Ecstasy and Me
Hedy Lamarr
Film's first nude scene and first fake orgasm were the work of the
Viennese actress Hedy Lamarr in the Czech film Ecstasy. She
went on to Hollywood success, usually playing as a cool, classy
European beauty, and along the way received a patent for a high-tech
procedure which is in use today. Her acquaintances included
Mussolini, Hitler, John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn, and
many more. Her book Ecstasy and Me was one of the earliest frank books
about the
Hollywood scene, and while there's lots of red meat in there (one
spurned lover had a custom plastic blowup doll made in the exact
image of Hedy, and arranged for her to witness his intimate
relations with it), by and large she doesn't name names or give
graphic physical details.
There are several serious questions about the "author function"
of Ecstasy and Me. Lamarr sued the ghostwriters, accusing
them of sensationalism and inaccuracy. Lamarr believed that the
frankness of her book ended her film career --
though she was past 50 when it was published and hadn't made a movie
in eight years -- and she may have
sued just to shift blame to the ghosts. Furthermore, the book's two introductions
(one medical and one psychiatric) probably represent a survival of the Fifties prudishness, which demanded that
non-marital sex always be presented as a problem. (Cf. the medical
introduction to Nabokov's Lolita) .
I am
going to assume, however, that most of the anecdotes are pretty much
true -- they're just too good for me to believe that they were
invented by nonentities like Leo Guild and Sy Rice (the latter of
whom doesn't even seem to have a Google presence).
Lamarr (real name Hedy Keisler) was born into a wealthy,
more-or-less-Jewish Viennese family, and in her story can be
organized around a contrast between the sophisticated decadence of
Vienna and Hollywood's crude, prudish crypto-porn. (Lamarr
frequently comments on the American boob fetish and the general
crassness of the people she dealt with.)
Here are some quotations from the book that I don't think that a
ghost-writer could have faked:
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I have lifted the veil of sexual expression which
exists everywhere but is usually most notorious in the
Hollywood mystique. (p. 12) I
don't think that anyone would call me a lesbian, it's
just that I seem to be the type that other women get
queer ideas about. (p. 13)
I had a spinal block because Denise was a breech baby. I knew
everything that was going on. It was like a modern tranquilizer
commercial. Everything was pain... pain... pain. I saw through pain.
No one had ever had a baby before. This was the first. How famous I
would be, mother of the first baby born on earth....(p. 128)
I didn't press charges [against a peeping Tom]
because he was young and frankly -- this was my secret
until now -- he told the press that mine was a perfect
body". (p. 146)
Judy [Garland] said no men were permitted [in rehab]. I
contemplate the predicament of nor relationship with any
man for a month. (p. 178)
He said, "Hedy, you know I love you and I know you
love me" (Men have this quaint cause-and-effect notion.)
(p. 217)
I have now come to the conclusion that happiness has so many
elements that it exceeds the combinations in a game of chess.
Example: No one ever enjoyed a romp in the hay with a toothache. (p.
233)
There is more curiosity than sensuality in a girl's first
love-sex experience. I was more interested in the biological and and
even the designs in the cherry wood ceiling than the thrills. (p. 310)
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There's lots more: the details of how she faked
orgasm in Ecstasy, her six husbands, many crass movie-biz
guys, some naked girls "reforming" a gay man who wants to get
married, Lamarr's venture into film production, and her
unsuccessful attempts to look trashy (after researching the
girls down by the docks, who seemed "too normal").
This isn't really a very good book, mostly
because of the Hollywood conventions and ghosting clichés, but
it has lots of good stuff in it, and a lot of people should
enjoy it.
| (Lamarr's most amazing
story -- the high-tech
patent she shared with the avant-garde musician
George Antheil for technology which still in use --
is not even mentioned in her book, presumably
because of its Hollywood sex-goddess format. I'm
saving that story for Part II.) |