Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Only Woman in the Room

 


Book: The Only Woman in the Room

Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : References

Basic Information:

Author: Marie Benedict

Edition: epub on Libby from the San Francisco Public Library

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

ISBN: 9781492666868 (ISBN10: 1492666866)

Start Date: January 22, 2024

Read Date: January 31, 2024

312 pages

Genre:  Fiction, Fiction-History, OSHER

Language Warning:  None

Rated Overall: 2  out of 5


History: 2 out of 5


Religion: Jewish


Fiction-Tells a good story: 3 out of 5

Fiction-Character development: 4 out of 5



Synopsis:

The author tells a fictionalized story of Hedy Lamarr from 1933 to 1942 told from Lamarr's point of view. She takes us from the point where Lamarr is pursued by her first husband in Vienna through him making her as good as a prisoner in his mansions. She does sit in on many of her husband's meetings which gives her an idea about how munitions are manufactured and the weaknesses they have.


When she discovers her husband’s ties with the Nazi’s, she escapes from him, leaves Austria and ends up in Hollywood via Paris and London. In Hollywood she is under contract with Mayer who makes her a star. She remarries, adopts a Jewish child, and gets divorced again. She wants to redeem herself and aid the war effort. She and a composer then work on developing a guidance system for torpedoes.


The Navy rejected the invention until the Korean War. The book ends with her pushing war bonds.



Cast of Characters:
  • Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (Hedy Lamarr). Jewish actress
  • Friedrich Mandl. Arms manufacturer. Half Jewish. Power behind the Austrian government for a time
  • Mrs. Lubbig-Lamarr’s dressing in the Austrian theater
  • Mama-a concert pianist before being married. Jewish
  • Papa-a banking officer at a large bank. Jewish
  • Prince Ernst Rüdiger Camillo von Starhemberg-Austrian royalty and a power in Austrian politics.
  • Count Ferdinand von Starhemberg-Brother to the Prince. This may not be true as when I looked at Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg’s family tree there is only one brother and that is not Ferinand. There is a Ferdinand who was an ancestor of Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg.
  • Louis Mayer-Head of MGM
  • Max Reinhardt-Mentor to Lamarr
  • Illona Massey-first roommate in Hollywood
  • Gene Markey-Second husband
  • James Lamarr Loder-Adopted son. Died May 2022. In Wikipedia, there is some proof that he was actually Lamarr and John Loder’s son while Lamarr was married to Markey.
  • Charles Kettering-Inventory and head of the National Inventors COuncil
  • George Antheil-composer and tinker. Benedict does not give a good summary of his background, but it encompasses a lot more than composing.
  • Eddie Rhodes-a real sailor who was planted in crowds to help incite people to give to the war effort


Places:

  • Döbling
  • Schloss Schwarzenau
  • Villa Fegenberg
  • 15 Schwarzenbergplatz
  • Hollywood



Expectations:
  • Recommendation: Osher
  • When: January 11, 2023
  • Date Became Aware of Book:
  • Why do I want to read this book: OSHER Book
  • What do I think I will get out of it?

Thoughts:

The problems I have with a fiction story which purports to be about history are two fold. First, you never know where the author's rendering of the story ends and the history begins. The second is you do not know what is fiction or made up facts, where facts are bent and what really happened. Benedict seems to put the worst of both into this telling of a segment of Hedy Lamarr’s life.


I will be using her common name of Lamarr throughout this writeup instead of her family or married names.


How Lamarr is portrayed makes me think that she is just as guilty of manipulation as she is of being manipulated. How benedict portrays her is that powerful men can and do use her, sometimes in a sexual way. Her second husband reminds her of her father and so she marries him and finds out that life with him is not a returning back to her father. Her first husband overwhelms a talented teenager into marrying him. She finds out that he is only using her to lure better deals for his business.


On the other hand, how Benedict portrays her, she plays on the male lusts for her getting what she wants. This is shown in her escape attempt by the manipulation of a brother of her husband’s friend. Then later on between marriages where she is on a constant dating speed dail to stars, but not really committing to any.


Also as Benedict probably does not mean to show that Lamarr is not a good judge of people. The man was not the reputation, he had proven to me. First there is being lured into doing Ecstasy as an underaged woman. Then judging Mandl as not being like what people said about him. And finally the men she married did not speak to her being able to find lasting relationships.



Part I

Benedict portrays Lamarr as being young and confident in her own abilities to handle people. But then it seems like she meets someone, particularly older men, who she melts in their presence.


Benedict has Lamarr, who is 18, closing a successful opening night playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria. To her surprise and chagrin, somebody sent a large number of bouquets to her, mostly anonymous. She finds out that it is Mandl. She does not know who he is. Her dresser updates her. He is a womanizer and owner of a large ammunition manufacturer. Because of who he sells it to, he is known as The Merchant of Death. He continued to send her bouquets. Finally asks her to dinner. She did not feel comfortable accepting.


She lives in Döbling in Vienna, a Jewish neighborhood.


Mandl had also sent bouquets to her parents house. Her mother asks What could you have possibly done to encourage such a display?” Her tone held its usual judgment. Benedict has set the tone that the mother was critical of Lamarr. Mama made innuendo based upon Lamarr's film Ecstasy. Instead, Mandl invited himself to meet with her parents to ask to go out with her for dinner. Parents were willing to meet with him since he was a person of influence. The book has it that she did not want to date him.


You were born after the Great War, Hedy. You don’t understand how politics can be a force of destruction. Hedy Lamarr was born in November 1914. World War I started in July 1914 and ended in 1918.


The government is moving towards a dictatorship and an alliance with Germany. Mandl is one of the powers behind the government.


Lamarr meets Mandl for the first time. Instead of finding him repulsive, she is attracted to him, Not in the physical sense exactly, although he was handsome in a polished way with his impeccable navy Savile Row suit and gleaming cuff links, but in the power and confidence that exuded from him. Instead of the immature males, he felt like a man. I’d always thought of Papa as a successful man, and he was, but only now did I understand true power. Savile Row was started in 1938 and is a London based shop. This is 1933 and would someone like Mandl buy from someplace in England?


Mandl’s reputation is not good. But he asks Lamarr to judge him as he is and says that I am not my reputation.


Interesting phrase: the respect of frankness. I suppose the reason why we are not frank with each other is two reasons. First the fear of losing somebody. Second is the desire not to offend or provoke.’


Benedict has the 19 year old Lamarr falling for him. Mandl is only 33 at this time and has been married once before. I[Lamarr] surrendered my world to him. But he was reluctant to talk about his family. He kisses her for the first time, seven weeks after treating her to lavish meals.


She had not been to any of his homes-see the places above.


Mandl asks for Lamarr to marry him. The man was not the reputation, he had proven to me. Her father has doubts, but Lamarr seems agreeable, to her father’s surprise. Was Papa telling me to refuse his proposal? His opinions mattered quite a lot to me. Lamarr did not recognize her own Jewishness. Her family was not religious. The few religious Jews I knew in our neighborhood, those who kept Sabbath or displayed menorahs or mezuzahs in their homes, did so quietly, not with the bold insouciance of the Ostjuden, and they looked like everyone else. Her father thought that Mandl might be able to protect her if the Jews were persecuted like they were in Germany.


Interesting dialogue. From the above it sounds more like her parents were more concerned with her protection than Mandl himself. They might not like him, but he could be a safe haven for what they feared was coming. Wikipedia has a different take on this Her parents, both of Jewish descent, did not approve, due to Mandl's ties to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, and later, German Führer Adolf Hitler, but they could not stop the headstrong Lamarr. The reference from this was “A Candid Portrait of Hedy Lamarr", Liberty magazine, December 1938, pp. 18–19. I wonder where Benedict got her take on Lamarr’s parents?


Lamarr accepts being Mandl’s wife, the security that would bring, and no longer being an actress. Lamarr has to convert to Christianity to marry Mandl. She agrees. But it sounds like she is no more Christian in belief as her belief in Judaism was.


Papa had always told me that the beauty I was born with must have a purpose. But so is brains, so is strength, so is weakness. We are all born with a purpose. That is what a Christian belief is. The question of our lives tends to be how we fulfill that purpose?


low, angry voice only I could hear-this was during the selection of a wedding dress.It is a foreshadowing of who Mandl really is. Not the man who is interested in what Lamarr is rather interested in having his own way. Mandl wants to be in charge of all facets of his life, including his wedding-not so much their wedding.


Money and power always prevail. On the honeymoon, the hotel staff made a minor mistake which showed what kind of power Mandl had and what he expected. Also he is possessive of Lamarr. Whenever someone, particularly a man, even talked with Lamarr, Mandl got upset.


When Lamarr and Mandl get back to Austria, they go to one of his places. She is introduced to the staff. Mandl will take care of everything. When Lamarr tries to figure out what is her duties, he replies The only onus that you should carry on your delicate shoulders is that of your beauty. I wonder how true this is or is Benedict making it up?


Lamarr is permitted to visit very few of her friends, but is able to see her parents.


She is able to gather intelligence on a coup against the Austrian government. But she did not realize this was by the Jews in Austria. From this she joined Mandl in other meetings where she’d been the only woman in the room. Yes, the title of the book-also used at the end. It is used at the end of the book as well. Lamarr realized that the information she gave helped to crush this rebellion.


The July Putsch was described and seems pretty much accurate. After the coup attempt, a policy of appeasement was implemented towards Germany.


Benedict has Mandl showing Lamarr’s movie, Ecstasy. She has Mandl not really knowing the background and getting upset over what appeared on the screen, becoming abusive to Lamarr. He locks her into the house. But for the first time, I began to think about escape. She goes on and says let him think he’d broken me and recast me into a mold of his own making, a graceful automaton. I would think someone like Mandl would have known about the film’s reputation even before marrying Lamarr. It sounds like from Benedict that Lamarr was already thinking about the weaknesses of the arms Mandl was manufacturing. This would have been as a 21 year old.


Lamarr starts to lead Ferdinand von Starhemberg on, in a plan to escape. Benedict says that Ferdinand is Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg’s younger brother, but there is no mention of him in family trees.


Lamarr’s father was sick. She confronts the servants-her keepers-to get to her father’s side. I prayed to a nebulous god— Interesting comment. Who does Benedict think Lamarr is praying too? The Judeo-Christian god? The cosmos? Something else?


He has angina. Doctor says that he will live, but is at risk of a heart attack. He has Lamarr promise to protect her mother. Her father dies.


Concerns about Italy and Germany moving closer. Also about the new governments moving toward appeasement with Germany. Mandl and his associates felt that the only true belief was the belief in the infallibility of their own power. Lamarr is at a diner with Il Duce (Mussolini), Italy’s dictator who makes a pass at Lamarr. Mandl’s power is weakening as well. Mandl and von Starhemberg see the writing on the wall and are looking for ways to switch sides. Even with Mandl being half blooded jewish, he thinks that he would be an essential link for the Germans and be exempt.


Lamarr attempts an escape by using Ferdinand under the guise of an affair. Mandl finds out and intercepts the fake lovers. There is a penalty to pay for this.


Mandl has a secret meeting with Hitler which Lamarr is not invited to. She eavesdrops and hears that Mandl will be named an Honorary Aryan, but Lamarr would be part of the Final Solution. She made plans to leave Austria. Her mother would not come with her. On August 25, 1937, she left, going to Paris, then England. Benedict does combine a couple of accounts into how Lamarr escapes.



Part II

She gets divorced and makes herself known to Louis Mayer. She was renamed from Mandl or Kiesler to Lamarr. She strikes a pay rate which she finds acceptable.


in accepting a second history, I could never really leave the first history behind. According to Benedict, Lamarr discovers this from her longing for Austria.


Lamarr gets her first role in Algiers as a mysterious woman. Austria is united with Germany without any hostilities. She was able to divorce Mandl. The divorce not only freed me from my fears, but also gave me liberty to date whomever I chose. This license gave me renewed hunger to bounce from man to man, seeking a safe haven in their arms but never surrendering my autonomy,


Now Lamarr’s concern is to get her mother out of Austria. She used Mayer’s connections to get her out. In the meantime, she started going with Gene Markey and eventually married him, eight weeks later. She did not tell Markey of her background.


Lamarr and her European friends were following what was going on in Europe with great concern. At one of their gatherings, a woman proposed to adopt Jewish children fleeing from Europe. Benedict has Lamarr adapting one of them.


Cecilia Razovsky and Frances Perkins in America and Kate Rosenheim


Her marriage to Markey was on the rocks. According to Benedict, Lamarr found his desire for the false, public Hedy instead of the real one upsetting. But she also did not let Markey know who she was-a Jew for instance. According to Benedict, she also did not let Markey know the source of their adopted son, Jamesie, being a Jew. They divorced.


In Wikipedia, there is some proof that he was actually Lamarr and John Loder’s son while Lamarr was married to Markey. The reference is the New York Post in 2001. This book was written in 2019. Lamarr passed of Jamesie as being adopted. Benedict does not talk about an affair with Loder. Also the book ends before she married Loder.


Sinking of the City of Benares affected her. She felt guilty over not telling what she knew. Was I exaggerating my own role? So she wanted to find some way to help stop Germany.


Talks about meeting Hellmuth Walter who had done work in Germany on propulsion. This got her interested in the guidance of torpedoes. She meets up with George Antheil, a composer. Benedict has this meeting at a party. Wikipedia has it that Lamarr consulted Antheil about a gland problem she was having-he wrote an advice column and had written a book about female glands. Antheil's interest in this area brought him into contact with the actress Hedy Lamarr, who sought his advice about how she might enhance her upper torso. He suggested glandular extracts, but their conversation then moved to torpedoes. BUT Military.com has that the two did meet at a dinner party.


Benedict has it that Lamarr started working together with him because of playing a piano duet with him and realizing how to change radio frequencies.


The book has it that Lamarr figured this out. But from Wikipedia, it sounded more like Antheil had it worked out for pianos and that they adapted it for radio controlled torpedoes. Antheil and Lamarr developed the idea of using frequency hopping: in this case using a player piano roll to randomly change the signal sent between the control center and torpedo at short bursts within a range of 88 frequencies on the spectrum (88 black and white keys are on a piano keyboard). The specific code for the sequence of frequencies would be held identically by the controlling ship and in the torpedo. This basically encrypted the signal, as it was impossible for the enemy to scan and jam all 88 frequencies because this would have required too much power. Antheil would control the frequency-hopping sequence using a player-piano mechanism, which he had earlier used to score his Ballet Mécanique.


The conversation between Lamarr and Antheil sounds a bit different than what I think it would be. Maybe too set up. Sort of goes through a straw man type of dialogue with Lamarr having ready answers for everything.


Lamarr’s mother is now in Canada, away from London and the bombing. Eventually she ends up in Los Angeles.


Lamarr and Antheil work around their work schedules on the project on how to guide torpedoes. They worked out how to synchronize the torpedo and controller frequency changes based upon Antheil’s piano synchronization.


Benedict throws in a bit of male impropriety with the celebration which makes Lamarr concerned about their relationship.


They have secured the approval of the National Inventors Council and Charles Kettering. The next step is to get approval by the Navy. December 7th, 1941 has happened and the US is at war. The Navy rejects their invention. They go to Washington and are rejected again, in part because it was invented by a woman. They want her to sell war bonds.


Note: This seems like the navy saw a talented person, but could only think of how to use that person in one way.


So Lamarr goes out and gets people to buy war bonds. The shtick was to have a sailor planted in the crowd to give her a kiss. She said yes, but the audience had to give a certain amount to make it happen.


Benedict has Lamarr thinking as she is on stage, How many masks have I worn on my path? She also thought about how Antheil wanted her to continue working on inventions Work to which I’d refused to return after the navy’s rejection, even when George begged me; I simply couldn’t make myself that vulnerable again. To the world she was a beautiful face. In her head she was an inquisitive person who liked to invent. Also a Jew. I had always been alone under my mask, the only woman in the room.


Interesting that Benedict leaves it that she only worked on one thing. There was all sorts of things which Lamarr worked on:

  • An enhanced stop light
  • A solid cube, about the size of a bullion cube, but for soda drinks
  • A mechanism which controlled the flaps on planes-Howard Hughes put this on some of the planes he built.

In the Author’s Note, she says that some of the inner workings of a cell phone was because Lamarr (and Antheil) invented the technology, which was not used by the Navy. how on earth did an invention patented by a dazzling movie star in 1942 eventually become part of the foundation for the modern cell phone, a device that has transformed our world. She goes into how this affected communications. There are a couple of Wikipedia articles which goes into this: Spread spectrum and Frequency-hopping spread spectrum.



Evaluation:

Marie Benedict writes imaginary tales about women whom we may not know much about. For one, I have read her book The Personal Librarian about Belle Greene and appreciated just knowledge gained. The Only Woman in the Room looks at a snippet of Hedy Lamarr’s life between the ages of about 18 to 28. She imagines what Lamarr and the people around her would be like and sets up her story that way. While it is possible to get insight through this process, it is also hard to know where Benedict’s storytelling ends and Lamarr’s life begins.


By this last statement is that Benedict follows the rough contours of Lamarr’s life during this time period. Much, and maybe all, of the dialogue and stories is conjecture on Benedict’s part. There are some really basic things which Benedict bends Lamarr’s story, such as when Lamarr was born and the status of her first son. Also there is a lot left out of Lamarr’s story-such as the other things she invented. This leaves us thinking Lamarr is a one hit wonder. These and many other things make me cast questions in my mind about the story which Benedict presents.


Benedict can write an entertaining story. I just do not trust the narrative that she portrays about this real person.


 
Notes from my book group:

One of the things which stands out in the book is how Lamarr’s feminality is prominent. How does she use that to get what she wants? How do others take advantage of her, manipulate her? Do you think if Lamarr was around today her story would be the same?


Benedict has her saying after her divorce that This license gave me renewed hunger to bounce from man to man, seeking a safe haven in their arms but never surrendering my autonomy, Do you think she achieved this? How do you think this reservedness affected her marriages?


Benedict says: I’d always thought of Papa as a successful man, and he was, but only now did I understand true power. Later on she has this to say: in the infallibility of their own power. This was said in regard to Mandl. Explain the difference between success and power? Do you need to have one so you can have the other? Is there a weakness in this statement?


Mandl uses the phrase the respect of frankness. What does this mean to you? How is frankness a sign of respect? Can it be something else?


Discuss Lamarr’s Jewishness. Was it prominent in her life? How did it affect who she was? What happened to her? What is her concept of God?


in accepting a second history, I could never really leave the first history behind. Do you think Lamarr was trying to escape who she was? Can one ever escape your past? How or why not?


In this account, Mandl uses isolation and the implied threat of coercion. Describe how this is done. What are the effects? What lessons can we take from this?


When Lamarr and Antheil submits their frequency hopping device for use in torpedoes, it gets rejected. What are the reasons given? What do you think the reasons behind the reasons given are? What can we learn today about how to evaluate ideas? How do you figure out which ideas are worth pursuing?


What did their device do? Why did Lamarr and Antheil’s concepts get acceptance later? Why is this useful in modern technology?


What other inventions did Lamarr develop? Why do the other inventions not get talked about?


In a fictional account like this book, how can you tell what is fictionalized and what happened? How complete of a story is this? How true is this story to Lamarr’s life?


Why do you read fictionalized accounts of history events or people? Why not read “real” biographies or histories?


Some of the facts of Hedy Lamarr’s life are either changed or falsified. How does this affect the reading of this book?


How do you want your life to change because you read this book?



Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of The Only Woman in the Room?

Does this story work as a biography?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most convincing? Least?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

What central ideas does the author present?

Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

Reading Groups General Fiction Guide

LitLover’s Question

Reading Groups

Arlene’s Book Group Question

 

New Words:
  • Coquettish: behaving in such a way as to suggest a playful sexual attraction; flirtatious.
  • Vapidity: the state or quality of being vapid; flatness; dullness; insipidity
  • Vacuity: lack of thought or intelligence; empty-headedness
  • lavender marriage: a male–female mixed-orientation marriage, undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially stigmatised sexual orientation of one or both partners.
  • Hase: Bunny
Book References:

Good Quotes:
  • First Line: My lids fluttered open, but the floodlights blinded me for a moment
  • Last Line: I had always been alone under my mask, the only woman in the room.
 
References:
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