Hedy Lamarr entered the spotlight of world cinema at the Second Venice Film Festival in 1934. It was thanks to the experimental film Ecstasy by the Prague-based director Gustav Machatý, which caused a worldwide sensation with its erotic scenes of Hedy. The film was so shocking that its screening was condemned by Pope Pius XX, and Adolf Hitler banned it outright. It likewise enraged Hedy’s morbidly jealous German husband, the arms manufacturer Friedrich Mandl, who tried to buy up all its copies. Hedy eventually escaped from her husband via France to the USA, where she met L.B. Mayer on a boat, giving birth to the legend of one of the most beautiful actresses of the silver screen. Although she became a movie star whose beautiful face inspired Disney’s Snow White, her contribution to science was even more fundamental. During her stay in Prague, the young actress, originally from Vienna, was still named Hedy Kiesler – full name Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Her Prague footprints can be found in the centre of Prague on Wenceslas Square, where the Slavia-film production company backing the film Ecstasy was based; at the Alcron Hotel, where the film’s main star was given a room on the condition that she would also host a “tea for journalists”; and in the grand cafés where she met with film producers, directors and fellow actors. Le Corbusier himself was fascinated by the phenomenon of Prague’s cafés, located on the first floors of all the buildings on Wenceslas Square. And for good reason: if you walked past them in the evening, you could hear top jazz big bands playing all round and see hundreds of people dancing. The premiere of Ecstasy also took place on Wenceslas Square at the Lucerna cinema, the oldest still-functioning cinema in Prague. The stunning late Art Nouveau venue was opened in 1909 and today it is a national cultural monument, which is the highest level of architectural heritage protection in the Czech Republic. Incidentally, Lucerna Palace was built by the grandfather of famous Czech president and playwright Václav Havel, while his uncle Miloš Havel founded the Barrandov film studios where the Ecstasy was shot. Hedy Lamarr’s later journey through life in Hollywood is extremely interesting. She starred alongside Clark Gable and Judy Garland, but her romantic affairs remained in the public consciousness and her film career was virtually ended by drug addiction and kleptomania. Independently of her acting and singing career, she had an idea for how to remotely control the torpedoes that protected Britain’s shipping routes from German U-boats. Along with musician George Antheil, they patented a communication system based on a skipping radio signal that cannot be tapped. FHSS – the Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum later became the basis of signal transmission for satellite TV, mobile phones, GPS and Wi-Fi. She granted this patent to the state free of charge and did not profit from it. Her satisfaction came just before her death in 1997, when the international Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded her the Pioneer Award. Hedy died in Florida on 19 January 2000, and her ashes were scattered in the Vienna Woods in Austria, not far from her birthplace, as per her wishes.