# Stalin's Daughter is Dead (and so is Lana Turner)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalins-daughter-is-dead-and-so-is-lana-turner/604514>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 30, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalins-daughter-is-dead-and-so-is-lana-turner/604514 "2011-11-30T00:38:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalins-daughter-is-dead-and-so-is-lana-turner/604514/41 "2011-12-01T16:39:55Z")

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> [@Mtgman](#):
>
> There’s a new book out called [Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World](http://www.npr.org/2011/11/27/142664182/most-beautiful-woman-by-day-inventor-by-night).

Oh, I am perfectly wiling to be convinced: up till now, no one has ever provided any evidence or sites. Poor duck, she sure couldn’t act, it would be nice to know she was good at _something_.

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalins-daughter-is-dead-and-so-is-lana-turner/604514/42 "2011-12-01T19:31:04Z")

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As fate would have it I was listening to a public radio interview with Nick Thomas, author of a book called [Raised by the Stars: Interviews With 29 Children of Hollywood Actors](http://www.raisedbythestars.com/), on the way into lunch today and Hedy Lamarr’s daughter was one of the ‘children’ he interviewed. Per Thomas, she was more than an interested amateur but the actual circuitry and “knocking it together” was done by her friend George Antheil, a composer/musician/machinist who had done pioneering work in automated music. She really _did_ understand how the device worked and most of the mechanics behind it (i.e. it wasn’t just slapping her name on it like the Jack LaLanne Juicer or George Foreman Grill) but didn’t actually invent it, and it was hoped that her star power would help it get attention.

An irony, per Thomas, is that because it wasn’t used in WW2 or afterwards they let the patent expire. Had they renewed it then both her estate and Antheil’s would have earned tens of millions from its use in the cell phone industry.

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