The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from me, Steve Winduss, at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". - 3rd November 2024.

​

Happy Sunday!

​

Eva Maria Kiesler was born in Vienna, Austria, 110 years ago this Saturday, 9 November 1914. She was born to Jewish parents soon after the outbreak of World War I. Increasing anti-semitism convinced her mother to convert to Catholicism during pregnancy. Eva would follow suit shortly before her first marriage.

​

Despite post-war austerity, Eva’s family remained affluent and she grew up in a privileged environment. That privilege provided opportunity, but Eva’s intelligence, energy and curiosity would convert opportunity into something remarkable.

​

Kiesler was an only child. Her father, Emil, doted on her. He would spend hours feeding that curious mind, particularly in matters of science and technology. This dedication, in turn, unleashed a passion for discovery.

​

Eva would assiduously break down her toys and rebuild them. She would question how car engines worked and how street lights were designed. Eva was wired to see the potential in everything and anything.
​

​

​

​

​

By the time Eva married the Austrian arms manufacturer Friedrich Mandl in 1933, she had started inventing with intent. She designed traffic lights to run more efficiently, constructed a fluorescent dog collar and devised a pill that put the fizz into fizzy drinks.

​

Eva’s early inventive streak didn’t lead to significant breakthroughs, but that would soon change.

​

​

​
​
​
Throughout her early years, Kiesler had lived two lives in parallel. While her father fuelled a passion for science and technology, private education provided a grounding in culture and the arts.

​

Eva’s school in Vienna taught her piano, ballet and other dance forms. She was immersed in culture. By the age of ten, she could speak four languages proficiently.

​

Eva pursued her desire to perform throughout her teens, participating in beauty contests and auditioning for films, either as an extra or occasionally landing small parts.

​

In her first serious role in 1930, Eva played a young girl in Money on the Street. While the production itself was low-key, it led to her first leading role in a film that would rock the world of cinema.

​

In Ecstasy, Eva plays a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage to an older man. She meets Adam, and an illicit affair unfolds. This provides the platform for subsequent nude scenes and an explosive night of passion. By today’s standards, the passion is rather tame.

​

However, the sexual themes were ground-breaking at the time, causing outrage and controversy. The Catholic Church condemned the film. European audiences considered it artistic, the United States, indecent. Either way, it propelled Eva to international stardom.

​

​

​

​

Unfortunately, that stardom led to type-casting as an erotic and exotic beauty. So, Eva stepped down from acting for a few years and attended to her own loveless marriage to an older man. In 1937, she left Fritz, fled to Paris and then London.

​

​

While in London, Eva met with Louis B. Meyer, the second ‘M’ in MGM, Metro Goldwyn Meyer. Meyer promised to make Eva an international superstar if she agreed to one condition. She did. And he did.

​

In September 1938, the young lady who had met with Louis Meyer in London, Eva Maria Kiesler, emerged in Hollywood as Hedy Lamarr.

​

Meyer’s one condition had been that Eva change her name, distancing herself from the notoriety gained from her role in Ecstasy. A new beginning. Destiny beckoned. Hedy would become a Hollywood great in the Golden Age of cinema.

​

​

Hedy Lamarr appeared in several films leading up to - and during - America’s involvement in World War II. The defining role of her acting career would come a little later. Hedy played the role of Delilah in the film Samson and Delilah, which went on general release 75 years ago last Thursday, 31 October 1949.

​

Do you remember Victor Mature, the Danite Jew blinded by the Philistines and granted superhuman strength by God as long as he did not cut his hair?

​

​

​

​

How about that final scene at the temple when Samson is guided between two pillars by Hedy Lamarr’s Delilah, to then drive them apart and raze the temple to the ground?

​

All perished, including Samson and Delilah. A timeless classic.

​

Hedy enjoyed the rewards from acting but found the extended downtime rather dull, the challenge of the role limited. Most of all, she berated herself for floating in stardust while thousands of lives were being lost in Europe in the war.
​
Hedy felt a need to contribute more substantially to the war effort.

​

​

Lamarr was romantically linked to Howard Hughes soon after she arrived in America. Yesterday marked the 77th anniversary, 2 November 1947, of the first and last flight of Hughes' enormous flying boat, the Spruce Goose, which he designed to bypass the havoc wreaked by the German U-boats in the Atlantic.

​

The Hughes H-4 Hercules’ wingspan was over 320 feet, approximately 50% wider than a Jumbo Jet with twice as much horsepower.
​
Unfortunately, it couldn’t really fly. Hughes and the Spruce Goose remained airborne for 25 seconds that day. The behemoth was moth-balled and never flew again.

​

Howard Hughes encouraged Lamarr’s inventing gene to flourish. Although they drifted apart a couple of years later, her passion for the big idea stayed close by.

​

​

​

​

Not long after war broke out in Europe in 1939, Hedy had read in a technical journal that the enemy was jamming Allied radio-controlled torpedoes. No radio contact meant no directional control - the torpedoes were rendered useless.

​

The subject might seem a little niche even for the hardiest scientist, let alone a budding Hollywood doyenne. But don’t forget that Lamarr’s marriage to Mandl had provided extraordinary insights to military technology and, in particular, radio communications. This was Hedy’s niche.

​

​

Serendipity struck during a chance encounter at a dinner party in 1940. Lamarr met the accomplished composer George Antheil, well known for a host of musical scores featured in Hollywood films.

​

He is best remembered for his music in the Humphrey Bogart film Tokyo Joe, which went on general release 75 years ago this Friday, 8 November 1949.

​

But it was George’s avant-garde composition for an experimental film, Ballet Mécanique, which piqued Hedy’s interest. His musical score was weird, to say the least. Antheil had concocted an arrangement of percussion instruments, sirens, aeroplane propellors and bells alongside an ensemble of 16 pianolas.

​

​

​

​

A pianola looked and acted like a standard piano. But it had a superpower. Perforated rolls of paper could be fed through a tracker bar, which ‘read’ the perforations, each corresponding to a different musical note.

​

Air was fed through the holes to activate individual pneumatic valves, which, in turn, would strike the piano keys. The net effect was to listen to a piano playing while watching the ivories bounce up and down on their own. Rather magical.

​

​

​

​

Lamarr and Antheil connected immediately. The attraction was instant, the conversation energetic. The pair skipped across a wide range of topics. As the evening wore on, the conversation intensified.

​

Hedy shared her thoughts on unjamming radio-controlled torpedoes, while George shared his experiences orchestrating 16 pianolas in Ballet Mécanique.

​

Lamarr expounded that if a transmitter and receiver could synchronise rapidly changing frequencies, they could continue communicating with each other while blocking out the enemy. The radio-controlled torpedoes would reach their targets.

​

Antheil articulated how a pianola orchestrated a range of notes into a single piece of music through the pre-determined perforations in rolls of paper.

​

And then the penny dropped.

​

What if a transmitter and receiver possessed the radio equivalent of rolls of paper? Synchronised frequency hopping would cut the enemy out of the conversation.

​

Eighty-eight piano keys. Eighty-eight frequencies.

​

The couple set to work. Hedy and George developed the concept sufficiently to submit their patent for frequency hopping. The patent was granted in August 1942.

​

​

​

​

Hedy and George then approached the military. Sadly, the military was not interested. Despite the pressing needs of the war, the military was a conservative bunch and saw the idea as ‘too novel’.

​

There was a whiff of snobbery in the air - how could such a glamorous actress invent something so sophisticated?

​

Nonetheless, Lamarr and Antheil donated their patent to the US Navy.
​
George Antheil died in 1959, thereby missing the patented technology in action during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, helping to secure military communications.

​

Lamarr and Antheil received nothing for their frequency-hopping invention.

Hedy Lamarr died in 2000. In death, she received more recognition as an inventor than in life. In 2014, she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2019, the asteroid 32730 Lamarr was named in honour of her contribution to society.

​

As for the technology? Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) is still employed today in Bluetooth and WiFi systems worldwide.

​

​

​

​

Hedy had lived her life in technicolour. She had exploited every opportunity presented to her to the full. She had been a Hollywood icon. She had earned pots of money… and spent more. She had performed alongside the legendary actors of the period: Charles Boyer, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable.

​

She had married and divorced six times. She bore two children; one an artist, the other an actor. She had invented sophisticated frequency-hopping technology still in use today. Yes, her acting career had faded after the 1950s, but she remained passionate about inventing until the day she died.

​

Hedy Lamarr had no regrets.

​

​

​

Podcast episode... a look back

​Episode 5. Marsy's Law​

​

In 1983, Marsy Nicholas was stalked and murdered by her ex-boyfriend in California. Shortly after, her brother, Henry, stumbled into the killer in a supermarket. The boyfriend had been released on bail without notice to the family.
​
Henry was angry. He channelled this emotion into advancing legal rights for victims and their families.
​
After years of hard work, a breakthrough. On the same day that Barack Obama first became President of the United States, Marsy’s Law was passed in California, 16 years ago tomorrow, 4 November 2008. Victims and their families would now receive stronger protection under the law.
​
The United States honours federal and state law. For the Marsy’s Law team, the fight would continue until it was established in every state in the USA.
​

​
I was lucky enough to talk with David Toney in 2022 in Episode 5. Marsy's Law. David’s father was brutally murdered in 1994. His family suffered more than necessary as the limitations of state law in Kentucky left them exposed to situations they didn’t deserve.
​
But David’s tale is not one of despair. Like Henry, he turned his anger and emotion into a positive drive to support the Marsy’s Law team in his home state. After years of hard work, Marsy’s Law was passed in Kentucky four years ago today, 3 November 2020.
​
Please listen to the episode if you get a chance. It is a tragedy. But it is also a story of the triumph of decent people over bureaucracy and of compassion towards others. David Toney is an extraordinary man. Thank you for sharing your story with me, David.

​

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music or just about any other podcast player of your choice. Check out the show notes for the links and transcript to learn more.

​

My favourite quotes from the episode...

David was contacted by the daughter of his father’s killer. She was desperate and suicidal. David didn’t hang up. He listened. He showed her compassion. Later, she left him a message, which left him concerned for her safety…

​

Do they still keep in touch?

​

By the Way

I have resisted contemplating US politics for today's newsletter. This was a little tricky since this week marks the anniversary of at least 40 previous presidential elections.
​
So, my deference to US politics this week is restricted to highlighting the 150th anniversary this Thursday of the birth of the Republican emblem - the elephant.
​
On 7 November 1874, political cartoonist Thomas Nast observed his editor at the New York Herald expressing frustration that Republican president Ulysses Grant was considering running for a third term.
​
Nast illustrated this frustration through a cartoon depicting an elephant, symbolising the Republican vote, being scared off by a Democratic donkey disguised as a lion.
​
The Republicans saw the elephant in a different light; a representation of dignity, strength and intelligence. So they adopted it.

​

​

​

​

Dates with History

Saturday…

On the same day that Hedy Lamarr was born, 9 November 1914, the Australian naval light cruiser, HMAS Sydney, was patrolling near the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean.
​
She engaged in battle with the German cruiser SMS Emden, which she critically damaged and forced to run aground on North Keeling Island. One hundred and thirty-four crew of the SMS Emden were killed while the Australians took the remaining mariners prisoner.

​

​

​

Only 13 years earlier, the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania had united to form the Commonwealth of Australia.
​
The victory over SMS Emden was significant because it highlighted Australia’s naval power and broadcast its status as a nation and global military presence to the world.

​

Friday...

Fifty years ago on Friday, 8 November 1974, Richard John Bingham found himself implicated in the murder of his family’s nanny, Sandra Rivett.
​
Bingham was the 7th Earl of Lucan. The name Lord Lucan would be indelibly imprinted into the British psyche, to be regurgitated indefinitely in every pub quiz the breadth and depth of the land.
​
The murder had taken place the day before. Lady Lucan suspected her husband. Lord Lucan vanished. Although his car was retrieved in Newhaven with evidence of bloodstains, he was never found. For years, the conspiracy theories abounded. Lucan was ‘sighted’ numerous times in various locations around the world.
​
By 1999, the rumours had all but ceased, as had the speculation. Lord Lucan was declared legally dead in 2016.

​

​
You remember Rosa Parks, the black civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955?
​
Well, nine years earlier in Nova Scotia, Canada, 80 years ago this Friday, 8 November 1944, African Canadian Viola Desmond was at the centre of a similar dispute.

​

​

​

​

She had refused to leave the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre, New Glasgow. The police removed Viola from her seat with force and detained her overnight. She was fined $26 and sparked a civil rights revolution in Canada.
​
Viola Desmond had challenged racial segregation in Canada and won.
​
In 2021, the government of Nova Scotia repaid the $26 to the family with interest, acknowledging the injustice perpetrated to Viola in 1944.

​

Question of the week...

The Times newspaper reports that approximately 70 countries are holding political leadership elections in 2024, representing nearly half the world’s population. Thought-provoking indeed.
​
There seems to be a scarcity of integrity in our world leaders. How will that look by the time 2025 comes around?
​
The thought brings to mind a line from the epic 17th-century poem Paradise Lost. I wonder how many of the current crop of budding world leaders would agree with Satan when he declares to his fellow fallen angels:

​

​

While you’re considering that, who wrote Paradise Lost?

(answer at bottom of newsletter)

And finally...

​
The champion Kenyan marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge was born 40 years ago on Tuesday, 5 November 1984.
​
Eliud has run a sub-two-hour marathon, though under controlled conditions, so it didn't officially count. He is regarded as the greatest marathon runner of all time, even ahead of the legendary Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie.
​
But I include Eliud here for one reason only: his face could light up the darkest room.

​

​

Happy birthday Eliud.
​

Spread the word...

If you've enjoyed this newsletter, please help me spread the word by forwarding it to a friend.

​

If you have received this newsletter from a friend and would like to receive your own weekly copy of The Breezer, then feel free to sign up here.

Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!

​

Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

​

P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.

Answer to Question of the week: John Milton wrote Paradise Lost in 1667. This Friday marks the 350th anniversary of Milton’s death, 8 November 1674.

​