Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World Kindle Edition

I recommended this for our book club to read, and I expected it to be interesting, but I have to say that I found the book thin and boring. At one point, I was lost--why am I reading whole chapters about a guy named Antheil? What happened to Hedy? Eventually, the threads tie together, but the actual point of the story, that Hedy Lamarr invented a method of controlling torpedoes, is lost amidst a lot of barely-relevant sidetracks. I think the problem is that this is really only a magazine-article length story, puffed up to fill a book. Another problem with the writing is that the author doesn't begin paragraphs with topic sentences, so you're reading a lot of details without any clear idea of the point.I found Hedy rather enigmatic, in his telling. She dropped out of high school in order to become an actress, she married three times within the pages of the book (though it is mentioned that she actually married 6 times!), she had no training whatsoever in electronics or engineering. So how is it possible that she made a major breakthrough in electronics? based on what she remembered overhearing while married to an arms manufacturer? I need to understand more about her mind to grasp that, and I do not receive it in this book.She claimed that glamour was meaningless to her, that her husband just wanted her to stand around and look beautiful--but then it also says that as she aged, she refused to be seen in public, because her beauty was gone. So apparently her beauty *did* mean a lot to her! In the end, I didn't have a really clear idea of what sort of person she was, and I also didn't have a very clear idea of what it is that she invented, or how it was or was not used in WW2.I am surprised that this author won a Pulitzer prize for some other writing--to me, this book seemed poorly written and not exactly captivating.

This is a good book, but definitely not a biography of Hedy Lamarr, with or without folly.It is actually a fascinating slice through the history of the first half of the 20th century, putting the invention of frequency-hopping radio transmission into the unlikely contexts of Hollywood and the European avant garde music scene. It works out, almost certainly because of the availability of sources, to have more about the life of George Antheil, a provocative composer whose music was used to inspire a riot for the benefit of a film, and who was Lamarr's collaborator in developing the invention. There's a lot of information about him, because he wrote lots of letters, many of them begging.Lamarr was a much more reserved person: her day job was to be a movie actress and "the most beautiful woman in the world"; in the evenings she like to settle down in a corner of her drawing room and work at her inventions. The balance of attention is certainly not because Rhodes undervalues her intelligence; it just seems that she wasn't that much into reading and writing, so she left less trace. What we get of her life, however, illuminates the move from Central European High Culture to Hollywood, which was imposed on so many people because of their Jewish ancestry, and pursued by some others for the sake of money.Rhodes' writing is nice and crisp, clear, and professional. It doesn't have the annoying mannerisms of many professional authors, but he does make sure that none of his research goes to waste. There's a useful digression on what patent law means by "reduce to practice."I'm left feeling that I know enough about the origins of spread spectrum broadcasting, for the time being, but inspired to find out more about Lamarr and Antheil.

Readers will learn a lot from this account. They'll learn about life in Paris, Vienna and London between the wars, about the artistic and family struggles of experimental composer George Antheil (Lamarr's co-inventor), and about Hollywood living in the 1930s. Readers will not learn too much about developing a device to make guided torpedoes, although I do think Rhodes tells us all there is to know.The actual torpedo story doesn't begin until around page 100 (this is a 220 page book), and from that point doesn't continue as a focus for too long. Although Lamarr and Antheil's concept, and the practical application that could be inferred from the schematics of the patent, would find use in military applications and then consumer applications in future decades, the two's torpedo idea was eventually rejected by the Navy and so was not a part of WW II. Lamarr's burning desire was to contribute to the war effort, which she did do in many other ways. That the idea was able to surviveseveral layers of bureaucratic weeding out and was awarded a patent is remarkable.The New York Times put it best. "It's to Mr. Rhodes's credit that he gently makes this implausible story plausible." To make it plausible required Rhodes to cast a wide net indeed. And the title is interesting. The reader is left to judge just how much of a folly Lamarr's pursuit was or was not. However, apparently the idea was not a folly to Antheil, who was something of a polymath. This story from his point of view might be more to the point.

It is a greater than real story about Hedy Lamarr, described as the most beautiful woman in the world, who also invented a radio system that is indispensible today. I also used the book in teaching product development. In addition to engaging the students, he story very well describes the knowledge that probably lead to her invention and the the importance of a good network when making an invention successful.I only give the book four stars, because I disagree with one of its major conclusions. According to the book her invention was rejected by the US Navy because Hedy Lamarr was a woman, so the Navy did not give it a serious treatment. However, there is nothing to substantiate that. In contrast, the US Navy had serious unsolved technical problems at the time, and probably made their decision based on the effort it would take to turn her invention into a something that could be used In military operations. Even though her invention was made in 1941 and had obvious advantages, it was only finally used in 1962.Given this point where I disagree with the author, it is an exciting book and absolutely worthwhile reading.

Not quite what I expected. A lot of technical information regarding the invention which I didn't understand so had to skip quite a few pages. Would be more interesting to someone who understood it.

Extraordinary tale of wartime. I had heard of more lurid tales of the Ecstasy Star. But her life spans such a time that makes the modern world so Humdrum. Artistic talented Beautiful superlatives abound her life that affects everyone that tap tap tap so much on those little mobiles.

A+ speedy delivery. Super item. Just as described. Very pleased. Thank you.

This woman was not only stunningly beautiful, and very brave but she was also utterly brilliant.