The Navy’s engineers were not wrong to identify the mechanical implementation as a problem. They may or may not have been wrong in concluding that the problem was insurmountable; the fact that solid-state electronics later solved it suggests that the Navy’s judgment was at least partially a function of the available technology rather than the underlying concept.
What the Navy could have done — and what the historical record does not show any evidence that it did — was work with Lamarr and Antheil to adapt the concept to available hardware, or to mark it for development when the technology caught up. The patent was granted, filed, and set aside. No follow-up communication with the inventors is documented in the public record.
This is not scandalous, exactly. Thousands of patents were submitted to the National Inventors Council during the war, and the Navy could not develop all of them. But it is worth noting that the inventors received no feedback, no development contract, and no compensation. Lamarr’s specific offer to relocate from Hollywood to Washington to work on the project directly — an offer she reportedly made when submitting the patent — was not taken up.
## The Six Marriages, Without Sentimentality
Lamarr married Fritz Mandl in 1933 and left the marriage by 1937. She married Gene Markey, a screenwriter and producer, in 1939; the marriage lasted until 1941. She married John Loder, a British actor, in 1943, and they had two children before divorcing in 1947. She married Teddy Stauffer, a Swiss bandleader, in 1951; that marriage lasted barely a year. She married W. Howard Lee, a Texas oil magnate, in 1953, and they remained married until 1960. She married Lewis J. Boies, a lawyer, in 1963; the marriage lasted two years.