Gilded Cage: The story of how Hedy Lamarr escaped her fascist first husband
It’s easy to sneer at people who view their beauty as a curse. It comes from a place of envy, but I don’t think that makes it entirely unjustifiable. After all, people can coast through life on a Hollywood smile and not much else, but Hedy Lamarr was absolutely not one of those people.
The Austrian megastar was the kind of person whose force of personality was attributed mainly to her looks. Fair play to the people who thought that, a few more beautiful people have ever walked on this planet, but she was a lot more than that. Something that many of the men in her life failed to truly understand. Lamarr was pushed into acting on account of her striking looks, and after a few roles as femme fatales in European films, she met her first husband, the Austrian industrialist Fritz Mandl.
Everything about this marriage seems truly cursed. Mandl was a weapons manufacturer, which made him one of the richest men in Austria. This was no Oskar Schindler situation either; Mandl wasn’t just profiting from a fascist regime; he was a card-carrying true believer in the Nazi cause. Perhaps Lamarr thought that she could change his mind, perhaps she thought she had no choice, perhaps the truth is even darker, but one way or another, they married, and Lamarr’s life changed overnight.
On one hand, it changed because the now former actress was now obscenely rich. On the other hand, it changed because her husband did not like her appearing in films and on stage. A fascist doesn’t like women working, go figure. Thus, she was put in charge of Mandl’s busy social calendar, throwing parties for his business associates and attending meetings with him about the latest advancements in military technology. What Mandl didn’t realise was something that should have been staring him right in the face.
That his wife was not a woman to do as she was told.
How did Lamarr escape her first marriage?
Right from the off, Lamarr was looking for a way out of this marriage.
She was a proactive soul who wanted to return to acting, to anything, but Mandl flat-out refused. However, as the 1930s went on, something had to give. The business associates that Lamarr was throwing parties for were no longer nameless suits in the military industrial complex, but eventually Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler himself. Lamarr’s parents were Jewish, and thus, in 1937, she decided enough was enough.
Which was a long time coming. Right from the off, Lamarr’s parents had known Mandl was bad news. In true impulsive kid fashion, it took a lot longer for her to realise what her parents had known from the start. Knowing that Mandl would never agree to a divorce, Lamarr took matters into her own hands. Lamarr convinced Mandl that she should wear almost her entire jewellery collection to a dinner party that the two of them were attending. After they arrived, Lamarr excused herself and found a convenient spot to run away.
She funded a trip to London with the pawned jewellery. While there, she managed to attract the attention of Louis B Mayer, the head of MGM Studios, and the rest is history. However, the time she was married to Mandl wasn’t a complete trauma. She discovered a fascination with technology that would last her entire life. Even at the peak of her Hollywood career, in between takes, she could be found in her trailer, drawing up plans for inventions.
Because there wasn’t a force in this world that could keep Hedy Lamarr from achieving something she set her mind to. Especially not a force as meek and lifeless as fascism.