The following quotes about Hedy Lamarr have been collected from a
variety of published sources cited below:
"Just try working in the same picture with that beautiful Lamarr face,
and just see if you're not ready to commit suicide!"
--Claudette
Colbert on co-starring with Lamarr,
Clark Gable and
Spencer Tracy in BOOM TOWN
(1946); quoted in "Three of a Kind" by Joelyn Littauer (New York Times
17 Feb. 1946) page 49.
"When I first met Hedy Lamarr, about twenty years ago, she was so
beautiful that everybody would stop talking when she came into a room.
Wherever she went she was the cynosure of all eyes. I don't think
anyone concerned himself very much about whether or not there was anything
behind her beauty, he was too busy gaping at her. Of her conversation
I can remember nothing: when she spoke one did not listen, one just watched
her mouth moving and marveled at the exquisite shapes made by her lips.
She was, in consequence, rather frequently misunderstood. ...
Beautiful women -- on whom so many words and hours and fortunes are spent,
who are painted and pursued, adored and abused, married and abandoned.
Each one using this trump card in a different way. Like a joker in
canasta, it is a powerful advantage properly played and a heavy load to have
left in your hand. Hedy Lamarr found it a load."
--George
Sanders, Lamarr's co-star in THE STRANGE WOMAN (1946) and SAMSON AND
DELILAH (1949); quoted in Memoirs of a Professional Cad by
George
Sanders (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1960) page 116.
"[At a party at Saul Chaplin's house in 1950,] Saul immediately sat down
at the piano, and what was already a good party just got better. A
musician friend of Saul's arrived with Hedy Lamarr, whom none of us had ever
met. MGM had built up Miss
Lamarr as 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World,' and she was that.
She was also so shy and withdrawn that when she sat on the floor against one
wall, it seemed as if she wanted to disappear ... she almost did.
Sometime later Ethyl [Chaplin] joined Saul at the second piano to play and
sing Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera [in German]. Hedy came
immediately to life. She jumped up and hurried to the piano to sing
with them. The transformation was amazing. She joined in with
complete animated abandon. If she had only been able to bring some of
that joy to her screen roles, there would have been no stopping her... It is
just too bad that Metro never
learned how to use her, because 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World' was
a lot more than an unforgettable face, she was a delightful dame."
--Farley Granger; quoted in
Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway by Farley Granger
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007) pages 72-73.
"I married Hedy in May 1942 ... To my surprise I soon discovered that
Hedy had very simple tastes and in fact was a typical hausfrau at heart.
She was quite domesticated and preferred to stay at home in the evening
rather than go to parties. On the cook's day off she always prepared
the meals herself, but when we did go out she proved an excellent
conversationalist and could speak intelligently on politics or any other
topic. She did not drink and was never ostentatious or out to catch
the limelight for herself. I shall always maintain that Hedy's best
quality was that she was completely unimpressed by her own outstanding
beauty. Indeed, she seemed oblivious to it."
--John Loder, Lamarr's third
husband and co-star in DISHONORED LADY (1947); quoted in Hollywood Hussar
by John Loder (London: Howard Baker, 1977) page 135.
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