The woman who portrayed the first ever female orgasm on-screen was left so bruised by the labels that came with it she had to change her name.
That actress was Hedy Kiesler, who starred in 1933 film Ecstasy. She played Eva, a young woman married to an older man who suffered from erectile dysfunction. Raunchy scenes saw her character swimming naked in a lake with her clothes draped on a nearby horse – which decides to run off with the garments, forcing Eva to give chase.
While desperately trying to pin down her errant mare, Eva runs into her new beau – a strapping young man who she decides to take to bed before divorcing her older husband. In a sex scene that was boundary breaking for its time, Eva is seen rubbing her hand against a rug on the floor and scattering her pearl necklace from clutching it too hard.
READ MORE: Billie Eilish forced to use emojis to cover up as she parades curves in see-through top
READ MORE: Want more showbiz? Daily Star has just the thing for you!
She later has an orgasm, with the camera zeroing in on her face contorted in pleasure. Just 18 years old when she was filming the scenes, Hedy was later forced to change her name to Hedy Lamarr to get away from the reputation she’d ended up with.
(Image: Getty Images)
Pope Pius XII openly denounced the movie, while in Germany, it was banned by Hitler. Years later, however, it was afforded a limited run in the US. Hedy even had a memoir about her sex life ghostwritten based on the film’s cult following – but denounced it as “libelous” and sued for $21million in damages.
Married in real life to munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl, Hedy’s husband tried to buy every copy of the film so that nobody would have to see his wife in the throes of pleasure. But in 1937, she divorced him and went to London – signing a contract with MGM Studios on the condition she “change her scandalous name”.
(Image: Getty Images)
By 1966, her Hollywood career ended mostly for good when Hedy was arrested for shoplifting makeup. But that’s not to say acting was her whole life, because she actually had a huge impact on the world we know today – helping pave the way for the invention of WiFi.
Hedy was a gifted scientist and even helped aviation inventor Howard Hughes make his planes fly faster by streamlining the wings. She also worked on a “secret communication system” for the US Navy to help block the signals from outbound torpedoes.
(Image: Getty Images)
For more of the latest showbiz news from Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.
Tragically, she was told by the National Inventors Council in Washington that she should use her looks instead to help the war effort, leaving her devastated. Hedy said: “My face has been my misfortune… It has brought me tragedy and heartache for five decades. My face is a mask I cannot remove: I must always live with it. I curse it.”
But by 1962, her technology was embraced by the military – and helped pave the way for future inventions like GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi. Hedy died at the age of 85 in 2000, having been married and divorced six times.
Follow Daily Star on Threads here.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
