Hedy Lamarr

She invented the tech behind WiFi, then got told to shut up and look pretty.

At 18, Hedy Lamaraa (then Hedwig Kiesler) starred in “Ecstasy,” a controversial film that featured nudity and the first on-screen depiction of an orgasm.

It made her famous…and infamous.

Not long after, she married Friedrich Mandl, a powerful Austrian arms dealer with ties to Mussolini and Hitler.

He was controlling and possessive, reportedly keeping her a virtual prisoner while hosting weapons meetings with Nazi officials.

In 1937, she escaped.

Disguised as a maid, she fled to London, met MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, and sailed to America.

Hollywood gave her a new name (Hedy Lamarr) and a new reputation: “the most beautiful woman in the world.”

But Lamarr wasn’t content to be a poster.

She redesigned airplane wings for Howard Hughes.

She created a dissolvable soda tablet (her own take on Coca-Cola), an improved traffic light, a fluorescent dog collar, and a bath chair for disabled users.

But her real breakthrough came in 1940, after the sinking of a British ship that killed 77 child evacuees.

With composer George Antheil, she developed a “frequency hopping” system to prevent enemy forces from jamming radio-guided torpedoes.

Inspired by synchronized piano rolls, they designed a way for transmitter and receiver to jump between frequencies in tandem... making it nearly impossible to intercept the signal.

They filed a patent in 1942 and handed it to the U.S. Navy.

The Navy ignored it.

Instead, Lamarr was told to focus on selling war bonds.

She raised $25 million in one night.

Her patent expired.

The technology was later used, quietly, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Today, the same concept is the foundation of WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and mobile phone networks.

Lamarr never saw a dime.

Her acting career ended in the late 1950s.

The rest of her life was marked by lawsuits, arrests for shoplifting, six failed marriages, and an estrangement from her son.

In her final years, she lived in near-total seclusion in Florida, speaking to friends and family only by phone.

In 1997, she was finally recognized with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award and became the first woman to win the Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award.

In 2014, 14 years after her death, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

She spent decades typecast as a seductress.

But she’s actually the mother of modern wireless tech.