Do you know that Hedy Lamarr had a fierily temperamental character that was completely opposite of her heavenly look? Somehow many men got intimidated of her because she was both extremely intelligent and too moody to handle. Let’s look at how many of the men in her life talked about this aspect of Hedy. The first part of today I’ll focus on actor John Fraser’s personal experience with Hedy when they filmed The Loves of Three Queens together in 1953.
In his autobiography Close up:an actor telling tales, John Fraser dedicated one chapter to talk about the filming of The Loves of Three Queens where he played Drago, a loyal friend of queen Geneviève (Hedy Lamarr) who died while fighting to protect her honor. At first it was the problem of Hedy’s disapproving of what she had to wear in the movie. She screamed in anger:
“How can they sick me in that Ball Gown! I need scarlet! Or lilac to go with my eyes…They want to ruin my career. I’ll look like Doris Day before she was a virgin! I’m going to walk off this picture. Walk it off. Just like that. Just leave. Get on a plane tomorrow. Frankie will fix everything. I’m not sticking around here to have my future flushed down the john…”
She seemed to be talking to herself at this point, then she even got very temperamental though John and many people had assured Hedy that she would look wonderful in anything, anything! Because she was the most beautiful woman.
She didn’t seem to listen. She just immersed herself in her own thoughts. This made John think she must be seriously mentally disturbed. In the end, he had to raise his voice a little,
“Hedy, don’t walk off the picture. They’ll listen alright when we start working. You see, everything will turn out fine.”
Everything did not turn out fine. Hedy didn’t speak anything. She was, again, deep in her own thoughts regardless of the presence of John Fraser. Then he said, “she bent her lovely gaze on me without speaking for quite two minutes. She then said in a gentle voice, extremely lucidly, “Who are you, you little flea, to tell me what to do?”. Then she just left.
The 40 year old but still ravishing Hedy Lamarr, as queen Geneviève de Brabant
John Fraser was too young and unprepared before a big star he didn’t know what to do. What came next was that the scenes with Hedy and him turned out to be so difficult and heavy because Hedy refused to talk to him for she thought he didn’t treat her with enough respect. Even her relationship with Edgar Ulmer, who was also from Austria thus naturally everyone expected a warm relationship between Hedy and him, was becoming more and more bitter. Edgar, who had directed Hedy in The Strange Woman had to walk off the filming because Hedy was “beyond unbearable”. Note that he was one director who never walked off while filming before.
The ending scene when queen Geneviève reconciled with her husband after 5 years apart
John Fraser was just glad when the filming was over and he would not want to work with a big star again soon. But in conclusion, he said in defense of Hedy:
“Hedy Lamarr was never a normal person. Not only she was considered the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, she was one of the patent holders of the idea of “frequency hopping” communications. This revolutionary concepts is now used in everything from mobile phones to military satellites to jam-resistance radar. She was worshiped for both her beauty and scientific genius”
>> Next: Hedy Lamarr’s Moodiness – Part 2: Engaged to Jean Pierre Aumont.
An Pham
Beyond just a fan website 
OMG! The first picture! O_O She was too perfect and deserved the title “The most beautiful woman” of all the beautiful women in movie world.
I didn’t know she had such a temper. This made her even more interesting for me 🙂
I know. It was so perfect, wasn’t it? 😉
Interesting facts about Hedy. John Fraser is right. She’s not normal at all.
By the way, do you know where I can find the movie “The Loves of Three Queens”? It’s very rare! 😦
I don’t know where you can find “The Loves of Three Queens”. I myself only have one VHS copy of it. I hope they’d restore it someday just for the gorgeous
I think she had numerous reasons to be so moody. First of all, her career was waning and there;s no doubt in my mind that she knew thst. Notice that she screams during the filming of THE LOVES OF THREE QUEENS, “I’m not sticking around here to have my future flushed down the john…” Secondly, she was often looked upon as merely an object of great beauty rather than a human being with thoughts and feelings and Hedy was usually unaware of her own looks. In other words, she was often unappreciated. Thirdly, she was an extremely independent woman who didn’t take crap from anyone!
Actually her career was really going downhill AFTER “The Loves of Three Queens”. Although she took a hiatus for more than 2 years from making movies, the latest movie she made (My favorite Spy) was a success. Hedy was super nervous making “three queens” because she wanted to make a good comeback, else she knew her career was over. In fact she was right, “The Loves of three Queens” was so terrible it was cut down to 1.5 hours from the original 3 hour movie and only released LIMITEDLY in Europe.
After the movie, Hedy got married again. And this was the time when both her professional life and personal life became sour. Anthony Loder reported at this time, his mother constantly worried about her beauty fading, she was rather intimidated about it. It’s a shame that Hollywood was so cruel to Hedy when she started getting old.
But hey, she’s still super stunning in this movie. It makes me furious with MGM not putting her into one single color movie during the early 40s. I’m willing to buy the rest 1.5 hours of “The Loves of three Queens” if it exists at all. Seeing Hedy in color, alone, is a generous treat. I don’t care about the movie was good, bad, or anything in between.
Since THE LOVES OF THREE QUEENS is an Italian film, I wonder if Hedy took the time to travel and visit Vienna, her birthplace, for a little while. I seem to remember in CALLING HEDY LAMARR that she was a very happy person in Vienna, especially since she had such a pleasant childhood and a father whom she loved more than anyone else in her whole life. Sadly, according to Christopher Young’s book THE FILMS HEDY LAMARR, when she was escaping Austria from her first husband Fritz Mandl in 1937 she learned the news that her father died.
However, I doubt that she returned to Vienna as she was so absorbed and nervous about her career in the making of THE LOVES OF THREE QUEENS.
“It makes me furious with MGM not putting her into one single color movie during the early 40s.”
The closest thing we can get to seeing Hedy in an early 1940s Technicolor MGM film is seeing Inez Cooper in DU BARRY WAS A LADY (1943). Here’s a reproduction of one of my threads on the Hedy Lamarr board on IMDB.com:
“Unless I’m mistaken, Troy202 stated a few years ago that Hedy’s contemporary lookalike was Inez Cooper in MGM’s Technicolor production of DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943).
Well, I managed to find some video footage of Miss Cooper in the film in superior quality. You can spot her as “Miss December” at the time mark of 9:07. The time mark is well worth the wait, for Miss Cooper looks a heck of a lot like Hedy in her brief close-up shot!
With Miss Cooper in Technicolor, one can easily imagine what Hedy would have looked like in a film shot in glorious Technicolor during her physical prime.”
Why DONT I see miss December look anything like Hedy except the attempted hairstyle?
About your other post. Yes she Howard Lee took her to visit Vienna once in the midst of their marriage. But too many broken memories haunted her. What year is it? ahhh, I can’t remember after the math exam this morning. I’ll find out.
By the by, somebody’s selling “The Love of Three Queens” on ebay. This looks like the one I have, except for mine may have better quality since it had been restored one time and is brand new:
http://cgi.ebay.com/LOVE-OF-3-QUEENS-Hedy-Lamarr-loves-1954-three-RARE-VHS_W0QQitemZ380200157315QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVHS?hash=item5885b20083
“Why DONT I see miss December look anything like Hedy except the attempted hairstyle?”
Maybe it’s because my love for Hedy is more passionate and romantic while yours is more platonic and down-to-earth? 😉
I’d rather see your print of THE LOVES OF THREE QUEENS than the ebay copy, Ann, simply because you claim that it’s a newly restored print.
“Maybe it’s because my love for Hedy is more passionate and romantic while yours is more platonic and down-to-earth?”
No, because I’m picky and hard to please. I won’t take anyone as Hedy-lookalike. :).
“No, because I’m picky and hard to please. I won’t take anyone as Hedy-lookalike.”
While I’d be only mildly pleased if I encountered a Hedy lookalike, I’d be ECSTATIC if I encountered a Hedy lookalike who was European and was (nearly) every bit as smart as the real Hedy, complete with an inventive, creative, and artistic mind. However, to use a wise word of advice I was taught in my adolescence, “It’s best to not have a crush on someone who looks like someone else.” I managed to heed this advice when directing my play; all the more so because I knew that the actress I cast was only interested in me as a director and as a friend. 😉
I have a few comments…First, i had a color copy of “L O 3 Q” and gave it away…sorry AN..this was prior to your site. I am glad that she did not marry George Montgomery, a carpenter she called him …it looked very serious. But years later i came across on TV, a replay of the original “Password” show with Allen LUnt, I believe that was his name..he married Betty White. On that show George was the celebrity guest. His playing partner was a homely woman, sorry but it was true. As the game progressed, they won and George was kissing and hugging this woman like he was going to devour her and Mr. Allen Lunt had to separate them…so my point is that if he was so enamored of this homely woman, could you imagine his engagement to the most beautiful woman of the world? Apparently, as Dinah Shore found out with their marriage that he was a womanizer and got divorced. For years i wanted to see that BoB hope special of all his leading ladies, and thanks to An i saw it here…BUT, there is another TV show that she made with Perry Como, and stole the entire show. I would love to see that. It was also in color during tv color growing years…it was october 1957. I wonder what the Perry Como estate plans to do with all his shows that were very popular in its time, or NBC. An, what happened to the ‘Quotes’ of famous stars and friends…i couldn’t find them. An, sorry to say but in your gallery area, there are more duplicates and sometimes triplicates. I have a few that i do not see on your site as yet…how do i download them to you?
Hi Anthony,
First here’s the quotes-by-other section. Did the new layout and navigation confuse you?
just go to the home page >> hedy >> quotes >> quotes about hedy.
http://www.hedy-lamarr.org/quotesabouthedy.htm
Second, I do have the VHS of “The Loves of Three Queens”, I sent it to an IT friend to get it converted in DVD as I need to screencap it. I’ll probably get it back in a week. Do you have her pre-Hollywood films? The only movie I don’t have is “Die Blumenfrau von Lindenau”. Can’t seem to find it anywhere.
Third, “The Perry Como Show” is in color?? :-O. All I got is some minutes of bad quality in back and white in VHS form. Do you know if I can find the color version of the show somewhere?
Sorry about the gallery problems. Sometimes I uploaded the better versions of the pictures and was lazy to delete the old ones. No worries, I’m working on a new gallery.
And you can send the pictures to my email address: annpham@hedy-lamarr.org. I would love to see unseen Hedy pics.
Best,
Hey An,
No comparison here, but I’d thought it’ll be interesting for you to read this.
http://blog.vivandlarry.com/?p=542
and it’s really depressing on both account to deal with these moodiness. Not everyone can handle it.
Wawa
Hey Wawa,
Thanks for the link. I’ll check out what Kendra wrote about Vivien’s moodiness later today. I know it’s beyond unbearable for any mortal human beings as one of Hedy’s co-stars said.
this image is actually the finest. http://qmeleon.Sourceforge.net/post.php