– What is your budget? Do you have a certain amount of time, money, or other resources that you can commit? If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few ideas to get the ball rolling.īefore we discuss specific ideas, it’s important to start by asking the right questions. There are many different ways to do this. One of the best ways to do this is by making your employees feel valued. The holidays are a great time to foster the internal camaraderie and team spirit within your staff. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. She didn’t just have a genius for invention, but for reinvention. By the time she disembarked in America, she had a lucrative Hollywood contract, and her name was Hedy Lamarr. When she set sail from Europe, she could barely speak English, and her name was Hedwig Kiesler Mandl. Her next move was to book a ticket on the very ocean liner that he was travelling on, so that he would have regular opportunities to witness the dizzying effect she had on every man onboard. As wary as he was about signing up the risqué ‘Ecstasy Girl’, he offered her a contract, but the proposed salary was so small that she walked out of their meeting. Having escaped from Mandl in 1937, she was introduced to the head of MGM, Louis B Mayer, in London. This was true right from the start of her Hollywood career, when her willpower was almost as crucial as her flawless beauty. After Lamarr’s stardom waned in Hollywood, she retired to Florida, and hit the headlines only when she was arrested for shoplifting, or when she had ruinous plastic surgery – or when she published, and then disowned, the sleazy autobiography. But it was a tardy consolation prize for someone who had become known as a bitter recluse. It was simply too far ahead of its time.ĭecades later, she and the world learnt that her innovations had been incorporated into mobile-phone technology, and in 1996, four years before her death at the age of 85, the Electronic Frontier Foundation honoured her and Antheil with its Pioneer Award.
Working in partnership with George Antheil, the avant-garde composer, Lamarr was granted a patent in 1942, but her invention was rejected by the US Navy. Having gleaned invaluable information on weaponry at Mandl’s dinner parties, she came up with the concept of a synchronised ‘frequency-hopping’ system: in order to stop enemies jamming the radio signals between a plane and a guided torpedo, their communications would keep jumping simultaneously to new frequencies. Her most revolutionary idea was one she hoped would help the Allies win World War Two. Her hobby was inventing, and while other Hollywood stars were at parties, Lamarr was at home, tinkering with a design for a traffic light, or experimenting with a soluble fizzy-drink tablet. The only role he allowed her was that of a trophy wife, sitting decoratively at the dining table while he talked munitions with his powerful guests, Mussolini included. Obsessively jealous, Mandl tried to buy and destroy every print of Ecstasy, and he refused to let her visit her friends or go to the theatre. But Kiesler felt “strangled to death by luxury”. When she nodded, Mandl immediately bought her every one of them. On one trip to Paris, Mandl asked his wife if she liked the sparkling jewels on display in the window at Cartier. After an eight-week engagement, he and Kiesler were married, and she – still a teenager – was ushered into a life of regal opulence. One of her many new fans was Friedrich Mandl, an armaments manufacturer and the third richest man in Austria.
The film was denounced by Pope Pius XI, and Kiesler was labelled ‘The Ecstasy Girl’. Lamarr later said that her apparently blissed-out winces were the result of Machaty jabbing her with a safety pin, but, however the sequence came about, it was convincing enough to cause uproar. It’s clear what is being shown – and it had never been shown on the big screen before. Seen in close-up, Eva gasps, throws back her head and clutches her hair. Having gone for a liberating naked swim, she meets a strapping engineer (named Adam, of course), and experiences all the pleasures her impotent husband can’t provide.