Written by: Demetria Daniels
Directed by: Lissa Moira

Can you imagine that a woman's life could be so legendary and so tragic? "Hedy Lamarr and Frequency Hopping," written and directed by Demetria Daniels, is a bioplay about the famed film and TV actress who co-invented a technology that might have contributed to victory in World War II, but whose life was marred by bad marriages and the decline of her Hollywood career in the 1950s. In the end, she died in debt, heartbroken, and with no recognition for her life's greatest invention, which was a forerunner to many familiar spread-spectrum technologies in use today. Theater for the New City’s Dream Up Festival will present this world premiere September 9 to September 15. Lissa Moira directs.

Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna, and her father was a banker her mother was a pianist. Although she became an American movie star and producer, famous for her acting roles in "Samson and Delilah" and others, she was most proud of her invention of "Frequency Hopping." At the beginning of World War II, she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, intended to use frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. The US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, but various spread-spectrum techniques are now incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. Her research led to her induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. Of all the European émigrés who escaped Nazi Germany and Nazi Austria, Lamarr was one of the very few who succeeded in moving to another culture and becoming a full-fledged star herself. She had six husbands and three children, one of whom was adopted. Her later life was marred by divorces, business failures, bankruptcies and personal humiliations. She was finally acknowledged for her invention of Frequency Hopping when she was 82.

 

Demetria Daniels is a writer and publisher at Gotham Gossip. She graduated from Columbia University and currently lives in Brooklyn. Her musical “Holiday in Heaven” is on Youtube. She has two books on Amazon, “Adventures of A Buxom Blonde” and “Illustrated Poetry With a Cast On My Foot.”

Director Lissa Moira is a playwright, screenwriter, director, actor, artist, lyricist, dramaturg, and poet. She has staged "Nicholas Nickleby," "Tom Jones" and "Sirens Heart" with Louisa Bradshore at the Actors Temple. With her writing partner, Richard West . she created "Who Married Love?," "And Sexual Psychobabble" and "The Best Sex of the XX Century Sale." She also co-wrote the film “Dead Canaries” and directed the musical "Grand Theft, Time it is…" Her operas are "Lady of the Castle" (based on Nathaniel Hawthorn's Rappacini’s Daughter), "In Questionable Taste" and "Night of the Secretary General."