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

I appreciate Clara of the blog Via Margutta 51 making me aware via a Tweet of a brand-new book on one of my favorite actresses.

HEDY'S FOLLY: THE LIFE AND BREAKTHROUGH INVENTIONS OF HEDY LAMARR, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD will be released tomorrow, November 29th.

Author Richard Rhodes previously won the Pulitzer for THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB.

As I've mentioned here in the past, Hedy Lamarr was a fascinating woman. The "frequency hopping" for which she was a co-patent holder led to today's wireless technologies.

In a review of the new book, Sam Kean writes "Imagine that, on Sept. 12, 2001, an outraged Angelina Jolie had pulled out a pad of paper and some drafting tools and, all on her own, designed a sophisticated new missile system to attack al-Qaida. Now imagine that the design proved so innovative that it transcended weapons technology, and sparked a revolution in communications technology over the next half-century. Believe it or not, this essentially happened to Hedy Lamarr."

For those who are fans of Hedy or those who would like to learn more about her, there are several other books available on her life. I highly recommend the Citadel picture book THE FILMS OF HEDY LAMARR by Christopher Young, which I thought was one of the best books in the Citadel series.

Not long ago I bought BEAUTIFUL: THE LIFE OF HEDY LAMARR by Stephen Shearer. It looks quite good, but I haven't had a chance yet to do more than dip into it for a few minutes.

I haven't yet purchased HEDY LAMARR: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN FILM by Ruth Barton or Hedy's own autobiography, ECSTASY AND ME: MY LIFE AS A WOMAN. The latter book was recently reviewed by Jessica at Comet Over Hollywood.

Update: An interesting interview with author Richard Rhodes was published in the Los Angeles Times.

Update: Here's a link for another book on Hedy Lamarr: SPREAD SPECTRUM: HEDY LAMARR AND THE MOBILE PHONE by Rob Walters.