Today would have been the 89^th birthday of the lovely screen femme fatale Hedy Lamarr, who was born on this date in 1913.  Ms. Lamarr died in 2000, but this Austrian beauty will be remembered for more just her looks; this glamour gal was a brain, too.  In the early days of WW II, Hedy met George Anthiel, musician/scientist, and told him of her long-simmering theory of radio frequency hopping, which she believed could be used to control torpedoes

Attempts to interest the U.S. Navy in the revolutionary Lamarr-Anthiel system, patented in 1942, proved futile, but the pair was vindicated after the war when Sylvania rediscovered their unique theory and used it to develop important systems for the U.S. military.

All this brainwork was done during the same time Ms. Lamarr was enjoying life as an alluring screen siren.  She had a nice career but made some bad choices, like turning down the female leads in Casablanca and Gaslight.  Instead she made fairly undistinguished movies and her career was basically over by the early 50s.

She did, however, do overtime in the marriage department, taking six husbands over her lifetime.  She had three children, including a daughter Denise (by 3^rd hubby actor John Loder), seen here with Hedy and her fourth husband, former WW II European jazz band leader Teddy Stauffer.  They wed in June of 1951 but the marriage lasted only 9 months.  Stauffer’s life was also the stuff from which legends spring; he became known as “Mr. Acapulco” for his foresight and vision in discovering that little piece of Mexican beachfront heaven and turning it into a vacation mecca for the beautiful people.

Hedy Lamarr fell into some notoriety – and not the good kind – when she was picked up for shoplifting in her later years, but clearly this complex and multi-talented woman left her true mark as an exceptional example of the perfect union of brains and beauty.