Hedy Lamarr (german-way.com) Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (1914-2000) was born in Vienna in the year that the First World War began (9 November 1914). Later known as the screen star Hedy Lamarr, the clever Austrian would play an interesting off-screen role as an inventor in the Second World War – on the side of her adopted US homeland. This is just one of many facts that make Lamarr’s biography quite unlike that of most film stars.