. And if you want to learn

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Speaker 1: any more about cell phone technology, where this invention eventually

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Speaker 1: wound up, we have lots of articles on the subject.

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Speaker 1: You can go to our homepage and search cellphone technology.

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Speaker 1: That's at www dot how stuff works dot com. For

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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how

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