Hedy Lamarr, a luminous star of both the silver screen and inventive prowess, stands obscured beneath the sensational narrative of "Ecstasy and Me," an incendiary "autobiography" that cast a shadow over her life.
"I've never been content. The moment I accomplish one feat, an inner turmoil propels me toward the pursuit of another," proclaimed the Golden Age enchantress, Hedy Lamarr.
Lamarr's endeavors were as diverse as they were extraordinary. Renowned for her breathtaking performances in classics like Algiers and Samson and Delilah, she transcended the superficial epithet of "the most beautiful woman in the world." A six-time bride, Lamarr wore various hats—actress, trailblazing female producer, ski-resort visionary, painter, art connoisseur, and a revolutionary inventor. Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer Prize winner, meticulously documented her groundbreaking innovations in the 2012 book, "Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World."
Nonetheless, it was a different narrative that would reshape Lamarr's trajectory. "Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman," co-authored by Cy Rice and Leo Guild, emerged in 1966, swiftly climbing the bestseller charts.
Drawing on 50 hours of recorded conversations with the eccentric Lamarr, "Ecstasy and Me" serves as a grotesque yet compelling chronicle of how women have been objectified, marginalized, and trivialized throughout history. Classified as an autobiography, it commences with a male psychologist asserting that Lamarr, embracing a sex-positive stance, remains "blissfully unaffected by moral standards declared acceptable in our contemporary culture." The narrative unfolds nauseatingly from there.
Lurid romantic escapades reminiscent of a Roger Corman sexploitation film and instances of disguised sexual trauma as titillation dominate this purported autobiography. Periodically, it shifts bizarrely to transcripts of Lamarr's conversations with a psychiatrist. Interspersed are standard Hollywood gossip—occasionally catty, sometimes benevolent depictions of figures ranging from Judy Garland to Clark Gable—and banal observations like, "Why Americans suspect bidets, I'll never know. They are the last word in cleanliness."
In Stephen Michael Shearer's authoritative 2010 biography, "Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr," intimates of Lamarr acknowledged the potential accuracy of some nonsexual anecdotes in "Ecstasy and Me." However, they vehemently dismissed the sensational sexual narratives as outright falsehoods. Readers are left with the impression that while Lamarr may have uttered certain statements attributed to her, those spoken in moments of intoxication should not be taken at face value. Unsurprisingly, Lamarr sought unsuccessfully to halt the publication of "Ecstasy and Me," deeming it "fictional, false, vulgar, scandalous, libelous, and obscene." As she asserted on Merv Griffin's show in 1969, "That's not my book."
