And thus she was seen by the Czech director Gustav Machaty and cast, as Hedi Kiesler, in his 1933 picture Extase - one of the most notorious movies ever made, yet one of the least seen.Hedi plays a young woman who is newly married but crushed to discover that her older husband is impotent. He admitted that she was extraordinarily beautiful, yet he failed to detect enough evidence of an actor's energy or need. The girl's education never took her to university, but she was raised in intellectual circles. She had very dark hair (it was always called "raven-coloured" in the fan magazines), her eyes were pools where weak men drowned, and her breasts were apparently in order when she was just 18, auditioning for Max Reinhardt.
Not too solemnly, I hope: this is not the occasion for merciless soul-searching and rueful revelation such as unpeeled Dirk Bogarde, Alec Guinness and Luchino Visconti in recent years. This is, rather, the moment for the tongue-in-cheek matter-of-factness that once celebrated three spectacular if far-fetched blondes: Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield and Anita Ekberg.Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born on 9 November, 1913 in Vienna She was Jewish Her father was a banker and her mother a concert pianist. There is the one of Miss Lamarr, close to 80, suddenly appearing somewhere in the Nevada desert in a cerise silk pajama suit and high heels, and saying, "Hello, I'm Hedy Lamarr, still. Remember me?" People believe it - yet I thought I made it up After a while, you can't be sure. And let's face it right from the start, in coming to grips with Hedy Lamarr we are attempting to pin down a woman who published an autobiography, Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman, in 1967, and then sued its ghost-writers (Leo Guild and Sy Rice - is anyone making these names up?) because the book was "fictional, false, vulgar, scandalous, libellous, and obscene".The reason for dusting off the "Lamarr" file is quite simply that the excellent Arena programme is about to turn its scrutiny on her.
And after just a few encounters he observed that, in repose, Lamarr had a face and a body that might transfix any man, or drive him crazy The problems arose whenever she smiled. At that point, something unnatural and implausible sounded in the air like an alarm bell. It was a good thing, noted Chaplin (and others), that she had those perfect breasts. To begin in this way with the lady in question may seem too easy a settling for legend over hard fact. But there are some people who shine in the memory not for the irreproachable facts that may be ascertained about them, but for the wild and pretty stories that continue to be told. But this summer will see an onslaught of all-girl groups who are being snapped up by record labels.Tony Munns, marketing manager for Fender, said: "Traditionally women would account for maybe one in 10, but now that figure is actually around 50 per cent. It has just sky-rocketed."Lee Anderton, the UK sales director for Daisy Rock, said it was time for the music business to change its sales strategies. "In the three years that we have been in the UK we are seeing the guitar stores that completely pooh-poohed the idea now becoming strong dealers for the product.
