“Any girl can be glamorous,” actress Hedy Lamarr famously said. “All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” Luckily, Ms. Lamarr didn’t take her own advice. Born Hedy Kiesler, to a middle-class Jewish family, in Vienna, Austria, her doting father nurtured her intellectual curiosity and encouraged her to explore “how everything worked” — a trait that would serve her well later in life. But, a competing passion led her first to pursue a career in theater. However, a disastrous marriage to a wealthy, opportunistic and possessive arms manufacturer, aborted her thespian dreams. How she escaped her marriage, made her way to Hollywood, and teamed with an avant-garde musician in an attempt to thwart the Nazis, I will leave for the reader to discover. Marie Benedict’s biography-as-novel, The Only Woman in the Room (Thorndike Press), transforms Lamarr’s breathtakingly fascinating life into a delightful read— successfully keeping readers abreast of details without getting bogged down in them.
Publilshed: NYCitywoman.com
Publilshed: NYCitywoman.com