I've been meaning to watch this for some time and it's a belter. Hedy comes from that wealthy Jewish-Austrian milieu that includes Wittgenstein and Popper (and Hitler if we excuse the wealth). She's a stunner and by the age of 19 had filmed the most erotic movie ever and married a wealthy Austrian industrialist.
Bored with parochial Tyrolean mise-en-scene, she legs it to the USA with a reputation as a kind of teenage pornstar, and a stifling movie contract with Louis B Mayer that required a life of amphetamines and benzos to stay awake or get some sleep during 6-day-weeks of production.
Hedy is clearly no slouch when it comes to innovation and free thinking, but after some consideration of the documentary, and a fairly fierce conversation with my father who has some expertise on the topic, I have to concede that although she had a large hand in developing spectrum-hopping for guided missiles, torpedos and drones, it's likely her Italian collaborator George Antheil had a lot of input. It's also possible with her Austrian Jewish origins that she may have been a conduit for leaked secrets from Germany?
Just a thought.
That said, Hedy also dated Howard Hughes who gave her free rein with all his designers and engineers for anything she wanted. So she must have been a brilliant mind.
Hedy was also an early adopter of plastic surgery and even provided suggestions for her surgeon on how to do it better. Sadly that story continued too long and by the end of your life her face was a mess (sic).
For me though the early Hedy isn't that attractive (though I wouldn't say no), but in 1969 she appeared on one of those vapid chat shows with creepy hosts.
Despite the toe-curling dialogue she's a stunner even if there's a nip or a tuck here and there.
