Joel Blackwell (11:05)
Zordop. You were made to scream from the front row. We were made to quietly save you. More Expedia made to travel. Savings vary and subject to availability. Hedwig Kiesler arrives in London after making a daring escape from her husband's estate outside of Vienna. She pawns her jewelry, rents a hotel room, and tries to figure out what to do next. And as she thinks it over, she realizes she doesn't have a lot of options. The problem is, even though Hedwig has escaped from Friedrich's villa, she isn't really free. For one, she knows Friedrich has almost certainly discovered she's gone, and he's probably looking for her right now. With his money and connections, he will be able to find her basically anywhere in Europe and force her back to his villa yet again. To Hedwig, it seems like the best way to avoid him is to literally flee the continent. Which honestly didn't seem like a bad idea because on top of Friedrich trying to hunt her down, Hedwig is also very aware of the current political climate in Europe. World War II is still about two years away, but by this point, Hitler has already started establishing concentration camps in Germany, and pro Nazi sentiment is spreading. Even London doesn't feel safe because the British government is trying to appease Hitler by not challenging him outright. So for Hedwig, who, remember, is Jewish, there is no safe haven here. She decides that she has to find a way out of Europe. She has to escape Friedrich and Hitler and figure out a way to build a life of her own. And she really only knows one way to do that. Hedwig picks up the hotel room phone and makes a few calls. Before long, Hedwig is walking down the hallway of the Claridge Hotel in London. It's not where she's staying. It's too expensive for her to afford with her now limited money. As she walks, she trails behind a European film agent that she knows from when she acted in Ecstasy. He's one of the people she called from her hotel room asking for help getting out of Europe by getting back into the filmmaking world. And to Hedwig's, surprise and relief. The agent said that he knew an American film producer who happened to be in London on business and he could get Hedwig a meeting. The agent stops in front of an ornately decorated door and knocks. A moment later, a short man with white hair and black rimmed glasses opens the door. He doesn't introduce himself because he doesn't need to. He just shakes Hedwig's hand and says he saw her in ecstasy. Hedwig can hear the disapproval in his voice. The producer asks Hedwig and the agent to come into his suite. Then he grabs a cigar, lights it and takes a puff. He gestures with a cigar as he tells Hedwig that a movie like Ecstasy, with its nudity and sex scenes would never fly in the United States. He says people in America want family friendly entertainment. They want movie stars who look like sex symbols but behave like nuns. While Hedwig stands there in the entryway, the producer starts circling her, examining every inch of her body. He stops and stares at her face for several seconds. He looks at Hedwig like she's a luxury car and he can't decide whether or not he wants to buy her. It reminds Hedwig of the way men had looked at her her entire life. But her feelings about this are complicated. On one hand, she desperately wishes someone would recognize that she has more to offer than her looks. She's smart, crafty and brave. But on the other hand, she knows her appearance is her most valuable asset. She resents being viewed as an object, but she lets men objectify her so long as it helps her get what she wants. And at this point, all she wants is a way out of Europe. Finally, the producer stops staring. He takes a puff of his cigar and tells Hedwig she's pretty. Pretty enough that he's willing to take a chance on her by giving her a job at his movie studio. And at this moment, Hedwig's life changes. Because the producer is Louis B. Mayer. He's the head of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, better known as MGM at the time. It's the largest and most profitable movie studio in the entire world. And Hedwig doesn't just have a job there. She has a one way ticket to Hollywood. It's the evening of July 13, 1938 outside the Four Star Theater in Los Angeles, California. 24 year old Hedwig Kiesler stands on the sidewalk wearing a purple evening gown and a chinchilla fur cape. Reporters from a radio station shove microphones in her face, asking her questions about the film premiering here tonight. While paparazzi snap countless photos, Hedwig shields her eyes from the flashing cameras and looks up at the theater's marquee. There, she sees her name written in lights. But it's not really her name. It's the stage name that her boss, Louis B. Mayer, gave her when he decided she needed to be rebranded so she would seem more American. She's no longer Hedwig Kiesler, the woman who starred in Ecstasy, married a weapons mogul and sat with Nazis at dinner. She's now Hedy Lamar, a blank sleep slate, and the impossibly beautiful star of a new movie called Algiers. It's her first major Hollywood film, but the premiere is bittersweet. Hetty wishes her mother could be here to see this, but she can't. Because about four months ago, one of Hetty's worst fears came true. Nazi Germany invaded her home country, Austria, and annexed it into the Third Reich. Ever since the Nazis invaded, Austrian Jews have been fleeing the country in droves, including Hetty's mom, who's been evacuated to London. Hetty's been trying to get mgm, the movie studio she works for, to help her mom immigrate to the United States, but the process is extremely slow. It's also extremely dangerous because Nazi U boats have started prowling the Atlantic Ocean and sinking civilian ships with underwater torpedoes, just like they did during World War I. So sailing from Europe to America now means risking death during the journey. And anytime Hetty reads a newspaper article or hears a radio broadcast about these torpedo attacks, she thinks back to that conversation she overheard at the Hirtenberger Ammunition Factory Christmas gala. She still remembers everything Helmut Walters said about the problems with radio guided torpedoes. And Hetty has this hunch that maybe she can do something with that information. But she doesn't really know what. Not yet, anyway. For now, while the paparazzi photographs her outside this Los Angeles theater, Hetty takes her own camera out of her purse and snaps a picture of her name on the marquee. She plans to get the film developed, then send the picture to her mom in the mail. A little over a year later, on the morning of September 1, 1939, Hetty stands in the kitchen of her home in Beverly Hills, frying up a pan of bacon for her second husband, a successful screenwriter and film producer named Jean Marquis. Jean and Hetty have only been married for a few months, and they're still in a honeymoon phase. Even though they have three servants, Hetty still likes to make him breakfast in bed. But that Morning. Hetty isn't just making breakfast. She's also playing around with a new piece of technology that's recently been released to the public. It's called the Filco Mystery Control, and it's the first ever radio that allows people to change the station using a wireless remote control. Hetty's radio sits in the corner of her living room. She stands in the kitchen holding the remote control, which looks almost exactly like the circular dial on a rotary phone. To change the radio station, all Hetty has to do is dial the number for the station she wants to hear. Hetty uses one hand to flip bacon and the other to switch the radio from an audio drama to a music station. While the music plays, Hetty starts thinking about how this radio actually works. She knows radio stations are actually radio frequencies. At any given time, there are radio signals being sent all over the world on thousands of different frequencies. To hear one of them, she just needs to tune her radio to a specific frequency and it will start receiving the signal. Countless people can tune into the same radio frequency at the same time and hear the same broadcast. That means anyone can tune in. And this, once again, reminds Hetty of Germany's underwater radio guided torpedoes. The problem with radio guided torpedoes is that they're controlled using a single radio signal sent over a single frequency. That means anyone can tune in, jam the signal and crash the torpedo. But Hetty starts to wonder, what if there's a different way to send radio signals? What if you could send radio signals that changed frequency every second? That way, even if someone found the frequency you were using, it would change too fast for them to jam the signal. Beheadi immediately sees flaws with this concept. For it to work, the person sending the radio signal would have to be perfectly in sync with the person receiving it. They would both have to know exactly which frequency to change to and when. But Hetty does not have the vaguest idea how they would do that. She decides she'll keep mulling it over. In the meantime, she flips the bacon again, then uses the Filco Mystery Control to change the radio station from music to the news. And when she hears what the news reporters are talking about, she goes completely still. She hopes she's not hearing them correctly over the sound of bacon sizzling. So she runs from the kitchen to the living room and stands right beside the radio to hear better. And she realizes she wasn't mistaken. The reporters say the Nazi army has just invaded Poland. World War II has officially begun. Hetty stands beside her radio, frozen in horror, while her home fills with the scent of burning bacon. By August of 1940, 11 months later, the Nazi army occupies Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Northern France. Britain and France are at war with Germany and Italy. It seems like every day more nations get involved in the war, and the whole world is waiting to see when the United States will enter the fray. With this global conflict looming in the background, Hedy Lamarr attends a dinner party in Los Angeles, California. She sits at a dining room table, sipping on a cocktail. She doesn't forget about the war. That would be impossible, but she puts it out of her mind, if only for an hour, because at this point in her life, Hetty is straddling two identities. The first is the version of Hetty who frantically reads headlines about World War II, begs MGM to expedite her mom's immigration to America, and stays up at night thinking about U boats, torpedoes and radio frequencies. The second is the version of Hetty who stars in movies and attends red carpet events and whose number one priority is being flawlessly beautiful all of the time. And the second identity is why she's at this dinner party. Hetty looks across the table at the company. There's an MGM costume designer the in his wife. Next to them is their friend, the person Hedy is actually here to talk to, a 40 year old pianist and avant garde composer named George Antile. He's most famous for a song he composed in 1924 called Ballet Mecanique, which is played by 16 synchronized player pianos, meaning machines with no humans pressing the keys. When Hetty looks at George, he laughs uncomfortably and says that he still can't believe she wanted to meet him. After all, George is a nobody. Hetty is a glamorous movie star who has grown so famous that other actresses dye their hair black to look like her. So George asks Hetty what this is all about, and Hetty says she's heard. George is not just a musician, but an expert in what's being called female endocrinology. He has no formal medical training, but he used to write newspaper advice columns about women's hormones. And so George, Hetty looks at him, then looks down at her chest and asks, quote, can they be made bigger? George turns bright red, but Hetty is not embarrassed. She's completely matter of fact as she says that she recently lost some weight as well as a couple of cup sizes. Louis B. Mayer is having her wear padded bras in her movie scenes until she can figure out how to get her curves back. She doesn't want surgery or anything like that. But she's heard that George knows about some medications that might help. Hetty watches George take a deep breath. He stumbles over his words as he starts spouting off a bunch of pseudo medical jargon about women and their hormones, he ultimately says, yes, he can help her with her problem. And they plan to meet again soon to talk about the details. The next day, Hetty sits across from George again, this time at the dining room table in her own home in Beverly Hills. While they eat, they discuss Hetty's so called endocrine problem. And George notices that Hetty speaks with a noticeably Austrian accent, which is actually a German accent, because German is Austria's national language. And he tells her that even though he was born in America, his parents are German speaking immigrants. So they realize they have this cultural connection. And talking about the German language leads them to talking about German politics, Hitler and World War II. And while most men speak to Hetty in a condescending tone, like she couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of a global war, George talks to Hetty like an intellectual equal. It's one of the few times in her life when she feels like she's being viewed as a person and not some kind of mindless doll. And before long, Hetty and George are both talking about how much they despise the Nazis and how badly they want to do something to fight back. And even though up to this point, Hetty has not told a single person about what she overheard at that Christmas gala, almost felt four years ago, and how she's been thinking about U boats and torpedoes and radio frequencies ever since. She feels like she can trust George, so she tells him everything. She says she has this idea to rapidly change radio frequencies so the signal can't be jammed, but she has no idea how to turn that concept into a reality. And when she says this, George's eyes light up. He tells her, maybe I can help. It's September 30, 1940. Hedy Lamarr drives away from the MGM studio lot in Los Angeles, California, after another long day of shooting a movie called Ziegfeld Girl. Producers are saying it's going to be a huge hit, and Hetty is excited for another starring role. But the moment she turns on her car radio, her heart sinks and she's reminded of why she's not heading straight home. Tonight, news reporters are talking about what's being called the Blitz. It began about three weeks ago on September 7, when the Nazis started relentlessly bombing the city of London. Hundreds of people have already been killed and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hetty's mom is still stuck there, just trying to survive. Hetty has been working with MGM for over two years now, trying to expedite her mom's immigration to America. But the journey across the Atlantic has gone from difficult to impossible. Just two weeks ago, on September 13, a British ship called the SS City of Benares was attempting to cross the Atlantic to evacuate 197 passengers from England, Canada. But during the journey, a Nazi U boat torpedoed the ship. 131 crew members and 134 passengers were killed, including 70 children. Since then, Britain has halted nearly all overseas evacuations. Hetty's mom has no way to escape the bombs raining down on her. And Hetty feels like the only way to help her is by turning her idea for an unjammable radio signal in into a reality than giving the invention to the Allied powers. That way they'll have better torpedoes than the Nazis and they'll be able to fight back. So Hetty drives away from her neighborhood in Beverly Hills and towards a less expensive neighborhood on the opposite side of town. She pulls up in front of a small house and knocks on the door, and the composer, George Antowe, welcomes her inside. The front room of George's house is a mess, with notes, blueprint drawings, and strange metal contraptions scattered everywhere. George and Hetty have been meeting either here or at her house almost every evening for the last several weeks to work on their invention. The man Hetty met because she wanted to make her chest bigger is now her engineering partner. So far, they've managed to refine Hetty's original concept of a radio signal that rapidly changes frequency. Her initial roadblock was the fact that she had no idea how a person sending a radio signal and a person receiving that radio signal could be able to change the frequencies at the exact same time. But she and George quickly realized that the way to fix this problem was to make sure the radio signals were not sent and received by people. Instead, they would be sent and received by machines. Essentially, they need to create one machine that sends a radio signal and one machine that receives it. And they need to make both of these machines rapidly change frequency in perfect sync with one another. But this is proving to be really difficult. Hedy plops down on the floor in George's front room and starts sifting through a bunch of working blueprints, which are all designs they've tried but didn't work. Meanwhile, George sits down next next to her and starts tinkering with One of the metal contraptions on the floor, which is one of many failed prototypes. And after a few minutes of frustrated silence, Hetty turns to George and asks them if they'd gotten in over their heads. After all, Hetty is an actress. George is a musician. How would they be able to create a machine this sophisticated? What skills do they have that could ever apply here? When Hetty says this, George looks as defeated as she feels. For a minute, they both just sit there, surrounded by the evidence of dozens upon dozens of failed attempts. But then George's expression changes. Hetty can practically see the light bulb go off inside of his mind, and George says he can't believe he didn't think of this sooner. He jumps up and runs out of the room. And a few moments later, he comes back holding what looks like a rolled up scroll of paper. The scroll is about a foot wide, and when George unrolls it, Hetty sees that the paper has a bunch of holes punched in it in a way that looks totally random to her. But George explains the holes aren't random at all. They're actually a song. This piece of paper is called a player piano roll, and it's what George used when he composed his famous song, Ballet Mecanique. The paper gets inserted into a player piano, and the holes tell the piano which keys to press and when. That's how the piano was able to operate without a person physically playing it. But when George composed Ballet Mechanique, he didn't just use one player piano. He used 16. This worked because George made 16 identical player piano rolls, inserted them into 16 player pianos, then started them all at the exact same time. Then they all played simultaneously, jumping to different notes in sync. So now George is looking at Hetty, and he's like, this is it. This is what we need to do. His background as a musician isn't a roadblock. It's the answer. For the next several months, Hedy and George work on a new prototype that utilizes the same technology as player piano rolls. But instead of the holes in the paper telling a player piano which keys to press, the holes in the paper tell a machine which radio frequency to change to. So Hetty and George create two separate machines. One that sends a radio signal and one that receives it. Then they create two rolls of paper with identical holes punched in them. They insert those rolls of paper into the machines. When they turn the machines on, both the radio signal sender and receiver begin rapidly changing frequency at the exact same time. So even though the frequency keeps changing, the signal doesn't get interrupted. It's exactly what Hedy set out to create. A way to send a radio signal that cannot be jammed. Because if an enemy were to intercept the radio signal, they would only have access to it for a second. The frequency would change so quickly they wouldn't be able to jam the signal. It's an entirely novel invention and it would finally make it possible to utilize radio guided underwater torpedoes. Hetty and George call the concept of rapidly changing radio radio frequencies frequency hopping. And they call their prototype a secret communication system. On June 10, 1941, about a year after they first began work on their invention, Hetty and George apply for a US Patent which would give them exclusive ownership of and rights to their design. About a year later, the patent is granted. Hedy Lamarr, the woman who has spent her life being seen as nothing more than and airheaded movie star, is now co owner and co creator of an invention that can be used to fight back against the Nazis. And she did it because everyone doubted her. Because Helmut Walter didn't think she was smart enough to do anything with the military secrets he shared right in front of her. Because she was crafty enough to escape from her first husband and make a mad dash for America because Louis B. Mayer said her chest wasn't big enough and the patent could not come at a better time. The United States has just recently entered World War II and so Hetty and George offer their invention to the US Navy free of charge. Hetty feels like she's on top of the world until she hears back from the US Navy. The Navy tells Hetty and George their invention takes up too much space. A foot wide scroll of paper isn't practical for use on submarines or torpedoes. But instead of talking to Hetty and George about making a smaller, less cumbersome version of their invention, the Navy rejects it outright. On top of that, they tell Hetty that she should stop trying to help the war effort by inventing. Instead, she should use her celebrity status, the fact that everybody knows what she looks like, to encourage people to buy war bonds, which allows the public to invest money in the military. Hetty is heartbroken. It's a perfect encapsulation of what she's been told her whole life. Stop trying to use your brain, just be pretty instead. But as much as this hurts, Hetty wants nothing more than to see the Nazi military crumble. So she embarks on a speaking tour where she encourages the American people to buy war bonds and help take Hitler down. The tour is so successful, Hetty is credited with raising at least $25 million for the U.S. war effort. After that, World War II continues for three more years. In that time, Hetty and George stay friends, but they go back to their separate lives as an actress and a musician. Hetty's mom finally makes it across the Atlantic Ocean and safely immigrates to America. She and Hetty are reunited, but they always keep up with the news. On April 30, 1945, Allied troops storm Berlin, and rather than be captured, Adolf Hitler dies by suicide. Gradually, all Nazi occupied territory outside of Germany is liberated. On September 2, 1945, World War II officially ends with an Allied victory. Over the next few decades, Hetty makes a few more movies. But as she gets older, she stops getting as many roles. When her beauty fades, the world forgets her. And Hetty forgets something, too. When her patent expires in 1959, she doesn't remember to renew it. So she loses all legal ownership of her and George's invention. It basically becomes public property. And at that point, the US Military decides they actually do want to use it. Hedy and George's frequency hopping technology goes on to be used by the US military in the 1960s during the Cuban missile crisis. Then in the 1980s, it's harnessed for consumer products. Frequency hopping forms the basis for secure remote communications, and it's used to develop technology that we all use every day. Hedy and George's invention is now estimated to be worth $30 billion. But Hetty never sees a penny of that. She dies as a recluse in 2000 with practically no money. It's not until 2014 that Hetty's contributions to science are fully recognized, and she's posthumously inducted into the National Inventors hall of Fame. Hedy Lamarr is still known as a gorgeous Golden Age Hollywood star. But instead of just being known as the most beautiful woman in the world, she now has a second nickname that honors her mind instead of her appearance. The mother of WI Fi. Hedy never could have predicted that one day her idea would change the fabric of the modern world. It would pave the way for wireless, Internet, Bluetooth, and gps. And help make the smartphones that we all rely on today possible. So the next time you unlock your phone and open up your text messages, Internet browser or Maps app, remember the woman who made it all possible, even though no one believed that she could. From Ballin Studios. This is a twist of history. A quick note about our stories. They're all heavily researched, but some details and scenes are dramatized. A twist of History is hosted by me, Joel Blackwell, executive produced by Mr. Ballin and Zach Levin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Perry Kroll. This episode was written by Karris Pash Cooper, story editing by Luke Baratz and Aaron Lan, sound design by Perry Kroll and audio mixing by Colin Lester Fleming Post production supervision by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacascia Research and fact checking by Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Evan Beamer, Alex Paul, Patricia, Nicole Florentino, Calvin Riley Holgate, Matt Gilligan, Matt Teamstra Production coordination by Delaina Corley and Samantha Collins artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner and Robin Vane. Thanks for listening to A Twist of History. You can listen to more of me over at the let's Read Podcast and let's read YouTube channel. See you next time.
