The Pittsburgh Press (January 24, 1946)
Othman: Ah! Lamarr!
By Fred Othman
WASHINGTON – It is a pleasure today to report how Hedy Lamarr helped win the war.
You may have read about her inventing (between clinches on the sound stages) an apparatus to exterminate Japs wholesale, but that’s not the story. Not exactly.
I guess we’d better begin at the beginning, when I lived in Hollywood and labored faithfully six days a week calling upon beautiful movie stars sitting down with them on soft, satin divans and obtaining for publication their views on life, love, the international situation, and the best way for a girl to keep her stockings up.
This was nice work in the spring of 1941 one of Miss Lamarr’s numerous press agents phoned to say he’d just invented an astounding device for use in naval warfare. Bang. I slammed the receiver down and rushed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Gable was mean smoocher
Miss Lamarr was wearing the tightest white dress that ever interfered with a lady’s breathing; she also had around her the arms of a guy named Gable, working in his last movie before he went to the wars.
This Gable was, and for all I know, still is an expert smoocher. It was an education to watch him, but I had other business. When he’d finished his work, I got Miss Lamarr into her dressing room, where she unhooked a couple of hooks so she could sit down. She also took off her shoes.
She said, yes, she’d found time to invent an invention. She had sent the plans to the National Inventors’ Council in Washington and had received a cordial note of thanks from her government. Her apparatus was for fighting Japs and by the nature of things, hush-hush, top-secret and also strictly confidential.
I seem to recall that she talked then about the art of the cinema, but my mind never seemed to work properly when I was sitting on a couch with Hedy Lamarr. She was what you might call distracting, but Bulldog Othman never gave up. I called upon her again and again, and again. No luck. I’d look at her, she’d smile, and somehow I’d forget about science.
Her invention never used
The years passed. My employers, worrying about how tired I looked from this grind, transferred me to Washington. The war ended. It was announced later that Miss Lamarr’s invention consisted of a magnetic device, controlled by radio, to guide torpedoes into the sides of Jap warships. The government made no other comment.
The council now is in the process of folding up. The plans of the 200,000 inventions submitted by patriotic Americans are stored in the files, while the hundreds of genuinely practical ones still are being used by the Army and the Navy. The council has only 17 employees left. They’re looking for other jobs and feeling proud of the lives and the millions of dollars saved by the inventions they sifted.
I got to talking to one of the engineers about Miss Lamarr. He said her invention did the government a tremendous service. He was gallant, but he also was honest and he said, no, her torpedo control never was used.
Fact was, he said, it was not nearly so practical as dozens of other similar devices. I asked him what he meant then by her tremendous service.
“Just that,” he said. “When word got out that Hedy Lamarr had invented a new kind of weapon, it was the best possible advertising. The other inventors simply showered down with their ideas.”
Hedy, your government thinks you’re wonderful. I always did think so.