In January 1966. Hedy Lamarr, one-time movie icon but not seen on screen since 1957, was arrested in the parking lot of the May Co. department store on Hollywood’s Wilshire Boulevard. A store detective claimed she had watched Lamarr take $86 worth of merchandise – a knit suit worth $40, greetings cards, as well as ‘bikini panties and beads’ – and that she had seen Lamarr shoplifting before and also knew of similar incidents at two other stores.
Lamarr denied the accusations. On the same evening in the same store, she had bought and paid for two pairs of shoes and a coat and she had had on her two royalty cheques worth $14,000. “How can I shoplift with these in my bag?” Lamarr pleaded at a press conference the next day in Beverly Hills’ Bistro Restaurant, where she wore the plaid coat she had bought from May’s. Lamarr was defiant, but her son told the press that “the last ten years have been a strain on my mother, both financially and, especially, emotionally”, and it soon emerged that Lamarr had recently undergone psychiatric care for over 18 months and that her doctor considered that she could be a kleptomaniac.
The publicity surrounding the arrest was disastrous. It led, more or less directly, to the end of Lamarr’s attempt to relaunch her film career. Bar a few appearances on television, everything came to an end for ‘The most beautiful girl in the world’, as she had been styled by the Austrian film director Max Reinhardt after seeing her on stage at Vienna’s Passage-Theater.
Lamarr was quite simply forgotten.
And yet, as her son told a newsman after her arrest, for the past 30 years Lamarr had done so much for the United States, “and in return she has received a slap in the face – for nothing”. Graham Warrener’s cleverly constructed play, The Ecstasy of Hedy Lamarr, reveals exactly what Lamarr did for the United States… and for you, especially if you are reading this review on a mobile device. Because she was much, much more than ‘the epitome of beauty’. And in 75 minutes, framed within the police interview, Warrener’s play hops through episodes from Lamarr’s tumultuous life – some possibly invented (Lamarr always claimed she never met the titanic Louis B Meyer) and some not a little surprising…
As Lamarr, Suzy Bloom is superb, revealing – but never didactically – the benefits that come from being beautiful, not least a sublime confidence, as well as the challenges. While there is no mention of Lamarr’s rape at gunpoint in 1967 or her many failed lawsuits, we learn of the young actress’s exploitation at the age of 17 by the Czech director Gustav Machatý and the ups and downs of Lamarr’s six (six!) marriages. Most importantly, we learn about her inventiveness. All of the other characters are played by Paul Easom – from the arresting officer through Lamarr’s husbands to a television talk-show host whose horrendous interview of Lamarr is hard to credit but can be found online.
Both performances are top-notch, though a little work is needed on some of the accents. Technically, the show lacks polish. While the AV is generally effective – apart from a single jarring sequence that really should be in black and white – the clunkiness of some of the transitions could be avoided with a little more stagecraft. The lighting also needs a rethink: after the third or fourth time, photographers’ flashbulbs’ sparking in the audience’s face become more than a little distracting – no, make that after the first time … And, a minor quibble, the ending is slightly ironic. It works but tends to undermine the point made throughout the rest of the play, that Hedy Lamarr was so much more than ‘the most beautiful girl in the world’.
At the Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre as part of its 2025 Premieres season, The Ecstasy of Hedy Lamarr plays until 18 October 2025.
Review by Louis Mazzini
A European émigré who rose to fame in Hollywood’s Golden Age, Hedy Lamarr was lauded as the most beautiful woman in the world but behind the glamour lay a brilliant mind. Her pioneering development of Spread Spectrum technology would later form the basis of the Bluetooth we use today.
The Ecstasy of Hedy Lamarr explores the contradictions of a woman celebrated for her beauty yet isolated by it a genius striving for freedom and recognition beyond the screen.
THE ECSTASY OF HEDY LAMARR
Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre
9 to 18 October 2025
