January 13, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of Tech Brat, Alecia interviews Emmy Award-winning documentary director and producer, Alexandra Dean. They explore the extraordinary life of Hedy Lamarr—Hollywood icon and brilliant inventor—whose groundbreaking concept of "frequency hopping" paved the way for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Alexandra shares her journey in uncovering Lamarr’s hidden genius and discusses the broader struggles women face in tech, both past and present. The conversation delves into the ongoing gender disparities in tech funding and the urgent need for empathy, equal representation, and systemic change in today’s political and technological landscape.
Links from this episode:
- Watch Alex's documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, on Apple TV
- Check out her other documentary, This Is Paris
- Follow Alex on Twitter and Instagram
Join the movement at techbrat.fm
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alecia (host) (00:00):
I'm Alecia Vogel, and this is Tech Brat.
On November 9th, 1914, inVienna, Austria, a star
by the name of Hedwig EvaMaria Kiesler was born.
(00:21):
From the moment she couldspeak, Hedy was asking
questions, eager to understandthe world around her.
As a child, she had a habit oftaking apart music boxes and
putting them back together,Fascinated by how their
intricate mechanisms worked.
Her father nurtured thiscuriosity by taking Hedy
on long strolls throughVienna, discussing science
(00:41):
and engineering as they went.
Little did he know that thesame music, gears, and motion
that fascinated his daughterwould one day inspire a
technology that would changeglobal communication forever.
Hedy developed apenchant for acting.
(01:02):
and it wasn't longbefore Vienna's film
industry took note.
While attending acting classes,she forged a note from her mom
in order to land a job as ascript girl for Sasha Film, the
largest Austrian film productioncompany of the early sound era.
Her presence on set soonled to small roles, each
performance garnering morerecognition than the last.
(01:23):
Then, at the age of 18 in1933, Hedy was catapulted
to fame and infamy withthe release of Ecstasy.
A provocative and groundbreakingart film that boldly depicted
female nudity and pleasure.
Among those who were captivatedand scandalized was Fritz Mandl,
a wealthy Austrian arms dealer.
In the months followingEcstasy's release, he
(01:46):
persistently sought tomeet her backstage at her
plays and showered her withextravagant gifts in an
attempt to win her over.
However, once they werefinally wed, his admiration
quickly turned into control.
Deeply embarrassed by themere existence of Ecstasy,
Mandel reportedly spentthe equivalent of over 6.
5 million in an unsuccessfulattempt to buy and destroy
(02:08):
every existing copy of the film.
Forced to abandon her actingcareer by her husband,
Hedy was required to endureexcruciatingly dull and stifling
dinner parties with high rankingmilitary officials and industry
leaders, many of whom haddirect ties to the Nazi regime.
As war tensions escalatedand anti Semitism spread,
(02:29):
Hedy realized that she hadto escape, not just from an
oppressive marriage, but fromthe growing danger in Europe.
In 1937, Hedy devisedan escape plan.
She hired a maid whoresembled her, sewed jewels
into a maid's uniform, andfled to London in disguise.
There, she crossed pathswith the head of MGM Studios
while he was scoutingfor European talent.
(02:50):
And she soon began a brandnew life in Hollywood with a
contract for 500 a week, themoniker of the most beautiful
woman in the world, and anew stage name, Hedy Lamarr.
Despite all the glitz andglam of her newfound American
fame, Hedy couldn't helpfeeling preoccupied by the
war raging in her homeland.
In an effort to contributeto the war effort in a more
(03:11):
meaningful way, she teamedup with avant garde composer
George Antille and inventeda communication system
called frequency hopping.
Hedy Drawing inspiration fromself playing piano mechanisms.
Upon presentingher plans to the U.
S.
Navy, she was basically laughedout of the room and advised
to use her beautiful imageto sell war bonds instead.
(03:31):
However, the Navy secretlyrevisited her frequency
hopping patent just a few yearslater, where it would go on
to become the foundation ofmodern wireless communication.
Today, I'm joined by AlexandraDeen, the director of Bombshell,
The Hedy Lamarr Story, todiscuss Hedy's incredible
journey and the broaderchallenges faced by women
(03:52):
in tech, both then and now.
Thank you so muchfor joining me, Alex.
So to start, what firstdrew you to Hedy Lamarr's
story and what inspiredyou to create Bombshell?
Alex Dean (04:03):
When I started working on the Bombshell
story, I was taking a huge leapmyself from a corporate job.
Where I think I was reallyfeeling some depression that
I hadn't recognized yet.
I was working at BloombergTelevision and I was working
on a series called Innovators,which was about people who
were inventing things today.
And I really fell madly in lovewith a lot of these stories and
(04:25):
a lot of these young inventors,including young women like
Lamora Freed and, um, Otherswho are creating these great
inventions and many of themwere not getting funding.
And I started to realizethat it was the ladies,
it was the girls that werenot getting the funding.
And I started to get reallyfrustrated about that because
I kept reporting on thisreally exciting technology
and it wasn't getting made.
(04:46):
And I started tothink about why, why.
Do we trust these young menmore than these young women
to make their technologies?
So I took this huge leap,started a company with my
brother, and we started workingon what we wanted to do first.
And I kind of latched ontothe story of Patti Lamar
because there were a coupleof books that had come out
about her that were suggestingshe may have come up with
(05:06):
this major invention that weall use every day because it
affected Bluetooth and Wi Fi.
Yet she was dismissed andnobody understood her because
she was the most beautifulgirl in the world at the time.
That was what her moniker was.
She was an actress.
She was a gandolous woman whohad been in a very, very sexy
(05:26):
movie when she was young.
And that's kind of whatpeople knew her for.
They just couldn't acceptthat this very pretty
actress could be the brainbehind one of the most major
inventions of our time.
Alecia (host) (05:38):
That's crazy.
And what you said earlyon about how There's this
exciting technology and,you know, why do we trust
these young male inventors,not the female inventors?
When I was actually doingresearch for this podcast,
I came across a stat thatonly 3 percent of, of venture
capital funding goes to women.
And if you have a femalefounder, your chances of getting
(06:00):
funded actually go down, whichis actually kind of insane.
So, you're definitely notalone in being like, what
the heck is going on here?
Um, it's actually kind of ahuge problem, I think even
in my province of Alberta,because I'm quoting the US
statistics usually, becauseI was working in US tech, but
even in Alberta, it's like, Ithink only around 20 percent of
(06:21):
funding goes to female founders.
That's depressing.
Alex Dean (06:24):
Depressing.
It hasn't changed sinceI started working on
Bombshell in 2014.
Oh my god, yeah.
I hope it's better now.
I hope it's betterthan it was in 2014.
Please God.
But yeah, we needed torethink and invent our world.
And why do we only have certainpeople inventing our world?
Nobody else can getaccess to the funding.
Alecia (host) (06:43):
Were there any surprises that changed the
direction of the documentarywhile you were working on it?
So many.
Because when
Alex Dean (06:50):
I began the work on Bombshell, the idea that
she was really the brainbehind this invention called
frequency hopping, whichbecomes the basis for Wi Fi
and Bluetooth and GPS, the ideathat she was the brains behind
that was basically a rumor.
It had been explored by somebrilliant people, but there was
no kind of hard evidence of herclaiming the invention herself.
(07:14):
And so I spent The beginningof the kind of adventure of
making bombshell, looking forthat smoking gun so that I could
really make the argument she haddone this and it wasn't her co
inventor and it wasn't stolenfrom an ex lover, you know,
there were all these theories.
Wow.
Alecia (host) (07:31):
I had no idea that's so insane.
That was the lead
Alex Dean (07:35):
historian at the
Alecia (host) (07:36):
time.
So I'm assuming thishistorian was male, right?
Alex Dean (07:41):
And he knew her.
He'd met her.
Oh! He had met her twice.
And he was a huge movie buffand a fan of her movies.
And there was a movie inwhich she plays a spy.
It's a comedy.
And he had a poster ofthat movie, and he bought
her earrings where shelooked like the character
she played in that movie.
And she wore them, so hebought them in tribute.
(08:04):
And then he had banned, inhis work, this theory that
she had stolen the technologyfrom, uh, Being around her
husband, who's a munitionsmanufacturer, and basic, she
even posited she might'vehidden it in her shoe, you know,
like a blueprint of some kindin her shoe on her way over.
So that was actually thebiggest theory that I had to
(08:24):
debunk because he'd met her.
He claimed to have recorded aconversation with her in her
lobby that was part of hishistory of spread spectrum.
Then I found a smoking gun.
that he was misrepresentingin editing history.
Cause I found an original, uh,email correspondence between
him and Hedy's son, whereHedy's son says, what did she
(08:46):
tell you in that interview?
And he says, she told me sheinvented frequency hopping.
And in his own reporting of whatshe said, he redacted that line.
He literally takes outthat line where she said,
I invented this in orderto replace it with this.
theory he has that she wasactually the real life character
she played on the movie screen.
Oh my gosh.
(09:08):
Yeah.
And then we found inthe notebooks that she
and her co inventor.
Right.
You know, it's all based ona new remote control that
had only come out when theywere making their technology.
So it couldn't have been ablueprint of something stolen
years before, before she leftVienna from a neck glover.
It was justliterally impossible.
(09:29):
They were showing theinsides of this new remote
control in their notebook.
Alecia (host) (09:33):
So one of the most moving parts of
the documentary is when youuncover the letter from the
Navy contractor acknowledgingHedy's contribution
to frequency hopping.
Can you tell us about how youdiscovered that letter and
what it meant for the story?
So there are two letters.
I'm not sure
Alex Dean (09:48):
which one You're referring to, they
were both the prizes.
One, we literally blindly boughta trove of letters of Hedy's
personal correspondence thatwere going up for auction.
And her correspondence was sohard to come by that we just
contacted the highest bidderand we're like, can we defray
the cost of buying this littlebit and purchase the rights to
show what's in these letters?
(10:10):
And he was like, yeah, great.
So we got scans of allthese letters that had
never been seen before.
And we were just lucky thatthere happened to be letters
in there between her and thisex boyfriend in the Navy.
Where she's trying to track downwhat happened to her invention.
And so you could see hermind and how it was working
and that she did feelownership with this invention.
She did want to knowwhat happened to it.
She understood that it wasstarting to migrate into
(10:31):
all this Navy technology.
Then the other letter was aletter from a young inventor
who wanted to actually giveher a tribute because he'd
started to realize that shewas in fact the Hedy Kiesler
on her patent, you know, thatthat was actually Hedy Lamarr.
And he wanted the world to know.
Famous actress was actually thisbrilliant invention, inventor.
(10:52):
And he was putting her inventioninto missiles, which was
sort of the beginning of itmigrating into the kind of
GPS technology we know today.
And he happened to havewritten this tribute, and it
was just really lucky it wasstill on the Wayback Machine
that was just on the internet.
So it wasn't even likeon a public website.
It was on the Wayback Machine.
(11:14):
I believe so, yeah, it'sbeen a long time, but I think
that's how we found that.
We knew about it becausehe'd actually gotten her this
award, her first award, whichyou see footage of in the,
in the documentary where herson is, you know, gets that
phone call from her on stage.
That award wasengineered by him.
So we knew that he had beenthe one who discovered in the
(11:36):
technology world that she'd donethis thing and had brought it
to the attention of the IEEE.
Alecia (host) (11:43):
So Anthony Loder, her son, was that Is this his
first time seeing any of thattribute to her when he was
reading it in the documentary?
Alex Dean (11:56):
Not quite.
He had grown up with hersort of telling the story
and had just been likedeeply confused about it.
That's true.
Understandably.
Right?
Yeah, like, what?
You invented what?
I don't understand.
But she would also talk aboutall sorts of other inventions
she had tried to make thathadn't necessarily taken off.
Yeah.
And it was all kind of kooky.
(12:16):
You know, he's like, shehad some sort of stoplight
she was always working on.
It was all meshed, mashedup with that stuff.
Rumor.
And, and he said at some pointshe did go up in the attic and
bring down a patent or two and,but she had patents for more
than the frequency hopping.
She had like three patents.
And then he himself got a jobselling early car phones and
(12:38):
realized that the technologythey were talking about was
literally frequency hoppingin these early car phones.
And sort of started toconnect the dots that, Oh,
mom is saying she inventedthis technology, this going
into these early car phones.
And so he was a little bitbanging the pot already saying,
Hey, I think my mom inventedsomething important here.
When he started to get contactedby these engineers that said
(13:00):
the same thing back to him.
So he was the first personwho was like, Oh, my mom
should be recognized for this.
I think he literallydidn't know for a long
time how to tell the world.
Alecia (host) (13:09):
Do you think Hedy's story would be different
if she lived in today's world?
You know, that
Alex Dean (13:14):
was one of the biggest questions I kept
getting after the film cameout, because that was pre COVID
and I was literally travelingaround the world with it,
talking to different audiencesin different countries.
And people kept asking me,could this happen today?
And in the middle of that,I got a call from Paris
Hilton, who turned out to bemy next documentary subject.
And she literally was saying,I think I'm like Hedy Lamarr.
(13:38):
Like I have this storynobody knows and this
persona nobody knows.
And they just think of me asa scandal and a faith and a
persona character that I play.
And because sheframed it that way.
And because that was aquestion I had at the time,
(13:58):
I was really intrigued.
And that became the documentarycalled This is Paris about, um,
You know, this woman who, tomy mind, actually is a very,
very brilliant business mind.
She made half a milliondollars herself.
She's also becomea major activist.
And all of that was hiddenby the fact that she is this
(14:21):
scandalous figure in our minds.
And so, you know, unlockingher story, I have to say,
was very, very similar tounlocking Hedy Lamarr's.
They're very parallel seekers.
I mean, Paris didn't comeup with an invention, but.
She has actually affected ourlives in many ways, if you start
looking closely at the amountthat Paris has put out into
(14:42):
the world and what she's behindand been swollen in, in saying.
Alecia (host) (14:47):
Yeah, when, when your documentary about her
came out, I was just absolutelyblown away because I grew up
at a time where Her first bigreality show, like out on the
farm, I can't remember it.
The Simple Life.
The Simple Life, yes.
Um, I just remember growing upwith those narratives about her
being so ditzy and so stupidand like, you know, the show in
(15:08):
a way, like looking back on itis kind of like satirical and
like, it's funny, but like, youknow, back then I was only like
maybe 11 or 12 when it came outand I was just sort of like, oh,
I'm not going to be like them.
They're stupid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it makes me sadbecause I can see now how
business savvy she is andjust the code switching she
does with her voice, or she'stalking to the media, she
(15:29):
turns around and her voicedeepens and you're like, oh.
That's not her voice.
Alex Dean (15:35):
It's not the one that we know.
And of course, studyingwomen like this is you
start to realize how we aswomen navigate the culture
differently than men often.
Alecia (host) (15:44):
Oh, absolutely.
The media coverage you showcasedin the documentary actually
kind of reminded me of howthe press has covered Taylor
Swift's romances because ofhow Hedy was married six times.
And this oftendominated the narrative.
around her in the press.
So from your perspective,in what ways has the
conversation around women'sachievements versus their
person, personal lives evolved?
(16:06):
And where do you think we stillsee similar patterns today?
Alex Dean (16:09):
I think you're right about Taylor Swift.
I think we're in a reallyinteresting moment right now of
a kind of a backlash to Me Tooand a feeling that women have
now dominated the narrativelong enough and we don't have
to pay attention anymore tothese very persistent issues.
(16:30):
that kind of come up whenyou talk about women in tech,
particularly, where women arejust still not treated with
the same gravity, not treatedwith the same seriousness, and
it really does still manifestitself in problems like not
seeing women founders inany of these major companies
coming out, not seeing womenowning the technology behind
(16:52):
these major new companies.
And you'd think, okay,it's under representation.
Boo hoo.
Really, it starts to be a majorissue when you look at the power
players in the world today.
Who is really pullingthe levers of power?
And it's still all whitemen, who have enormous
amounts of power, that all,if you think about it, stem
(17:16):
from the fact that we only,only take them seriously as
inventors and as pioneers.
And is that the worldwe want to live in?
Where, yeah, we pay lip serviceto diversity, But in truth,
we give power to one groupagain and again and again.
And they do what theywant with it and treat the
rest of the way they want.
So.
Everything else justbecomes performative.
(17:36):
It's not real change.
Alecia (host) (17:38):
I can relate so hard to that, because during
some of my job searches, Iwas approached by companies
doing some really cool work.
I'm not going to lie.
There were some reallycool projects that I
was approached about.
But then when I actually askedthem, how many female leaders
do you have in your company?
HR person?
And do you have anysenior female engineers?
(17:59):
Do you have anyone inproject management who is
senior, who is a woman?
Do you have anyonein the C suite?
And a lot of the timesthey were telling me no,
99 percent of the time alsoI would be the first woman
joining the company, period.
They liked the idea ofinclusivity, but they were
really not paying attentionto creating an environment
(18:19):
that was actually inclusivefor women, because I could
see myself joining andthen still just being.
overlooked or not beingreally taken seriously because
they're used to dealing withmen and they just have these
inherent ideas about what itmeans to work with a woman.
So, I can relate to a lotof what you just said.
It's very frustrating.
Alex Dean (18:40):
Frustrating.
And there's a question in mymind about why are you joining
all male spaces all the time?
How would that happen?
And of course it comesback to this funding.
Why are so many youngwomen with these brilliant
ideas not getting funded?
And that's what I,this all came from.
I was in a privileged positionfor two years to interview many,
(19:00):
many brilliant female inventors.
So it's not likethey're not out there.
Alecia (host) (19:06):
I just also find it so interesting that the
whole industry of technology.
Stems from women.
Like the firstprogrammer, Ada Lovelace.
Women were basicallybeing hired as these human
calculators, and it was seenas busy work that, you know,
men were too good to do.
And then all of a sudden, thetables turned, and they're like,
oh, this is actually important.
Never mind, we want this back.
(19:27):
Same with
Alex Dean (19:27):
filmmakers, by the way.
A lot of the firstfilmmakers are women.
Really?
Many, many.
Wow.
And then that industryconsolidated, it became women.
Based in California, the powerplayers took over and suddenly
the women were pushed out.
But a lot of the earlierdirectors were women.
Alecia (host) (19:43):
So why was it so controversial when
Hedy went overseas to Italyand did her big directed
movie and it bombed?
It seemed kind of like, oh,you think you're so special?
Like why would you do this?
Well, that was my interpretation
Alex Dean (19:59):
at least.
Because she was in the era ofthe Backlash to that, to the
women dominated, um, which wasreally still before the talkies.
So, you know, Hedy's, Hedy'strying to compete in the
very male dominated studiosystem era where men handpick
other men to write movies.
(20:20):
It's become, you know, theexact opposite, and she's like,
wait a second, because she hassuch an interesting free mind.
She's like, I'm amajor movie actress.
I'm going to shake up thisproduct and make my own films.
She was also maybe slightlyover inflated sense
of her own abilities.
And so some of thesethings blow up in her face.
But God bless her for it.
(20:41):
Thank God she did or shenever would have come up
with frequency happening.
Do
Alecia (host) (20:45):
you think Hedy ever experienced
imposter syndrome?
No.
Alex Dean (20:49):
I think that she experienced being, what I
think what we would now say wasmaybe like, you had today, very
modern woman's brain in thebody of a woman trapped in 1945.
So she was like, whatthe fuck all the time?
What the fuck iswrong with this place?
Why can't I do this?
(21:09):
If I want this plastic surgery,I'm going to invent it.
If I want the fountainof youth, I'm going to
invest in pure meth, whichI think is vitamin B12.
You know, she just wasgoing to fit everything.
Because the world, toher mind, was wrong,
and she had incredibleconviction about that.
And the world did turn out toagree with her in many ways,
but never to compensate heror recognize her for her.
Alecia (host) (21:31):
How did it feel to see the impact of
your documentary and the wayit has helped bring Hedy's
contributions to tech backinto public conversation?
Alex Dean (21:39):
Oh my god, it felt incredible.
It was my first film,and it took me Two years
of really making it andediting it and another two
years of planning and thengetting it out in the world.
So really my baby.
Um, I felt like I justgave everything in my
heart and soul to Hedy.
Like I, I left itall on the floor.
I had two smallbabies at the time.
(22:01):
I was like, what am I doing?
I remember coming home one nightjust like weeping and there
was like ice on the trees andI felt like the whole world
was falling apart and this filmwas never going to get made.
And then at some point thefilm kind of came together,
became its own being.
Hedy started to speak throughit and now I have the sense
that it takes care of me.
(22:22):
People reach out to me aboutit, that Hedy is almost reaching
out to me through people andit feels like this, you know,
enormous boulder that I pushedup the mountain, you know,
now has sort of transformed,transmogrified into this
gift that just keeps givingback to the world and to me
and I'm awed and astonished.
Did that happen?
Alecia (host) (22:43):
The archival footage and interviews in
Bombshell brought Hedy's storyto life in a very personal way.
How did you choose whatto include and were there
any discoveries or storiesthat didn't make it into
the final cut that you wishyou could have included?
Alex Dean (22:57):
So many.
I had a brilliant editor consultwith me because I was doing a
lot of the editing on Bombshellmyself toward the end and I
had a brilliant editor calledPenny Falk who came in and said,
it's great editing, it's justrolling boulders out of the way.
You've got to roll all theboulders out of all the
things you're attached toand you've got to let the
narrative just rush through.
(23:18):
And there were alot of boulders.
There were a lot of thingsthat I was emotionally attached
to that just didn't fit.
Alecia (host) (23:25):
You've had the chance to speak to many
experts, historians, and familymembers in telling Hedy's story.
Was there a particularinterview or moment during the
production that deeply impactedyour understanding of her?
Alex Dean (23:35):
So the hardest thing about telling Hedy's story was
that there was this myth of thisbrilliant young woman who had
come up with frequency hopping.
And then if you talk toher friends and relatives,
the woman who they talkedabout was not that brilliant
young woman at all.
She was somebody with a veryscrambled brain who had been
arrested for shoplifting andhad botched plastic surgery
and had been a recluseand turned out had hit her
(23:57):
children and horrible things.
And I was like, howon earth am I going to
connect these two humans?
How does that, how doesthat happen to someone?
So in terms of understandingheading, one of the most
important discoveries wasactually very serendipitous.
It was that this bookwas coming out about Dr.
Feelgood, who had been JFK'sdoctor and who was developing
(24:19):
this particular form of meth.
And when I got a copy of Dr.
Feelgood's patient lesson andHedy Lamarr was on it, that was
a total eureka moment becausethrough that conversation, I
realized there was a transcriptof a, of somebody else's
manuscript for a book in whichwe were told that Hedy was Dr.
(24:40):
Fielgood's patient that Hedyhad started taking injections
of this meth and had actuallybeen funding him because she
thought this was an elixirof youth and she thought they
were going to help childrenwith multiple sclerosis.
And she was offering herselfup as a test subject, but
she was injecting pure methfrom the age of about 40.
(25:01):
So of course that createda scrambled brain.
He messed with her ownbrain as his test subject.
And she broke thisbeautiful brain.
She broke herself.
That's where a lot of theviolence came through.
A lot of the really crazydecisions later in life.
She was a math addict,but she didn't know it
because really she thoughtshe was helping science.
(25:23):
And that was likethe key for me.
Alecia (host) (25:25):
And it wasn't just that it was
like fountain of youth.
He was administering thismedication saying it was
like vitamin B shots or
Alex Dean (25:32):
something?
Vitamin B12, yeah.
So she didn't actuallyknow that it was meth.
She thought, He understood thatthere was something, he had a,
you know, I think he used likegoat sperm and stuff as well.
He was a really crazy guy.
He was also one of the,uh, doctors that the
Nazis had taken a lot ofhis research and used it.
All of the Nazi soldiersinvolved in the Blitzkrieg were
(25:54):
taking, it was developed by Dr.
Fielden.
So he was a tremendouslynot well regarded, famous,
he was a famous doctor.
And so I think she feltprivileged to be part
of him developing this.
Miracle drug that was goingto help all of these children.
And so she, she offeredherself up as a test subject.
And of course, she alsowanted the fountain of
youth for herself becauseshe had been the most
(26:17):
beautiful girl in the world.
And I, I found that maleinterviewers find this very
hard to understand, but nowoman I've ever talked to has
found this hard to understand.
When you're a young woman andyou are worshipped for your
beauty, it is very, very, veryhard to let go because there's
a power there that as women, wenever find again, many times.
And for Hedy, she wasthe most beautiful.
(26:40):
She wasn't just beautiful.
She was so beautiful, they wrotesongs about her being the most
beautiful girl in the world.
And so her power, as faras she was concerned, in
her world came from that.
And she was going to protectit any way she could.
However, I think in Hedy'scase, she wanted that power, not
for some narcissistic reason.
(27:01):
But because she thought shewas so brilliant and was
going to fix the world andpeople needed to keep paying
attention to her and givingher support and funding,
which of course they didn't.
And instead of helpingherself stay young forever,
she butchered her ownplastic surgery and injected
herself with meth and becamea recluse or a shoplifter.
So that's the tragedy of it.
But I think women canunderstand the parable much
(27:24):
better than men, um, becausewe live it in small ways.
Alecia (host) (27:29):
Yeah, I can't help but draw a parallel to one
of the most recent episodes ofGrey's Anatomy in season 21.
Oh my god, the showis still going.
I had no idea.
And I can't stop watching it.
I just paid for the subscriptionfor the whole new season on
YouTube, so I'm funding this.
Shonda Rhimes is that good.
(27:49):
Who's that good?
Oh, man.
She's so good.
But in the most recent episode,I think it was episode three
of this new season, theytouch on this subject a
little bit when they have apatient come in who got a BBL,
a Brazilian butt lift, whogets a flesh eating bacteria
infection in her soft tissue.
One of the residents commentslike, why would she do this?
(28:10):
Why would somebody dothis to themselves?
They have a slightmonologue about how.
In order to be takenseriously as a woman, you
have to be attractive.
If you don't feel attractiveand if you feel like you're
not being perceived in thatway, it's understandable
that you would seek outways to get that power back.
So definitely concede even, youknow, 60, 70 years later, that's
(28:32):
still sadly very true, it seems.
Yeah, and
Alex Dean (28:36):
now it's not as obvious as the kind of plastic
surgery that Hedy was doing, butyou know, who doesn't have this
conversation with themselvesas they get older about Botox?
Every American woman, I think.
Every single one.
Alecia (hos (28:48):
Preventative Botox.
Preventative Botox
Alex Dean (28:50):
and creams and like, you know, we're
sold things to, you know,what are we trying to be
attractive to 20 year old men?
No.
We're trying to maintainour place in society and
not become invisible.
Alecia (host) (29:00):
What advice would you give to other filmmakers
or storytellers who want tobring the stories of overlooked
women in history to light?
Alex Dean (29:07):
I
Alecia (host) (29:07):
think
Alex Dean (29:09):
you're looking for a story when you try and go
out there and tell a storylike Hedy Lamarr's, you're
looking for a story withthat element of surprise.
You know, we're notsurprised, I think, in 2024.
I hope we're not surprisedthat women do amazing things.
Uh, we are surprised by Someother element of the story.
So in Hedy's case, that thiswoman who was also the most
(29:32):
beautiful girl in the world, whowas also known for doing this
orgasm on screen, or in Paris'scase, this woman who's known
for being a ditz in the funnyshow or doing a sex tape, that
that woman is brilliant becausewe're meeting our audience
where they are right now andour audience right now thinks
women can do brilliant things,but not also be powerful in that
(29:53):
gorgeous ditzy or whatever way.
So.
You have to surpriseyour audience.
So you have to find that subjectwho subverts expectation today.
And if you don't have a storywhere the subject subverts
expectations, but they arebrilliant, you need to tell
us why else we need to care.
(30:15):
You know, I think the thingis, we don't want to reduce
women to two dimensionswhen we're celebrating
their brilliance either.
They aren't just brains.
They are living,breathing humans.
And we have.
told the story of brilliantmen in three dimensional
ways for a long time, butwe seem to struggle with
that when it comes to women.
(30:35):
And so I encourage peopleto look at women as three
dimensional beings and tonot shy away from their
dark sides, shade as wellas to draw the light.
And that then becomes a hook,like, tell us about, you know,
is this a woman who struggledto keep her family together
or, you know, in Paris'scase was abused in a boarding
(30:55):
school and so traumatizedshe created this character.
What is it that is the keyto this person's character
that maybe we overlookbecause we just don't draw
women in three dimensions?
Alecia (host) (31:05):
If the pre Dr.
Feelgood version of HedyLamarr was still alive
today, what's one questionyou would love to ask her?
Alex Dean (31:14):
I had a dream about that one.
I was actually talking toHedy Lamarr as a young woman.
It was extraordinary.
I'd love to talk to herabout what's next right now.
For us, I think, you know,particularly in America, we're
in a really precarious position.
I don't know if we'll ever beable to kind of move on from
what I think was the mostpowerful moment I've seen in my
lifetime, which is around 2018.
(31:35):
We were really in a conversationabout looking at women's history
differently and understandinghow women were kept back.
And all of that has now gotten alittle bit lost in the backlash.
And I'm really curious what, howdo you think is next for women?
How do we keep?
talking furiously aboutthese problems so that we
can change them in a worldthat doesn't seem to want
(31:56):
to have that conversation.
Alecia (host) (31:58):
What do you hope viewers who maybe are
just hearing about Hedy Lamarrfor the first time or haven't
watched your documentary yet,what do you hope they take
away from her story and yourwork in bringing it to light?
Alex Dean (32:13):
I really hope when people watch any of my work it's
always about can you just bea little bit more empathetic?
Suspend your judgmentfor a minute.
Especially with women, butyou know, people we just point
and laugh, or we just dismissquickly because, because
it's fun to feel superior tosomebody else, or it's easier
(32:34):
to just live in a world wherewe shove people in categories.
But I think that one of themajor impediment to having
a really diverse societywhere everybody, you know,
is on equal footing, wejudge each other too quickly.
Too easily, and we thinkthat only one group can
be lifted up and everybodyelse has to be pushed down.
(32:54):
And even if we're changing whichgroup that is, we turn around
and judge the other group.
I particularly think thatabout this next generation
of women, younger than me,the people in their twenties
are extremely judgmentaland I'm really shocked and
saddened by that because Ithink instead of enlarging
our empathy, we're enlargingour judgmental muscles.
(33:16):
And really my argumenthas always been.
We need to enlarge our entity.
That's how we're going to startto lead the world together as a
diverse group, instead of apart.
How do we share power?
How do we respect each other?
How do we include allof our stories and make
sure no one is excluded?
Nobody is judged.
(33:36):
Nobody is betterthan anyone else.
You know, that.
It's what I've always beenfighting for and I can't
believe it feels likeit's getting further away
despite all of our work.
Alecia (host) (33:45):
Especially in tech where we're having a
lot more conversations aboutuser experience and human
centric design decisions.
A lot of that allstems from empathy.
Good product design isinherently related to empathy.
You need to be able to putyourself in somebody else's
shoes and not only solve aproblem for them, but understand
(34:05):
how they're going to navigateyour product when they don't
have an understanding ofhow it's supposed to work.
Like, you already know,you have a cognitive bias.
You already know how to getfrom point A to point B.
So when you see somebody like anine year old man struggling to
get through the system to payhis bills on time online, you
just go, oh, well, he's stupid.
Like, that's no way todesign a product, right?
(34:27):
And It's also interestingto me that around this, I
think it was like the 1960s,there was a sociology study
that came out about howthe most profitable, ideal
employee to have as a softwareengineer is a sociopathic
man, like an anti-social man.
(34:47):
And a lot of this actuallyled to the dismissal of women
from the tech industry inthe UK specifically, but.
You know, even just lookingat the sort of, um, What is
the word I'm looking for?
You know the people whodo like the silly drawings
of people on the street?
Do you know them?
(35:07):
Caricatures?
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
There's this caricature oflike, when you think of a
nerd or an engineer, you'rethinking of like an anti
social guy who doesn't goout, he doesn't get women, he
just cares about his stupidvideo games or like, you know.
Whatever, doesn't leave hisbasement, that sort of stuff.
I'd love to see a day wherewhen we think of somebody who's
(35:30):
a nerd or somebody who's techliterate, we don't just default
to, oh, it's just like this.
Antisocial dude and stuff.
And I feel like a lot ofthat stuff surrounding that
study actually prevented usfrom better product design
sooner because there's atendency to lean more towards
profitability instead of empathyand designing things that'll
be easy to understand andeasy to navigate for people,
(35:53):
if that makes any sense.
Alex Dean (35:54):
Well, I I'm, I'm working on a novel, my
first novel, and it's about.
a world in which, funnilyenough, my main character is
testing AI for human feel.
She's part of what'scalled the human feel lab.
I think part of why I said itthere is I wanted to talk about
the problem with technology,that it is so designed without
(36:16):
empathy and without real, areal feeling of how it was
going to be used in the future,that then, you know, we're
going to have this huge issuewhen we start to use it as
our cares or the keepers ofour memory, whatever it is.
We're, we're gonna find outhow flawed it really is because
of who designed it and how.
And it's going to impact ourhuman lives because what we need
(36:38):
more than anything is empathy.
Alecia (host) (36:40):
Yeah.
I think there's even like aquote that I read somewhere
from IBM about how tonever let a computer make
a managerial decision.
It kind of takes a lot ofthat human element out.
That's right.
In a, in a way.
Alex Dean (36:54):
Yes, it does.
Yeah.
And we are going to rely onit more and more because we're
going to be able to mimichumanity better and better.
But.
You have to always thinkabout who's designing it.
Like we're starting tounderstand bias in computer
systems, but it goes somuch deeper than bias.
It's, it becomes a way todiscriminate against people,
to pass judgment on people,all of our worst trait can
(37:16):
be amplified as well, by AI.
So we need a diverse groupof people creating the world
we're about to live in.
Alecia (host) (37:22):
You just reminded me of this story
from early on in my career.
I was working at this companythat was building proctoring
software and they wereintroducing this like bio
recognition system where itwould, it would try to match
your typing patterns and itwould do facial recognition
(37:44):
and you had to pass all thesetests before starting an exam.
It was a team of all whitemale engineers, and I just
kind of raised my hand in ademo that they were giving to
the company, and I just asked,did you test this on anyone
who is not white or male?
And they go, they look, they'relike, they look at me, and they
(38:04):
look at each other, and they'relike, actually, we didn't.
I'm like, you understand?
You might actually beunintentionally creating another
barrier for people of colorand women if they can't log in
to take their licensing exams.
So luckily they did go backand they, they verified
that everything was okay.
But I was like, howdid they not think of
Alex Dean (38:21):
this?
How did they not think of that?
Exactly.
Empathy.
Unless we are all makingthese, this future together
and making sure to put inthe, you know, the traits we
have that are maybe not as.
It's commonly recognizedas financially viable and
desirable in capitalism.
Like empathy.
If we're not putting thosetraits in intentionally,
(38:41):
nah, we will suffer later.
Alecia (host) (38:45):
So what is next for Alexandra Dean?
My next series is coming out in
Alex Dean (38:52):
April, uh, about the Judd family.
It's about Naomi Judd, whokilled herself very tragically.
The night before, she wasinducted into the Hall of Fame
as one of the most celebratedcountry singers of all time,
told by her two daughters,Ashley and Wynonna Judd.
And it's really about therelationships between mothers
(39:14):
and their daughters, and howwe help each other and form
each other, and also how wedeal with generational trauma.
And it turned out tobe, for me, a very, very
beautiful experience.
I learned a lot fromthe Judd sisters.
And we found some music thathad never been heard before.
It became the soundtrackto the song, including a
very gorgeous song thatshe left for her daughters
(39:37):
about them going out intothe light and becoming their
best selves after she died.
That was a reallybeautiful series and I
hope everyone watches it.
Alecia (host) (39:45):
Thank you so much for joining me.
I think I learned even moreabout Hedy somehow, despite
all the research, the filmI watched and everything.
It was really coolto sit down with you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure.
As we close out today'sepisode, I want to highlight
Bombshell, the Hedy Lamarrstory, which was directed by
my guest today, Alexandra Dean.
(40:07):
This documentary dives deep intoHedy's life, her struggles, and
her groundbreaking contributionsto wireless communication.
You can find links towhere you can watch it in
the episode description.
When I reflect on Hedy Lamarr'sstory, it's hard to ignore
the parallels between herstruggles for recognition
and the challenges stillfaced by women in tech today.
(40:29):
Just last week, Mark Zuckerbergannounced the erosion of DEI
initiatives at META, a movethat signals yet another
barrier For marginalizedvoices in the industry.
It's a reminder thatprogress is never guaranteed.
We must continue to upliftand support the innovators
who are too often overlooked.
Anyways, thank you so muchfor joining me today for
(40:52):
this episode of Tech Brat.
I'm your host, Alecia Vogel,and if you want to learn
more about the podcast orfind more episodes, you
can find us at techbrat.
fm.
Until next time, stay curious!And continue to fight for the
recognition that you deserve.
I'm Alecia Vogel, and this is Tech Brat.
On November 9th, 1914, inVienna, Austria, a star
by the name of Hedwig EvaMaria Kiesler was born.
(00:21):
From the moment she couldspeak, Hedy was asking
questions, eager to understandthe world around her.
As a child, she had a habit oftaking apart music boxes and
putting them back together,Fascinated by how their
intricate mechanisms worked.
Her father nurtured thiscuriosity by taking Hedy
on long strolls throughVienna, discussing science
(00:41):
and engineering as they went.
Little did he know that thesame music, gears, and motion
that fascinated his daughterwould one day inspire a
technology that would changeglobal communication forever.
Hedy developed apenchant for acting.
(01:02):
and it wasn't longbefore Vienna's film
industry took note.
While attending acting classes,she forged a note from her mom
in order to land a job as ascript girl for Sasha Film, the
largest Austrian film productioncompany of the early sound era.
Her presence on set soonled to small roles, each
performance garnering morerecognition than the last.
(01:23):
Then, at the age of 18 in1933, Hedy was catapulted
to fame and infamy withthe release of Ecstasy.
A provocative and groundbreakingart film that boldly depicted
female nudity and pleasure.
Among those who were captivatedand scandalized was Fritz Mandl,
a wealthy Austrian arms dealer.
In the months followingEcstasy's release, he
(01:46):
persistently sought tomeet her backstage at her
plays and showered her withextravagant gifts in an
attempt to win her over.
However, once they werefinally wed, his admiration
quickly turned into control.
Deeply embarrassed by themere existence of Ecstasy,
Mandel reportedly spentthe equivalent of over 6.
5 million in an unsuccessfulattempt to buy and destroy
(02:08):
every existing copy of the film.
Forced to abandon her actingcareer by her husband,
Hedy was required to endureexcruciatingly dull and stifling
dinner parties with high rankingmilitary officials and industry
leaders, many of whom haddirect ties to the Nazi regime.
As war tensions escalatedand anti Semitism spread,
(02:29):
Hedy realized that she hadto escape, not just from an
oppressive marriage, but fromthe growing danger in Europe.
In 1937, Hedy devisedan escape plan.
She hired a maid whoresembled her, sewed jewels
into a maid's uniform, andfled to London in disguise.
There, she crossed pathswith the head of MGM Studios
while he was scoutingfor European talent.
(02:50):
And she soon began a brandnew life in Hollywood with a
contract for 500 a week, themoniker of the most beautiful
woman in the world, and anew stage name, Hedy Lamarr.
Despite all the glitz andglam of her newfound American
fame, Hedy couldn't helpfeeling preoccupied by the
war raging in her homeland.
In an effort to contributeto the war effort in a more
(03:11):
meaningful way, she teamedup with avant garde composer
George Antille and inventeda communication system
called frequency hopping.
Hedy Drawing inspiration fromself playing piano mechanisms.
Upon presentingher plans to the U.
S.
Navy, she was basically laughedout of the room and advised
to use her beautiful imageto sell war bonds instead.
(03:31):
However, the Navy secretlyrevisited her frequency
hopping patent just a few yearslater, where it would go on
to become the foundation ofmodern wireless communication.
Today, I'm joined by AlexandraDeen, the director of Bombshell,
The Hedy Lamarr Story, todiscuss Hedy's incredible
journey and the broaderchallenges faced by women
(03:52):
in tech, both then and now.
Thank you so muchfor joining me, Alex.
So to start, what firstdrew you to Hedy Lamarr's
story and what inspiredyou to create Bombshell?
Alex Dean (04:03):
When I started working on the Bombshell
story, I was taking a huge leapmyself from a corporate job.
Where I think I was reallyfeeling some depression that
I hadn't recognized yet.
I was working at BloombergTelevision and I was working
on a series called Innovators,which was about people who
were inventing things today.
And I really fell madly in lovewith a lot of these stories and
(04:25):
a lot of these young inventors,including young women like
Lamora Freed and, um, Otherswho are creating these great
inventions and many of themwere not getting funding.
And I started to realizethat it was the ladies,
it was the girls that werenot getting the funding.
And I started to get reallyfrustrated about that because
I kept reporting on thisreally exciting technology
and it wasn't getting made.
(04:46):
And I started tothink about why, why.
Do we trust these young menmore than these young women
to make their technologies?
So I took this huge leap,started a company with my
brother, and we started workingon what we wanted to do first.
And I kind of latched ontothe story of Patti Lamar
because there were a coupleof books that had come out
about her that were suggestingshe may have come up with
(05:06):
this major invention that weall use every day because it
affected Bluetooth and Wi Fi.
Yet she was dismissed andnobody understood her because
she was the most beautifulgirl in the world at the time.
That was what her moniker was.
She was an actress.
She was a gandolous woman whohad been in a very, very sexy
(05:26):
movie when she was young.
And that's kind of whatpeople knew her for.
They just couldn't acceptthat this very pretty
actress could be the brainbehind one of the most major
inventions of our time.
Alecia (host) (05:38):
That's crazy.
And what you said earlyon about how There's this
exciting technology and,you know, why do we trust
these young male inventors,not the female inventors?
When I was actually doingresearch for this podcast,
I came across a stat thatonly 3 percent of, of venture
capital funding goes to women.
And if you have a femalefounder, your chances of getting
(06:00):
funded actually go down, whichis actually kind of insane.
So, you're definitely notalone in being like, what
the heck is going on here?
Um, it's actually kind of ahuge problem, I think even
in my province of Alberta,because I'm quoting the US
statistics usually, becauseI was working in US tech, but
even in Alberta, it's like, Ithink only around 20 percent of
(06:21):
funding goes to female founders.
That's depressing.
Alex Dean (06:24):
Depressing.
It hasn't changed sinceI started working on
Bombshell in 2014.
Oh my god, yeah.
I hope it's better now.
I hope it's betterthan it was in 2014.
Please God.
But yeah, we needed torethink and invent our world.
And why do we only have certainpeople inventing our world?
Nobody else can getaccess to the funding.
Alecia (host) (06:43):
Were there any surprises that changed the
direction of the documentarywhile you were working on it?
So many.
Because when
Alex Dean (06:50):
I began the work on Bombshell, the idea that
she was really the brainbehind this invention called
frequency hopping, whichbecomes the basis for Wi Fi
and Bluetooth and GPS, the ideathat she was the brains behind
that was basically a rumor.
It had been explored by somebrilliant people, but there was
no kind of hard evidence of herclaiming the invention herself.
(07:14):
And so I spent The beginningof the kind of adventure of
making bombshell, looking forthat smoking gun so that I could
really make the argument she haddone this and it wasn't her co
inventor and it wasn't stolenfrom an ex lover, you know,
there were all these theories.
Wow.
Alecia (host) (07:31):
I had no idea that's so insane.
That was the lead
Alex Dean (07:35):
historian at the
Alecia (host) (07:36):
time.
So I'm assuming thishistorian was male, right?
Alex Dean (07:41):
And he knew her.
He'd met her.
Oh! He had met her twice.
And he was a huge movie buffand a fan of her movies.
And there was a movie inwhich she plays a spy.
It's a comedy.
And he had a poster ofthat movie, and he bought
her earrings where shelooked like the character
she played in that movie.
And she wore them, so hebought them in tribute.
(08:04):
And then he had banned, inhis work, this theory that
she had stolen the technologyfrom, uh, Being around her
husband, who's a munitionsmanufacturer, and basic, she
even posited she might'vehidden it in her shoe, you know,
like a blueprint of some kindin her shoe on her way over.
So that was actually thebiggest theory that I had to
(08:24):
debunk because he'd met her.
He claimed to have recorded aconversation with her in her
lobby that was part of hishistory of spread spectrum.
Then I found a smoking gun.
that he was misrepresentingin editing history.
Cause I found an original, uh,email correspondence between
him and Hedy's son, whereHedy's son says, what did she
(08:46):
tell you in that interview?
And he says, she told me sheinvented frequency hopping.
And in his own reporting of whatshe said, he redacted that line.
He literally takes outthat line where she said,
I invented this in orderto replace it with this.
theory he has that she wasactually the real life character
she played on the movie screen.
Oh my gosh.
(09:08):
Yeah.
And then we found inthe notebooks that she
and her co inventor.
Right.
You know, it's all based ona new remote control that
had only come out when theywere making their technology.
So it couldn't have been ablueprint of something stolen
years before, before she leftVienna from a neck glover.
It was justliterally impossible.
(09:29):
They were showing theinsides of this new remote
control in their notebook.
Alecia (host) (09:33):
So one of the most moving parts of
the documentary is when youuncover the letter from the
Navy contractor acknowledgingHedy's contribution
to frequency hopping.
Can you tell us about how youdiscovered that letter and
what it meant for the story?
So there are two letters.
I'm not sure
Alex Dean (09:48):
which one You're referring to, they
were both the prizes.
One, we literally blindly boughta trove of letters of Hedy's
personal correspondence thatwere going up for auction.
And her correspondence was sohard to come by that we just
contacted the highest bidderand we're like, can we defray
the cost of buying this littlebit and purchase the rights to
show what's in these letters?
(10:10):
And he was like, yeah, great.
So we got scans of allthese letters that had
never been seen before.
And we were just lucky thatthere happened to be letters
in there between her and thisex boyfriend in the Navy.
Where she's trying to track downwhat happened to her invention.
And so you could see hermind and how it was working
and that she did feelownership with this invention.
She did want to knowwhat happened to it.
She understood that it wasstarting to migrate into
(10:31):
all this Navy technology.
Then the other letter was aletter from a young inventor
who wanted to actually giveher a tribute because he'd
started to realize that shewas in fact the Hedy Kiesler
on her patent, you know, thatthat was actually Hedy Lamarr.
And he wanted the world to know.
Famous actress was actually thisbrilliant invention, inventor.
(10:52):
And he was putting her inventioninto missiles, which was
sort of the beginning of itmigrating into the kind of
GPS technology we know today.
And he happened to havewritten this tribute, and it
was just really lucky it wasstill on the Wayback Machine
that was just on the internet.
So it wasn't even likeon a public website.
It was on the Wayback Machine.
(11:14):
I believe so, yeah, it'sbeen a long time, but I think
that's how we found that.
We knew about it becausehe'd actually gotten her this
award, her first award, whichyou see footage of in the,
in the documentary where herson is, you know, gets that
phone call from her on stage.
That award wasengineered by him.
So we knew that he had beenthe one who discovered in the
(11:36):
technology world that she'd donethis thing and had brought it
to the attention of the IEEE.
Alecia (host) (11:43):
So Anthony Loder, her son, was that Is this his
first time seeing any of thattribute to her when he was
reading it in the documentary?
Alex Dean (11:56):
Not quite.
He had grown up with hersort of telling the story
and had just been likedeeply confused about it.
That's true.
Understandably.
Right?
Yeah, like, what?
You invented what?
I don't understand.
But she would also talk aboutall sorts of other inventions
she had tried to make thathadn't necessarily taken off.
Yeah.
And it was all kind of kooky.
(12:16):
You know, he's like, shehad some sort of stoplight
she was always working on.
It was all meshed, mashedup with that stuff.
Rumor.
And, and he said at some pointshe did go up in the attic and
bring down a patent or two and,but she had patents for more
than the frequency hopping.
She had like three patents.
And then he himself got a jobselling early car phones and
(12:38):
realized that the technologythey were talking about was
literally frequency hoppingin these early car phones.
And sort of started toconnect the dots that, Oh,
mom is saying she inventedthis technology, this going
into these early car phones.
And so he was a little bitbanging the pot already saying,
Hey, I think my mom inventedsomething important here.
When he started to get contactedby these engineers that said
(13:00):
the same thing back to him.
So he was the first personwho was like, Oh, my mom
should be recognized for this.
I think he literallydidn't know for a long
time how to tell the world.
Alecia (host) (13:09):
Do you think Hedy's story would be different
if she lived in today's world?
You know, that
Alex Dean (13:14):
was one of the biggest questions I kept
getting after the film cameout, because that was pre COVID
and I was literally travelingaround the world with it,
talking to different audiencesin different countries.
And people kept asking me,could this happen today?
And in the middle of that,I got a call from Paris
Hilton, who turned out to bemy next documentary subject.
And she literally was saying,I think I'm like Hedy Lamarr.
(13:38):
Like I have this storynobody knows and this
persona nobody knows.
And they just think of me asa scandal and a faith and a
persona character that I play.
And because sheframed it that way.
And because that was aquestion I had at the time,
(13:58):
I was really intrigued.
And that became the documentarycalled This is Paris about, um,
You know, this woman who, tomy mind, actually is a very,
very brilliant business mind.
She made half a milliondollars herself.
She's also becomea major activist.
And all of that was hiddenby the fact that she is this
(14:21):
scandalous figure in our minds.
And so, you know, unlockingher story, I have to say,
was very, very similar tounlocking Hedy Lamarr's.
They're very parallel seekers.
I mean, Paris didn't comeup with an invention, but.
She has actually affected ourlives in many ways, if you start
looking closely at the amountthat Paris has put out into
(14:42):
the world and what she's behindand been swollen in, in saying.
Alecia (host) (14:47):
Yeah, when, when your documentary about her
came out, I was just absolutelyblown away because I grew up
at a time where Her first bigreality show, like out on the
farm, I can't remember it.
The Simple Life.
The Simple Life, yes.
Um, I just remember growing upwith those narratives about her
being so ditzy and so stupidand like, you know, the show in
(15:08):
a way, like looking back on itis kind of like satirical and
like, it's funny, but like, youknow, back then I was only like
maybe 11 or 12 when it came outand I was just sort of like, oh,
I'm not going to be like them.
They're stupid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it makes me sadbecause I can see now how
business savvy she is andjust the code switching she
does with her voice, or she'stalking to the media, she
(15:29):
turns around and her voicedeepens and you're like, oh.
That's not her voice.
Alex Dean (15:35):
It's not the one that we know.
And of course, studyingwomen like this is you
start to realize how we aswomen navigate the culture
differently than men often.
Alecia (host) (15:44):
Oh, absolutely.
The media coverage you showcasedin the documentary actually
kind of reminded me of howthe press has covered Taylor
Swift's romances because ofhow Hedy was married six times.
And this oftendominated the narrative.
around her in the press.
So from your perspective,in what ways has the
conversation around women'sachievements versus their
person, personal lives evolved?
(16:06):
And where do you think we stillsee similar patterns today?
Alex Dean (16:09):
I think you're right about Taylor Swift.
I think we're in a reallyinteresting moment right now of
a kind of a backlash to Me Tooand a feeling that women have
now dominated the narrativelong enough and we don't have
to pay attention anymore tothese very persistent issues.
(16:30):
that kind of come up whenyou talk about women in tech,
particularly, where women arejust still not treated with
the same gravity, not treatedwith the same seriousness, and
it really does still manifestitself in problems like not
seeing women founders inany of these major companies
coming out, not seeing womenowning the technology behind
(16:52):
these major new companies.
And you'd think, okay,it's under representation.
Boo hoo.
Really, it starts to be a majorissue when you look at the power
players in the world today.
Who is really pullingthe levers of power?
And it's still all whitemen, who have enormous
amounts of power, that all,if you think about it, stem
(17:16):
from the fact that we only,only take them seriously as
inventors and as pioneers.
And is that the worldwe want to live in?
Where, yeah, we pay lip serviceto diversity, But in truth,
we give power to one groupagain and again and again.
And they do what theywant with it and treat the
rest of the way they want.
So.
Everything else justbecomes performative.
(17:36):
It's not real change.
Alecia (host) (17:38):
I can relate so hard to that, because during
some of my job searches, Iwas approached by companies
doing some really cool work.
I'm not going to lie.
There were some reallycool projects that I
was approached about.
But then when I actually askedthem, how many female leaders
do you have in your company?
HR person?
And do you have anysenior female engineers?
(17:59):
Do you have anyone inproject management who is
senior, who is a woman?
Do you have anyonein the C suite?
And a lot of the timesthey were telling me no,
99 percent of the time alsoI would be the first woman
joining the company, period.
They liked the idea ofinclusivity, but they were
really not paying attentionto creating an environment
(18:19):
that was actually inclusivefor women, because I could
see myself joining andthen still just being.
overlooked or not beingreally taken seriously because
they're used to dealing withmen and they just have these
inherent ideas about what itmeans to work with a woman.
So, I can relate to a lotof what you just said.
It's very frustrating.
Alex Dean (18:40):
Frustrating.
And there's a question in mymind about why are you joining
all male spaces all the time?
How would that happen?
And of course it comesback to this funding.
Why are so many youngwomen with these brilliant
ideas not getting funded?
And that's what I,this all came from.
I was in a privileged positionfor two years to interview many,
(19:00):
many brilliant female inventors.
So it's not likethey're not out there.
Alecia (host) (19:06):
I just also find it so interesting that the
whole industry of technology.
Stems from women.
Like the firstprogrammer, Ada Lovelace.
Women were basicallybeing hired as these human
calculators, and it was seenas busy work that, you know,
men were too good to do.
And then all of a sudden, thetables turned, and they're like,
oh, this is actually important.
Never mind, we want this back.
(19:27):
Same with
Alex Dean (19:27):
filmmakers, by the way.
A lot of the firstfilmmakers are women.
Really?
Many, many.
Wow.
And then that industryconsolidated, it became women.
Based in California, the powerplayers took over and suddenly
the women were pushed out.
But a lot of the earlierdirectors were women.
Alecia (host) (19:43):
So why was it so controversial when
Hedy went overseas to Italyand did her big directed
movie and it bombed?
It seemed kind of like, oh,you think you're so special?
Like why would you do this?
Well, that was my interpretation
Alex Dean (19:59):
at least.
Because she was in the era ofthe Backlash to that, to the
women dominated, um, which wasreally still before the talkies.
So, you know, Hedy's, Hedy'strying to compete in the
very male dominated studiosystem era where men handpick
other men to write movies.
(20:20):
It's become, you know, theexact opposite, and she's like,
wait a second, because she hassuch an interesting free mind.
She's like, I'm amajor movie actress.
I'm going to shake up thisproduct and make my own films.
She was also maybe slightlyover inflated sense
of her own abilities.
And so some of thesethings blow up in her face.
But God bless her for it.
(20:41):
Thank God she did or shenever would have come up
with frequency happening.
Do
Alecia (host) (20:45):
you think Hedy ever experienced
imposter syndrome?
No.
Alex Dean (20:49):
I think that she experienced being, what I
think what we would now say wasmaybe like, you had today, very
modern woman's brain in thebody of a woman trapped in 1945.
So she was like, whatthe fuck all the time?
What the fuck iswrong with this place?
Why can't I do this?
(21:09):
If I want this plastic surgery,I'm going to invent it.
If I want the fountainof youth, I'm going to
invest in pure meth, whichI think is vitamin B12.
You know, she just wasgoing to fit everything.
Because the world, toher mind, was wrong,
and she had incredibleconviction about that.
And the world did turn out toagree with her in many ways,
but never to compensate heror recognize her for her.
Alecia (host) (21:31):
How did it feel to see the impact of
your documentary and the wayit has helped bring Hedy's
contributions to tech backinto public conversation?
Alex Dean (21:39):
Oh my god, it felt incredible.
It was my first film,and it took me Two years
of really making it andediting it and another two
years of planning and thengetting it out in the world.
So really my baby.
Um, I felt like I justgave everything in my
heart and soul to Hedy.
Like I, I left itall on the floor.
I had two smallbabies at the time.
(22:01):
I was like, what am I doing?
I remember coming home one nightjust like weeping and there
was like ice on the trees andI felt like the whole world
was falling apart and this filmwas never going to get made.
And then at some point thefilm kind of came together,
became its own being.
Hedy started to speak throughit and now I have the sense
that it takes care of me.
(22:22):
People reach out to me aboutit, that Hedy is almost reaching
out to me through people andit feels like this, you know,
enormous boulder that I pushedup the mountain, you know,
now has sort of transformed,transmogrified into this
gift that just keeps givingback to the world and to me
and I'm awed and astonished.
Did that happen?
Alecia (host) (22:43):
The archival footage and interviews in
Bombshell brought Hedy's storyto life in a very personal way.
How did you choose whatto include and were there
any discoveries or storiesthat didn't make it into
the final cut that you wishyou could have included?
Alex Dean (22:57):
So many.
I had a brilliant editor consultwith me because I was doing a
lot of the editing on Bombshellmyself toward the end and I
had a brilliant editor calledPenny Falk who came in and said,
it's great editing, it's justrolling boulders out of the way.
You've got to roll all theboulders out of all the
things you're attached toand you've got to let the
narrative just rush through.
(23:18):
And there were alot of boulders.
There were a lot of thingsthat I was emotionally attached
to that just didn't fit.
Alecia (host) (23:25):
You've had the chance to speak to many
experts, historians, and familymembers in telling Hedy's story.
Was there a particularinterview or moment during the
production that deeply impactedyour understanding of her?
Alex Dean (23:35):
So the hardest thing about telling Hedy's story was
that there was this myth of thisbrilliant young woman who had
come up with frequency hopping.
And then if you talk toher friends and relatives,
the woman who they talkedabout was not that brilliant
young woman at all.
She was somebody with a veryscrambled brain who had been
arrested for shoplifting andhad botched plastic surgery
and had been a recluseand turned out had hit her
(23:57):
children and horrible things.
And I was like, howon earth am I going to
connect these two humans?
How does that, how doesthat happen to someone?
So in terms of understandingheading, one of the most
important discoveries wasactually very serendipitous.
It was that this bookwas coming out about Dr.
Feelgood, who had been JFK'sdoctor and who was developing
(24:19):
this particular form of meth.
And when I got a copy of Dr.
Feelgood's patient lesson andHedy Lamarr was on it, that was
a total eureka moment becausethrough that conversation, I
realized there was a transcriptof a, of somebody else's
manuscript for a book in whichwe were told that Hedy was Dr.
(24:40):
Fielgood's patient that Hedyhad started taking injections
of this meth and had actuallybeen funding him because she
thought this was an elixirof youth and she thought they
were going to help childrenwith multiple sclerosis.
And she was offering herselfup as a test subject, but
she was injecting pure methfrom the age of about 40.
(25:01):
So of course that createda scrambled brain.
He messed with her ownbrain as his test subject.
And she broke thisbeautiful brain.
She broke herself.
That's where a lot of theviolence came through.
A lot of the really crazydecisions later in life.
She was a math addict,but she didn't know it
because really she thoughtshe was helping science.
(25:23):
And that was likethe key for me.
Alecia (host) (25:25):
And it wasn't just that it was
like fountain of youth.
He was administering thismedication saying it was
like vitamin B shots or
Alex Dean (25:32):
something?
Vitamin B12, yeah.
So she didn't actuallyknow that it was meth.
She thought, He understood thatthere was something, he had a,
you know, I think he used likegoat sperm and stuff as well.
He was a really crazy guy.
He was also one of the,uh, doctors that the
Nazis had taken a lot ofhis research and used it.
All of the Nazi soldiersinvolved in the Blitzkrieg were
(25:54):
taking, it was developed by Dr.
Fielden.
So he was a tremendouslynot well regarded, famous,
he was a famous doctor.
And so I think she feltprivileged to be part
of him developing this.
Miracle drug that was goingto help all of these children.
And so she, she offeredherself up as a test subject.
And of course, she alsowanted the fountain of
youth for herself becauseshe had been the most
(26:17):
beautiful girl in the world.
And I, I found that maleinterviewers find this very
hard to understand, but nowoman I've ever talked to has
found this hard to understand.
When you're a young woman andyou are worshipped for your
beauty, it is very, very, veryhard to let go because there's
a power there that as women, wenever find again, many times.
And for Hedy, she wasthe most beautiful.
(26:40):
She wasn't just beautiful.
She was so beautiful, they wrotesongs about her being the most
beautiful girl in the world.
And so her power, as faras she was concerned, in
her world came from that.
And she was going to protectit any way she could.
However, I think in Hedy'scase, she wanted that power, not
for some narcissistic reason.
(27:01):
But because she thought shewas so brilliant and was
going to fix the world andpeople needed to keep paying
attention to her and givingher support and funding,
which of course they didn't.
And instead of helpingherself stay young forever,
she butchered her ownplastic surgery and injected
herself with meth and becamea recluse or a shoplifter.
So that's the tragedy of it.
But I think women canunderstand the parable much
(27:24):
better than men, um, becausewe live it in small ways.
Alecia (host) (27:29):
Yeah, I can't help but draw a parallel to one
of the most recent episodes ofGrey's Anatomy in season 21.
Oh my god, the showis still going.
I had no idea.
And I can't stop watching it.
I just paid for the subscriptionfor the whole new season on
YouTube, so I'm funding this.
Shonda Rhimes is that good.
(27:49):
Who's that good?
Oh, man.
She's so good.
But in the most recent episode,I think it was episode three
of this new season, theytouch on this subject a
little bit when they have apatient come in who got a BBL,
a Brazilian butt lift, whogets a flesh eating bacteria
infection in her soft tissue.
One of the residents commentslike, why would she do this?
(28:10):
Why would somebody dothis to themselves?
They have a slightmonologue about how.
In order to be takenseriously as a woman, you
have to be attractive.
If you don't feel attractiveand if you feel like you're
not being perceived in thatway, it's understandable
that you would seek outways to get that power back.
So definitely concede even, youknow, 60, 70 years later, that's
(28:32):
still sadly very true, it seems.
Yeah, and
Alex Dean (28:36):
now it's not as obvious as the kind of plastic
surgery that Hedy was doing, butyou know, who doesn't have this
conversation with themselvesas they get older about Botox?
Every American woman, I think.
Every single one.
Alecia (hos (28:48):
Preventative Botox.
Preventative Botox
Alex Dean (28:50):
and creams and like, you know, we're
sold things to, you know,what are we trying to be
attractive to 20 year old men?
No.
We're trying to maintainour place in society and
not become invisible.
Alecia (host) (29:00):
What advice would you give to other filmmakers
or storytellers who want tobring the stories of overlooked
women in history to light?
Alex Dean (29:07):
I
Alecia (host) (29:07):
think
Alex Dean (29:09):
you're looking for a story when you try and go
out there and tell a storylike Hedy Lamarr's, you're
looking for a story withthat element of surprise.
You know, we're notsurprised, I think, in 2024.
I hope we're not surprisedthat women do amazing things.
Uh, we are surprised by Someother element of the story.
So in Hedy's case, that thiswoman who was also the most
(29:32):
beautiful girl in the world, whowas also known for doing this
orgasm on screen, or in Paris'scase, this woman who's known
for being a ditz in the funnyshow or doing a sex tape, that
that woman is brilliant becausewe're meeting our audience
where they are right now andour audience right now thinks
women can do brilliant things,but not also be powerful in that
(29:53):
gorgeous ditzy or whatever way.
So.
You have to surpriseyour audience.
So you have to find that subjectwho subverts expectation today.
And if you don't have a storywhere the subject subverts
expectations, but they arebrilliant, you need to tell
us why else we need to care.
(30:15):
You know, I think the thingis, we don't want to reduce
women to two dimensionswhen we're celebrating
their brilliance either.
They aren't just brains.
They are living,breathing humans.
And we have.
told the story of brilliantmen in three dimensional
ways for a long time, butwe seem to struggle with
that when it comes to women.
(30:35):
And so I encourage peopleto look at women as three
dimensional beings and tonot shy away from their
dark sides, shade as wellas to draw the light.
And that then becomes a hook,like, tell us about, you know,
is this a woman who struggledto keep her family together
or, you know, in Paris'scase was abused in a boarding
(30:55):
school and so traumatizedshe created this character.
What is it that is the keyto this person's character
that maybe we overlookbecause we just don't draw
women in three dimensions?
Alecia (host) (31:05):
If the pre Dr.
Feelgood version of HedyLamarr was still alive
today, what's one questionyou would love to ask her?
Alex Dean (31:14):
I had a dream about that one.
I was actually talking toHedy Lamarr as a young woman.
It was extraordinary.
I'd love to talk to herabout what's next right now.
For us, I think, you know,particularly in America, we're
in a really precarious position.
I don't know if we'll ever beable to kind of move on from
what I think was the mostpowerful moment I've seen in my
lifetime, which is around 2018.
(31:35):
We were really in a conversationabout looking at women's history
differently and understandinghow women were kept back.
And all of that has now gotten alittle bit lost in the backlash.
And I'm really curious what, howdo you think is next for women?
How do we keep?
talking furiously aboutthese problems so that we
can change them in a worldthat doesn't seem to want
(31:56):
to have that conversation.
Alecia (host) (31:58):
What do you hope viewers who maybe are
just hearing about Hedy Lamarrfor the first time or haven't
watched your documentary yet,what do you hope they take
away from her story and yourwork in bringing it to light?
Alex Dean (32:13):
I really hope when people watch any of my work it's
always about can you just bea little bit more empathetic?
Suspend your judgmentfor a minute.
Especially with women, butyou know, people we just point
and laugh, or we just dismissquickly because, because
it's fun to feel superior tosomebody else, or it's easier
(32:34):
to just live in a world wherewe shove people in categories.
But I think that one of themajor impediment to having
a really diverse societywhere everybody, you know,
is on equal footing, wejudge each other too quickly.
Too easily, and we thinkthat only one group can
be lifted up and everybodyelse has to be pushed down.
(32:54):
And even if we're changing whichgroup that is, we turn around
and judge the other group.
I particularly think thatabout this next generation
of women, younger than me,the people in their twenties
are extremely judgmentaland I'm really shocked and
saddened by that because Ithink instead of enlarging
our empathy, we're enlargingour judgmental muscles.
(33:16):
And really my argumenthas always been.
We need to enlarge our entity.
That's how we're going to startto lead the world together as a
diverse group, instead of apart.
How do we share power?
How do we respect each other?
How do we include allof our stories and make
sure no one is excluded?
Nobody is judged.
(33:36):
Nobody is betterthan anyone else.
You know, that.
It's what I've always beenfighting for and I can't
believe it feels likeit's getting further away
despite all of our work.
Alecia (host) (33:45):
Especially in tech where we're having a
lot more conversations aboutuser experience and human
centric design decisions.
A lot of that allstems from empathy.
Good product design isinherently related to empathy.
You need to be able to putyourself in somebody else's
shoes and not only solve aproblem for them, but understand
(34:05):
how they're going to navigateyour product when they don't
have an understanding ofhow it's supposed to work.
Like, you already know,you have a cognitive bias.
You already know how to getfrom point A to point B.
So when you see somebody like anine year old man struggling to
get through the system to payhis bills on time online, you
just go, oh, well, he's stupid.
Like, that's no way todesign a product, right?
(34:27):
And It's also interestingto me that around this, I
think it was like the 1960s,there was a sociology study
that came out about howthe most profitable, ideal
employee to have as a softwareengineer is a sociopathic
man, like an anti-social man.
(34:47):
And a lot of this actuallyled to the dismissal of women
from the tech industry inthe UK specifically, but.
You know, even just lookingat the sort of, um, What is
the word I'm looking for?
You know the people whodo like the silly drawings
of people on the street?
Do you know them?
(35:07):
Caricatures?
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
There's this caricature oflike, when you think of a
nerd or an engineer, you'rethinking of like an anti
social guy who doesn't goout, he doesn't get women, he
just cares about his stupidvideo games or like, you know.
Whatever, doesn't leave hisbasement, that sort of stuff.
I'd love to see a day wherewhen we think of somebody who's
(35:30):
a nerd or somebody who's techliterate, we don't just default
to, oh, it's just like this.
Antisocial dude and stuff.
And I feel like a lot ofthat stuff surrounding that
study actually prevented usfrom better product design
sooner because there's atendency to lean more towards
profitability instead of empathyand designing things that'll
be easy to understand andeasy to navigate for people,
(35:53):
if that makes any sense.
Alex Dean (35:54):
Well, I I'm, I'm working on a novel, my
first novel, and it's about.
a world in which, funnilyenough, my main character is
testing AI for human feel.
She's part of what'scalled the human feel lab.
I think part of why I said itthere is I wanted to talk about
the problem with technology,that it is so designed without
(36:16):
empathy and without real, areal feeling of how it was
going to be used in the future,that then, you know, we're
going to have this huge issuewhen we start to use it as
our cares or the keepers ofour memory, whatever it is.
We're, we're gonna find outhow flawed it really is because
of who designed it and how.
And it's going to impact ourhuman lives because what we need
(36:38):
more than anything is empathy.
Alecia (host) (36:40):
Yeah.
I think there's even like aquote that I read somewhere
from IBM about how tonever let a computer make
a managerial decision.
It kind of takes a lot ofthat human element out.
That's right.
In a, in a way.
Alex Dean (36:54):
Yes, it does.
Yeah.
And we are going to rely onit more and more because we're
going to be able to mimichumanity better and better.
But.
You have to always thinkabout who's designing it.
Like we're starting tounderstand bias in computer
systems, but it goes somuch deeper than bias.
It's, it becomes a way todiscriminate against people,
to pass judgment on people,all of our worst trait can
(37:16):
be amplified as well, by AI.
So we need a diverse groupof people creating the world
we're about to live in.
Alecia (host) (37:22):
You just reminded me of this story
from early on in my career.
I was working at this companythat was building proctoring
software and they wereintroducing this like bio
recognition system where itwould, it would try to match
your typing patterns and itwould do facial recognition
(37:44):
and you had to pass all thesetests before starting an exam.
It was a team of all whitemale engineers, and I just
kind of raised my hand in ademo that they were giving to
the company, and I just asked,did you test this on anyone
who is not white or male?
And they go, they look, they'relike, they look at me, and they
(38:04):
look at each other, and they'relike, actually, we didn't.
I'm like, you understand?
You might actually beunintentionally creating another
barrier for people of colorand women if they can't log in
to take their licensing exams.
So luckily they did go backand they, they verified
that everything was okay.
But I was like, howdid they not think of
Alex Dean (38:21):
this?
How did they not think of that?
Exactly.
Empathy.
Unless we are all makingthese, this future together
and making sure to put inthe, you know, the traits we
have that are maybe not as.
It's commonly recognizedas financially viable and
desirable in capitalism.
Like empathy.
If we're not putting thosetraits in intentionally,
(38:41):
nah, we will suffer later.
Alecia (host) (38:45):
So what is next for Alexandra Dean?
My next series is coming out in
Alex Dean (38:52):
April, uh, about the Judd family.
It's about Naomi Judd, whokilled herself very tragically.
The night before, she wasinducted into the Hall of Fame
as one of the most celebratedcountry singers of all time,
told by her two daughters,Ashley and Wynonna Judd.
And it's really about therelationships between mothers
(39:14):
and their daughters, and howwe help each other and form
each other, and also how wedeal with generational trauma.
And it turned out tobe, for me, a very, very
beautiful experience.
I learned a lot fromthe Judd sisters.
And we found some music thathad never been heard before.
It became the soundtrackto the song, including a
very gorgeous song thatshe left for her daughters
(39:37):
about them going out intothe light and becoming their
best selves after she died.
That was a reallybeautiful series and I
hope everyone watches it.
Alecia (host) (39:45):
Thank you so much for joining me.
I think I learned even moreabout Hedy somehow, despite
all the research, the filmI watched and everything.
It was really coolto sit down with you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure.
As we close out today'sepisode, I want to highlight
Bombshell, the Hedy Lamarrstory, which was directed by
my guest today, Alexandra Dean.
(40:07):
This documentary dives deep intoHedy's life, her struggles, and
her groundbreaking contributionsto wireless communication.
You can find links towhere you can watch it in
the episode description.
When I reflect on Hedy Lamarr'sstory, it's hard to ignore
the parallels between herstruggles for recognition
and the challenges stillfaced by women in tech today.
(40:29):
Just last week, Mark Zuckerbergannounced the erosion of DEI
initiatives at META, a movethat signals yet another
barrier For marginalizedvoices in the industry.
It's a reminder thatprogress is never guaranteed.
We must continue to upliftand support the innovators
who are too often overlooked.
Anyways, thank you so muchfor joining me today for
(40:52):
this episode of Tech Brat.
I'm your host, Alecia Vogel,and if you want to learn
more about the podcast orfind more episodes, you
can find us at techbrat.
fm.
Until next time, stay curious!And continue to fight for the
recognition that you deserve.
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