Hollywood hasn’t created few glamour girls up through the years, quite many lovelies and man eaters have reached the top through refined beauty and shapely bodies. The movie companies have launched them into stardom through massive luxury and fat public relation campaigns. The aloft Marlene Dietrich, the characteristic Veronica Lake, the hard boiled Laureen Becall. But the one who have played out the beauty card more than anyone else is Heady Lamarr.
Hedy came to Hollywood in 1938, alone and unknown. One year later she was world famous and popular. she was the best known and discussed cover girl through Hollywood history, she was the incarnation of exotic delights.Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna sometimes around the first world war. She is the daughter of Emile Kiesler, a rich banker and grew up in luxury without a care in the world. She entered university, but changed her mind and started as script in a movie company instead. But that was not good enough for Hedy so a few weeks later she got her first part. The movie is long forgotten, but Hedy got a taste for acting and went to Berlin to become a movie star.
Her beauty became the talk of the town and director Max Reinhard gave her an important part in “The Weak Sex”, but that was all that came out her trip to Berlin, so she went to Prague to try her luck there. And now things began to happen. In Prague she got a part in “Ecstasy” and here she played a scene in the nude. These nude scenes would make quite a lot of problems for her in America and her second husband just about went the whole world round buying every copy of “Ecstasy” just to destroy them
Hedy Lamarr gets lots of fan mail. Here she
is at her desk trying to reply to them all
The next stop for Hedy before Tinsel Town was Vienna, where she married a multi millionaire, Fritz Mandl, but she soon got tired of that and went to Hollywood to escape it all. And she’s been there ever since. As the magazines and papers started to run out of superlatives, Walter Wanger got hold of her, and he transferred the whole glamour circus that was Hedy Lamarr from the magazine covers to the movie screen. Here Hedy played she devils, man eaters and glamour babe. Her first part was in “Algiers” with Charles Boyer, later followed part after part. She played against Robert Taylor, Spenser Tracy, Clark Gable and against James Stewart, to name but a few.
The Heavenly Body – Hedy Lamarr & William Powell
When her great turning point came in 1942, few believed Hedy Lamarr could ever play anything but a vamp, that all she was was looks and that there was nothing beneath. “H.M. Pulham, Esq.” put a stop to all that. Here Hedy surprises everyone and shows acting qualities no one thought she had. Here she plays a common girl who falls in low with the nice mr. Pulham and as the relationship evolves she has to chose between her career and the man. King Vidor directed the movie and she played against Robert Young and Ruth Hussey. This became the break through as a serious actor for Hollywood’s famous luxury vamp. She now got parts in a series of great movies. “Come, live with me” with James Stewart and Ian Hunter, “Crossroads” with William Powell, “The Highness and the Bellboy” with Mickey Rooney, “Tortilla Flats with Spencer Tracy and John Garfield and “Experiment Perilous” with George Brent and Paul Lucas. After the divorce from the millionaire in Vienna.
Hedy has been married twice.After coming to Hollywood she was seen a lot with Reginald Gardiner, but she married Gene Markey, the film producer, whom she divorced after a short while. Then she dated John Howard and everyone expected a marriage there, but she married the cowboy actor George Montgommery instead.Reports from Hollywood can tell that Lamarr completely changed after that. She admires Toscanini and Shakespeare and her hobby is keeping hens. Besides she behaves aristocratically and loves staying home at their large ranch.Rumors even has it that she paints the picket fence her self. Hedy Lamarr studied dressmaking in her youth and she is regarded as one of Movie Town’s most well dressed women. She designs her own clothes and has matriculate taste.Any woman can, if she sets her mind to it, dress with individual taste, no matter what her income are. And she should do so, it means lot for her personal happiness.
Hedy Lamarr is married for the third time and has one child.
Above you see her with her husband and child and below in
their kitchen. Both her husband and Hedy are gourmets and
love making food.
The article was originally written
in Norwegian as “Hedy lamarr – not just
a vamp any more” for the magazine
“Filmmagasinet” and it hit the streets
in August in 1948.
Unfortunately, neither journalist
nor photographer were mentioned.
TidiousTed
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