PBS高端访谈:好莱坞传奇人物海迪·拉马尔竟也才华横溢（在线收听）

Hari Sreenivasan: Hedy Lamarr was one of the most iconic actresses of her day, known for her great beauty and said to be the inspiration for Catwoman and Snow White. But there was a part of her life that almost no one knew about. It turns out, Hedy Lamarr was also a brilliant inventor. new documentary film about her life opened widely in theaters across the nation this week and will air May 18 on “American Masters” on pbs. Newshour Weekend's Megan Thompson spoke recently to Alexandra Dean, the director of bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr story.

Reporter: tell us, who was Hedy Lamarr?

Hedy Lamarr was a jewish child who was born in Austria in the shadow of the first world war. And then, she became extraordinarily beautiful when she was about, you know, I'd say ten, 11 years old. And that kind of swept her away. She became an actress, and she flees to the United States and convinces Louis B. Mayer to make her his next great star on the silver screen. So, she becomes, you know, a huge... the Angelina Jolie of her day and does all of these films with Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart.

Reporter: That was the public Hedy Lamarr. But it was the private, unexpected Lamarr who director Alexandra Dean found far more compelling.

Inventing was her hobby. She not only had a complete inventing table set up in her house, but Howard Hughes gave her a small version of the set of equipment, which she had in the trailer where she stayed in between takes and her motion pictures.

We don't know everything that Hedy invented, but we know that during the second world war she teamed up first with Howard Hughes, who was a great inventor himself. He was trying to create the fastest airplane in the world at that time.

I thought the aeroplanes were too slow. I decided that's not right. They shouldn't be square, the wings. So, I bought a book of fish, and I bought a book of birds. And then, I used the fastest bird and connected it with the fasted fish and then drew it together and showed it to Howard Hughes. And he said, “You're a genius.”

You did? Yeah.

Reporter: So, she had no formal training in engineering or chemistry or anything like that? She was just naturally gifted?

This is the amazing thing about Hedy Lamarr. She left school when she was 15 years old to become an actress. She loved chemistry. We know that.

She invented during that period a tablet that would fizz up and make a cola.

I had two chemists that Howard gave me to do that. You know, during the war, nobody had coca-cola, and I wanted to compress it into a cube so that servicemen and factory people, all they had to have was water and put it in.

During the second world war, there was this chokehold around England of Nazi u-boats, and it felt like it was the end of the war. It felt like it was the turning point and the Nazis were going to win because we couldn't get any supplies to England.

Reporter: Nazi submarines kept eluding the allies' attacks because the germans were very good at hacking-- or jamming-- the radio signals that guided the allies' torpedoes.

What Hedy Lamarr came up with was a radio signal between a ship and a torpedo that couldn't be hacked, that couldn't be jammed.

Reporter: Rather than sending radio communications on just one frequency as was normally done, Lamarr came up with the idea of making the signal leap from frequency to frequency.

Frequency hopping. You couldn't jam it because you'd only jam a split second of it in a single frequency. So, frequency change, frequency hop, frequency hop, frequency hop. That concept, secure radio communications, was brilliant.

And that basic idea of frequency-hopping became part of what's known as spread spectrum. Spread spectrum is what's in all of our technology today. I mean, bluetooth is probably the most purely similar to what Hedy Lamarr invented. And WIFI, too. But spread spectrum is in a huge amount of inventions that we use on a daily basis.

Reporter: Lamarr had a patent on the technology, but it was confiscated because she was an Austrian immigrant and considered an “enemy alien.” She was never compensated for her invention, which the film estimates to be worth around $30 billion today.

When we began making this film, you know, some scientists said to me, she was probably a spy. You know, she probably stole this invention from the nazis and brought it to the allies as a spy. And we just don't realize it now, but doesn't that make a lot more sense to you than this movie star coming up with this incredible invention? I mean, serious scientists said that to me at the beginning of my research, and I really had to confront that assumption in the film.

Reporter: Part of what fueled those assumptions was that Lamarr had almost never spoken publicly about her invention. She'd never really taken credit for her own work. And so, I realized I had nothing really of her own record. And we really started shoe leather reporting and figuring out that there were about 75 people alive today that could possibly have something on Hedy Lamarr, and just systematically going down that list. And when we got to this guy, Fleming Meeks, who had written this article about her in 1990, he picked up the phone, and he said to me, I have been waiting 25 years for you to call me!

It's embarrassing. Behind that blue trash can. I've had stuff stowed there, and I moved it out of the way, and there it was.

It turned out he had tapes that basically told the whole of Hedy Lamarr's story, and they had never seen the light of day.

Yes, this is Fleming Meeks at "Forbes." Oh, thank you so much for the roses! Oh, you're very welcome. I love them! The brains of the people are more interesting than the looks, I think. Then, people have the idea that I'm sort of a stupid thing.

Reporter: What was that moment like for you as a filmmaker?

I think I cried when I first heard Hedy's voice. I was different, I guess. Maybe I came from a different planet. Who knows? But whatever it is, inventions are easy for me to do.

Reporter: How did Hedy Lamarr's life end?

Hedy withdrew from the world at the end of her life. She really felt misunderstood. Part of it was a shoplifting arrest, which she may or may not have been guilty of. And part of it was that she had this really unfortunate plastic surgery at the end of her life to try and shore up that beauty. She was so withdrawn by the time she started to get recognized for invention that she never came out publicly and accepted any claim for it. People ask me all the time if Hedy Lamarr's life was a tragic life to me, and I don't think it was, funnily enough. Even though she did have this really dark period, at the end of her life, she really examined what she'd been through, and she came out with some wisdom. And the reason we know that is she would call her children and leave them these long messages on their answer phones, which they would record. And on one of her answer phone messages, we found her really trying to tell her son the message of her life through this poem.

Give the world the best you have, and you'll be kicked into the teeth. Give the world the best you've got, anyway.

And in the poem, she's saying to him, ”you know, you might feel kicked in the teeth.

You might feel that the world never understands you or applauds you for your greatest achievements. But you know what? Do it anyway. Do it anyway because it's in the doing this great thing that will change the world that you will find the meaning of your life.”

哈里·斯瑞尼瓦桑：海迪·拉马尔是她所生年代里，最具标志性的女演员之一，她倾国倾城，据说《猫女》和《白雪公主》的创作灵感均起源于她。但她生活也有鲜为人知的篇章。原来，海迪·拉马尔也是一位天才发明家。本周，关于她的一部新纪录片将在全国上映，5月18日PBS“American Masters”栏目也将进行播放。Newshour Weekend栏目的梅甘·汤普森最近对话影片《尤物:海蒂·拉玛传》的导演，亚历山德拉·迪安。

记者：请告诉我们，海迪·拉马尔是谁？

海迪·拉马尔出生在奥地利，曾是在第一次世界大战的阴影中生活的一名犹太儿童。随着长大，她变得亭亭玉立，你知道，我会说，也就是10岁，11岁的样子。就这样她一炮走红。她成为了一名女演员，逃到美国，并说服路易斯·B·梅耶让她成为了银幕上的新星。所以，她变成了，你知道，一个超级…她是她那个时代的安吉莉娜·朱莉，与斯宾塞·屈塞，克拉克·盖博以及詹姆斯·史都华都有过合作。

记者：这是大家所熟知的海迪·拉马尔。但亚历山德拉·迪安导演却发现了一个隐秘，令人意想不到的拉马尔，更加光芒万丈。

发明是她的爱好。在她家里不仅摆放有全套的发明案台，而且霍华德·休斯还给了她配了一整套微型设备，放在拖车里，供她在等待拍下一场戏的间隙使用。我们并不知晓海迪的全部发明，但我们知道，在第二次世界大战中，她与霍华德·休斯首度合作，而后者本人也是一位伟大的发明家。当时他正尝试发明世界上最快的飞机。我以为飞机飞得太慢了。我认为不应如此。它们不应该是方的，翅膀。所以，我买了一本讲鱼的书，还有一本讲鸟的书。然后，我找到飞得最快的鸟，把它与游得最快的鱼连接起来，然后把它一起画出来，拿给霍华德·休斯看。然后他说：“你真是个天才。”你做到了吗？是的。

记者：那么，她接受过正规的工程或化学之类的学习吗？还是她生来天赋异禀？

这就是海迪·拉马尔的神奇之处。她15岁时离开学校，成为一名演员。她热爱化学。我们知道。她在那个时代，发明了一种药片，可以泡腾起来，做成可乐。我有两个化学家，是霍华德给我准备，让我做实验的。你知道，在战争期间，没有人能喝上可口可乐，我想把它压缩成一个方块，以便军人和工厂工人能够享用，他们只需水，然后把它放进去就好了。第二次世界大战期间，英格兰受到纳粹U-潜艇的压制，感觉就像战争要结束了。这感觉就像是转折点，纳粹即将获胜，因为我们无法给到英格兰任何补给。

记者：纳粹潜艇一直在躲避盟军的攻击，因为德国人很擅长窃听或干扰给盟军鱼雷导航的无线电信号。海迪·拉马尔想到了一种无线电信号，这种信号在舰船和鱼雷间传输，抗攻击，且无法被阻断。

记者：平常发送的无线电信号都处在同一频率上，而拉马尔想出了让信号频率跳变的方法。跳频。你无法阻截，因为在一个信号频率上，你获得的信号只能是一瞬间。因此，频率变化，频率跳跃，跳频，跳频。这一概念保障了安全的无线电通信，成就辉煌。而跳频的基本思想成为了扩频的一部分。今天我们所有的技术都涵盖了扩频技术。我的意思是，蓝牙很可能是最接近海迪·拉马尔发明的技术。还有WIFI，也是。但是，扩频技术是我们大量发明的基础，这些发明我们每天都在使用。

记者：拉马尔本已取得该技术专利，但却因她是奥地利移民，是“敌国侨民”，而被没收充公了。她的发明（专利）从来没有得到过任何补偿，这部电影在今天估值可达300亿美元。当我们开始制作这部电影时，你知道，有些科学家对我说：“她很可能是间谍。你知道，她可能是从纳粹手中偷了这项发明，然后作为间谍把它带到了同盟国。我们现在还没有意识到，但难道这不比这个电影明星推出这项令人难以置信的发明更有意义吗？我的意思是，严谨的科学家们在我研究伊始就对我说这些，而我在电影中，真的不得不面对这样一种假设。

记者：人们之所以会呈现那些假设，部分是因为拉马尔几乎从不公开谈论她的发明。她从来没有真正因自己的（发明）工作而得到过好评。所以，我意识到自己没有什么真正关于她的记录。我们真正开始实地报道以后，才发现如今在世对海迪·拉马尔有了解的人大约只有75位，于是我们就根据名单挨个寻找他们。当我们找到一个名叫弗莱明·米克斯的人时，他拿起电话，对我说：“我等你的电话等了25年！”他在1990年写了这篇关于她的文章。这太尴尬了。在那个蓝色垃圾桶后面。我之前把东西放在那里了，后来我把它搬走了，在那里。原来他有几盘磁带，上面记录了海迪·拉马尔的整个人生故事，然而它们从未见过天日。是的，这是弗莱明·米克斯上了“福布斯”。哦，非常感谢，你送我玫瑰！哦，不客气。我爱它们！我认为，人的大脑比其外表更加有趣。然后，人们认为我有点愚蠢。

记者：作为电影制作人，那一刻是什么感觉？

我想当我第一次听到海迪的声音时，我泣不成声。我猜我与众不同。也许我来自一个不同的星球。谁知道呢？但不管怎样，发明对我来说不难。

记者：海迪·拉马尔如何度过生命的尾声？

海迪在她生命的最后选择了默然退出。她真的感到自己被误解了。一部分原因是给她安上了个顺手牵羊被捕的罪名，而这可能根本是莫须有的。一部分原因是在她生命行将结束的日子，她做了一次非常不幸的整形手术，希望可以留住她的美丽。而当她开始得到发明方面的认可时，她又是那么内敛寡言，以至于她从不公开抛头露面，也从未接受过关于它的任何头衔。人们总问我，对我来说，海迪·拉马尔的一生是否堪称悲剧，我不以为然，我认为这样的人生非常有趣。尽管她确实经历了一段非常黑暗的时期，但在她生命的最后，她真正审视了她曾走过的一切，而这给予了她更多的智慧。我们知道她会给她的孩子们打电话，给他们的语音电话上留下长长的信息。在她的一封电话留言中，我们发现，关于她的生活，她曾真的很想通过这首诗向她的儿子传递些什么。将你最好的东西给予这个世界，不然你就会迎来当头一棒。不管怎样，把你最好的东西留给这个世界。在诗中，她对他说：“你知道，你可能会迎来当头一棒。你可能会觉得世界对你从未了解，也从未盛赞过你的伟大成就。但是你知道吗？无论如何都要去做。无论如何都要去做，因为做伟大的事情能够改变世界，能让你发现生命的意义。