The paradox was not lost on her. She had tried to contribute technically, and the contribution had been declined. She had tried to contribute scientifically, and the Navy had said thank you and put the paperwork in a drawer. What the government and the military and the studios wanted from her was the image — the beauty that filled auditoriums and sold tickets and moved crowds to open their wallets. The woman who had spent an evening with George Antheil working out synchronized frequency-hopping systems sold war bonds because that was what a woman who looked like Hedy Lamarr was expected to do.
Her studio career continued through the war. Tortilla Flat (1942), White Cargo (1942), Crossroads (1942), The Heavenly Body (1944), Experiment Perilous (1944). None of these films gave her material that matched what she demonstrated when the material was there. White Cargo, which cast her as a seductive Congolese woman named Tondelayo, was widely criticized even at the time for its racial caricature, and Lamarr’s performance — she was given lines and a costume that reduced the character to a type — could not transcend what the script had constructed.
She was also navigating the complicated terrain of her private life. Her second marriage, to a writer and film producer named Gene Markey (it was his surname Markey that appeared on the patent), had ended before the patent was even granted. She married John Loder in 1943, and they had two children: a son James and a daughter Denise. She also adopted a son, Anthony. The marriage to Loder lasted until 1947.