He also wrote music for movies and, like Lamarr, tinkered with ideas for inventions.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

As Mr. Rhodes relates, Hedy Lamarr was hardly an intellectual, but she was a indefatigable tinkerer.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

Lamarr and Antheil offered their idea to America's armed forces, but it was not taken seriously.

ECONOMIST: Player-piano pioneer

Antheil and Lamarr eventually moved on to talking about the war in Europe.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

Lamarr and Antheil proposed using a punched-paper roll like that of a player piano.

ECONOMIST: Player-piano pioneer

Lamarr termed the technique "frequency hopping, " a forerunner of the spread-spectrum technology that is used today in communications applications such as Wi-Fi.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

Ever scrambling to piece together an income, Antheil wrote frequently for Esquire magazine including articles on endocrinology, particularly female hormones, that happened to catch Lamarr's attention.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

Mark Lamarr, Ulrika Jonsson, Johnny Vegas and Will Self were among the regular panellists, while Matt Lucas kept the scores in his guise as "big baby" George Dawes.

BBC: Shooting Stars panel show axed by

Even as she was starring in movies such as "Boom Town" (1940), Lamarr applied her inventing talents to trying to combat German submarines preying on ships in the North Atlantic.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

Over the weekend, NPR broadcast a must-listen piece on the astounding inventing career of Hedy Lamarr, an actress once considered by some to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

FORBES: Hedy Lamarr, The Most Glamorous Geek Of All Time

They would do well to note the story of Hedy Lamarr and remember that innovation comes in many forms, often from unlikely sources, who all have one thing in common: a love for ideas and an urge to find out if they'll work.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly