Beauty and Brains

Hedy Lamarr was born to Jewish parents in Austria in 1914. She became an actress and married by the time she was 20. In 1937, she escaped her domineering husband and rising anti-Semitism in Europe, and made her way to America, where she became a Hollywood star celebrated as the most beautiful woman in the world. During WWII, in hopes of aiding America’s war effort, Hedy invented a technology that would eventually be used in cell phones, GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. She had beauty and brains in spades.