In the vicinity of this marker, famed actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, died on January 19, 2000 at her home on Wesson Drive in the Orange Grove Park neighborhood. Born Hedwig Eva Marie Kiesler on November 9, 1914, in Austria to Emil and Gertrude Kiesler, her parents raised her in the Jewish faith. She came to the U.S. in 1938 and became a naturalized citizen in 1953. She starred in over two dozen movies, including Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah." In 1942, she and George Antheil received U.S. patent number No. 2,292,387 for the "Secret Communication System." They designed the system for the Allied Powers to use against Nazi Germany during World War II by allowing "frequency jumping" of radio waves in torpedo guidance systems. It later helped to make Wi-Fi and cellular phone technology possible. The National Inventor's Hall of Fame posthumously inducted Lemarr and Anthiel in 2014.
