Vinterview 2 - Annora of Nora Finds / Hedy Lamarr

This weeks vinterview is with another good friend of mine, Annora of Nora Finds, a vintage blog by Nora, a Chinese Indonesian Australian now living in London. Nora is a lover of the bygone eras who enjoy thrifting and finding vintage treasures. As a vintage blogger Nora aims to bring the old school elegance to her modern wardrobe and busy life and hope to inspire others to adopt vintage. You can find Nora on instagram @norafinds.

Nora chose Hedy Lamarr as her vintage idol which I think is a great match as they both are scientists with beauty and brains! For those of you that don't know Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, 9 November 1914 – 19 January 2000) was an Austrian and American film actress and inventor.

After an early and brief film career in Germany that included the controversial film Ecstasy (1933 – in which Lamarr is very briefly seen swimming in the nude and running naked), she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. There, she met MGM head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood, where she became a film star from the late 1930s to the 1950s.

Lamarr appeared in numerous popular feature films, including Algiers (1938), I Take This Woman (1940), Comrade X (1940), Come Live With Me (1941), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and Samson and Delilah (1949).

At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are now incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA, and Bluetooth technology, and this work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

And now to the interview. These questions were taken from a 1969 interview on the Merv Griffin show. 

You're beautiful
Why thank you - you’re not bad yourself.

Did you put on something new?
I always have something new. I like beautiful things and they keep showing up here and everywhere and I simply must surround myself with them.

Can I call you Hedy Miss Lamarr? Its a great name
It is indeed a great name - I do prefer Hedy than Hedwig. After all I’m not an owl.

Do you live in New York? Why are you here?
I wish I did - it’s such a great vibrant city and what a great place for a scientist and an actress to be. And why wouldn’t I be in New York - isn’t America the land of opportunity? Oh wait, that was pre-Trump wasn’t it?

Did you like pictures?
I loved pictures. It has always been my favourite mean to escape the real life. It’s always been a way for me to learn about other people, other lives, other cultures, and places outside my home.

You weren’t forced into it by your mother?
I was forced to do a lot of things by my mother, but pictures were not one of them. She’d rather me spending my time studying, practising the piano, or reading. Pictures were more of a reward if I did well in school.

Do you want me to tell you what your image is? its a glamorous beautiful internationally know star who obviously rides in limousines has great jewels and you don't scrub your kitchen floors
Well, image is a funny thing isn’t it. It’s only a glimpse into someone’s real life. I choose the image I want you to perceive and most of the time that is the image that sticks. Media doesn’t always show the real me, and it is so heavily filtered that you get to know *some* part of me, but not all. Do I have a glamorous life? Sometimes. Do I have great jewels? I sure do. Do I scrub my kitchen floors? Yes, but only because I have to. I don’t believe in paying someone to do something you can do better/ you enjoy doing. I love cleaning - I find it therapeutic. It’s about outsourcing what you don’t want to do and use the time to do something more enjoyable.

Isn't that what its all about?
It sure is. Isn’t that what we all want? Being happy? Making enough money to allow for our happiness?

Tell me something that I didn't know about you
I have a lot of sadness in me.

Of all the movies you made in Hollywood do you remember one leading man better than others?
William Powell was always a special one for me. We had great times making our movies and he is such a protector and a great friend to me. He was the Nick to my Nora - actually I wish I had played Nora Charles.

Do you have a desire to make films now? Would you like to go back? Have you seen any you'd like to do?
I’d love to. It’s always been on my bucket list to be a zombie. I’d love to be a glamorous zombie in a movie - or a zombie queen. They have vampire queens all the time but not zombie queens - I shall rectify that. I’d love to go back, I’d like to do an Alfred Hitchcock or a Stephen King movie actually.

And for a special treat you can watch the original interview here:

Thanks so much to Nora for agreeing to this interview!

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