Hedy's Folly
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About the Author

RICHARD RHODES is most recently the author of "The Twilight of the Bombs," the last volume in a quartet about nuclear history. The first, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," won the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Reviews

"Hedy's Folly" is one of the "Huffington Post"'s Best Film Books of 2011!
Praise for "Hedy's Folly" "Rhodes's talent is making the scientifically complex accessible to the proverbial lay reader with clarity and without dumbing down the essentials of his topics...along the way he expertly weaves social and cultural commentary into his narrative.... Behind the uniqueness of this story lie deeper themes that Rhodes touches upon the gender biases against beautiful and intelligent women, the delicate interpersonal politics of scientific collaboration and...the neverending, implacable conflict between art and Mammon in American culture."--John Adams, front page of the "New York Times Book Review " "It's to Mr. Rhodes's credit that he gently makes this implausible story plausible.""--"Dwight Garner, "New York Times" "This is a smart, strange and fascinating book, which deserves to find an audience.... Rhodes is particularly good when describing intellectual milieus, whether Vienna in the first years of the 20th century, the Paris of James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Sylvia Beach and -- for that matter -- the permanent bureaucracy of the Pentagon. Many will have forgotten the brutal Soviet attack on Finland in 1940, but Rhodes sums it up poignantly and succinctly in three pages about the death of Antheil's brother Henry. Finally, Rhodes is one of those few writers capable of explaining complicated scientific ideas to the general public, invariably with clarity and precision and sometimes wit and poetry as well.""--"Prof. Tim Page, "Washington Post" "In "Hedy's Folly," Rhodes weaves a fascinating...account of Lamarr's journey into scientific exploration and the political machinations of war, mixing thorough techno research with Hollywood glam.""--"Bill Deskowitz, "USA Today
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"Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood starlet and inventor of a torpedo guidance system during World War II? Who knew? Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer-winning auth

"Hedy's Folly" is Amazon.com's December 2011 Best of the Month Spotlight Selection!
"Hedy's Folly" is a Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2011 (Adult Nonfiction)!
Praise for "Hedy's Folly"
"Richard Rhodes...unites the social history of Vienna, the classic era of Hollywood film, Paris in the '20s, experimental music, weapons design, the niceties of patent law and the technology of information transmission -- a real grab bag of elements -- in this short, charming and remarkably seamless book. He makes a rigorous effort to establish exactly what Lamarr contributed.... 'She deserved better, ' Rhodes writes, than to be judged by that spectacular face alone, and now, at last, she is.""--"Laura Miller, " Salon" "Actresses often long to turn director, but how many of them yearn to turn inventor? Given the success that the screen siren Hedy Lamarr achieved in that realm--revealed in Richard Rhodes's fascinating biography, "Hedy's Folly"--it's a pity more of them don't

Advance Praise for "Hedy's Folly" "Actresses often long to turn director, but how many of them yearn to turn inventor? Given the success that the screen siren Hedy Lamarr achieved in that realm--revealed in Richard Rhodes's fascinating biography, "Hedy's Folly"--it's a pity more of them don't consider it.... Rhodes's beguiling book shows Hedy Lamarr to have been a secret weapon in more ways than one.""--"Liesl Schillinger, " Daily Beast" ..".[M]ost people were reluctant to believe that the most beautiful woman in the word had an invetor's brain; but one man who came to believe in her was George Antheil.... Richard Rhodes...is the perfect historian to describe the abilities of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil as scientists and inventors. In "Hedy's Foll"y, Rhodes is also very good on culture-rich Vienna...[and] the Hollywood of the '30s and '40s.""--"Larry McMurtry, " Harper's Magazine" "Literary luminary Rhodes is not the first to write about movie starh

Advance Praise for "Hedy's Folly" ..".[M]ost people were reluctant to believe that the most beautiful woman in the word had an invetor's brain; but one man who came to believe in her was George Antheil.... Richard Rhodes...is the perfect historian to describe the abilities of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil as scientists and inventors. In "Hedy's Foll"y, Rhodes is also very good on culture-rich Vienna...[and] the Hollywood of the '30s and '40s.""--"Larry McMurtry, " Harper's Magazine" "Literary luminary Rhodes is not the first to write about movie star Hedy Lamarr's second life as an inventor, but his enlightening and exciting chronicle is unique in its illumination of why and how she conceived of an epoch-shaping technology now known as frequency hopping spread spectrum. As intelligent and independent as she was beautiful, Jewish Austrian Lamarr quit school to become an actor, then disastrously married a munitions manufacturer who got cozy with the Nazis. Lamarre

Advance Praise for "Hedy's Folly" "Literary luminary Rhodes is not the first to write about movie star Hedy Lamarr's second life as an inventor, but his enlightening and exciting chronicle is unique in its illumination of why and how she conceived of an epoch-shaping technology now known as frequency hopping spread spectrum. As intelligent and independent as she was beautiful, Jewish Austrian Lamarr quit school to become an actor, then disastrously married a munitions manufacturer who got cozy with the Nazis. Lamarr coolly gathered
weapons information, then fled the country for Hollywood. As she triumphed on the silver screen, she also worked diligently on a secret form of radio communication that she hoped would boost the U.S. war effort, but which ultimately became the basis for cell phones, Wi-Fi, GPS, and bar-code readers. Lamarr's technical partner was George Antheil, a brilliant and intrepid pianist and avant-garde composer whose adventures are so fascinating, he n

Advance Praise for "Hedy's Folly" "The author of "The Twilight of the Bomb" (2010) returns with the surprising story of a pivotal invention produced during World War II by a pair of most unlikely inventors--an avant-garde composer and the world's most glamorous movie star....A faded blossom of a story, artfully restored to bright bloom."--"Kirkus Reviews" "If the subtitle of this book--"The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World"--doesn't make you want to read, nothing we say is likely to change your mind. But we will add this much: Rhodes, who has written about everything from atomic power to sex to John James Audubon, is apparently incapable of writing a bad book and most of what he does is absolutely superior, including this tale that has Nazi weapons, Hollywood stars, 20th century classical music, and the earliest versions of digital wireless."--"The Daily Beast"
Praise for Richard Rhodes:


Advance Praise for "Hedy's Folly"
"If the subtitle of this book--"The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World"--doesn't make you want to read, nothing we say is likely to change your mind. But we will add this much: Rhodes, who has written about everything from atomic power to sex to John James Audubon, is apparently incapable of writing a bad book and most of what he does is absolutely superior, including this tale that has Nazi weapons, Hollywood stars, 20th century classical music, and the earliest versions of digital wireless."--"The Daily Beast"
Praise for Richard Rhodes:
"The Making of the Nuclear Age "(four volumes)
"Every age finds the writers it needs, and the nuclear age has found Richard Rhodes."--Jonathan Schell, "The Nation
"
"Rhodes deserves considerable praise for his four books. He writes with remarkable confidence and clarity about these terrible devices. He tells stories well. H

Praise for Richard Rhodes:
"The Making of the Nuclear Age "(four volumes)
"Every age finds the writers it needs, and the nuclear age has found Richard Rhodes."--Jonathan Schell, "The Nation
"
"Rhodes deserves considerable praise for his four books. He writes with remarkable confidence and clarity about these terrible devices. He tells stories well. He loads his text with interesting facts. His technical command is impressive."--Nicholas Thompson, "New York Times Book Review
""No one writes better about nuclear history than Rhodes does, ably combining a scholar's attention to detail with a novelist's devotion to character and pacing . . . The ingenuity and progressive spirit he reveals inspire optimism."--George Perkovich, "The Washington Post
""This long, rich book ["The Making of the Atomic Bomb"]. . . is the comprehensive history of the bomb, and it is also a work of literature."--Tracy Kidder, "John James Audubon: The Making of an American"
"

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