The Performing Arts & History Museum at the Grand
Our museum of performing arts is open. Please call to arrange a tour. At this time, our Chairman of the Museum, Susanne Curn-Escobar MD is coordinating the fund raising for the restoration, the design of the museum as well as what will be held in the museum's collection. If you have any questions about the museum, or have something to donate, please contact Scott Dressel at 740-632-2899.
Individual memories of the Grand are also being collected and are noted below the special story below, you can email the Grand your stories at grandtheater@historicsteubenville.org
Thanks!
The Story of Hedy Lamarr:
http://www.hedylamarr.org/index.html
In 1933, a beautiful, young
Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the
woods ... naked. She swam in a lake ... naked. Pushing well beyond the social
norms of the period, the movie also featured a simulated orgasm.
The most popular movie
in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that
scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman.
Louis B. Mayer, of the
giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film
was banned practically everywhere ... which of course made it even more popular
and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price.
The star of the film,
called Ecstasy, was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was "to
stand there and look stupid." In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She
was a genius. She'd grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She
was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became
ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her.
Between the sexual roles she played, her
tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the
men in her life ... including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless
dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in
history.
Her beauty made her rich for a time. She
is said to have made -- and spent -- $30 million in her life. But her greatest
accomplishment resulted from her intellect ...And her invention continues to
shape the world we live in today.
You see, this young Austrian starlet
would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under
Hitler's nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood
star ... her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the
U.S. Patent Office.
Today, when you use your cell phone or,
over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access
(via something called "long-term evolution" or LTE" technology), you'll be using
an extension of the technology a 20- year-old actress first conceived while
sitting at dinner with Hitler.
At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler
was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria 's
leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis.
Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a
showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian,
Italian, and German fascist forces. One of Mandl's favorite topics at these
gatherings -- which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini -- was the
technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes.
Wireless weapons offered far greater
ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that prevailed at the time. Kiesler
sat through these dinners "looking stupid," while absorbing everything she heard
...
As a Jewish person, Kiesler hated the
Nazis. She abhorred her husband's business ambitions. Mandl responded to his
willful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss Schwarzenau. In 1937, she
managed to escape. She drugged her maid, Snuck out of the castle wearing the
maid's clothes, and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to London.
(She got out just in time. In 1938,
Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl's factory. He was half Jewish.
Mandl fled to Brazil. Later, he became an advisor to Argentina's iconic populist
president, Juan Peron.)
In London, Kiesler arranged a meeting
with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract with him, becoming one of
MGM's biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20 films. She was a costar to
Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each of her first seven MGM movies
was a blockbuster.
But Kiesler cared far more about
fighting the Nazis than about making movies. At the height of her fame, in 1942,
she developed a new kind of communications system, optimized for sending coded
messages that couldn't be "jammed."
She was building a system that would
allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach their targets. She was building
a system to kill Nazis.
By the 1940s, both the Nazis and the
Allied forces were using the kind of single-frequency radio-controlled
technology Kiesler's ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback of this
technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and "jam" or
intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile's intended path.
Kiesler's key innovation was to "change
the channel." It was a way of encoding a message across a broad area of the
wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was jammed, the message would
still get through on one of the other frequencies being used. The problem was,
she could not figure out how to synchronize the frequency changes on both the
receiver and the transmitter. To solve the problem, she turned to perhaps the
world's first techno-musician, George Anthiel.
Anthiel was an acquaintance of Kiesler
who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate musical compositions. He
synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos, producing stereophonic
sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated Anthiel's technology
for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to synchronize the
frequency changes between a weapon's receiver and its transmitter.
On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent No.
2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey," which was Kiesler's
married name at the time.
Most of you won't recognize the name
Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy Markey. But it's a fair bet
than anyone reading this newsletter of a certain age will remember one of the
great beauties of Hollywood 's golden age -- Hedy Lamarr. That's the name Louis
B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That's the name his movie company made
famous.
Meanwhile, almost no one knows Hedwig
Kiesler -- aka Hedy Lamarr -- was one of the great pioneers of wireless
communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S. Navy, which has used it
ever since.
You're probably using Lamarr's
technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of "spread spectrum
technology," which you use every day when you log on to a wi-fi network or make
calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart of the massive
investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation "LTE" wireless
technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers will provide
tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by spreading
wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of encoding is
only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig Kiesler
invented.
The following memories are compiled from emails and Facebook Grand Theater Fan page posts:
Sweet!
I remember riding the bus downtown to see the hr puffinstuff movie at the grand
theater with mary caldwell (kliner), shirley kliner smith and shari king (lelli)
I
remember riding the bus from Wintersville to Steubenvlle! I am so homesick and
all the wonderful memories of my childhood..... But, am coming home for a visit
May 10th, for my Mom's 70th B-Day and to hook up with my childhood, bestest,
friend, Ruthi Weeks Hooper!!!! WOOHOO
Anna
Lawson Summerville Metcalf
Can't tell you how many many
Saturday evenings were spent watching movies in the Grand. Bill and Ruth
Powelson managed it at that time and it was always packed. Thank you for working
on bringing it back.
Dee
Dettore I remember going to
this theater every Sat. we use to get tickets at school. I will not
tell you what it cost you would not believe me. I think the last show I
saw here was The Ten Commandments. I loved to go here with my Grandma.
Christine
Waggoner I remember my Dad taking my younger sister and I there... it
was my first time in a theater...we saw "Darby O'Gill and the Little
People" and I had nightmares about banshees for days!
Eric
M. Reszke I remember the Nuns walking our class down from St. Peter's to
watch a film at The Grand. Good times.
Steve
Mack I remember seeing some Beatles movies there..like 4 in a row and
starting at about midnight.
Bobby
Watley Wow, so many memeories at the Grand.....Goetze's Caramel Creams, Hot
buttered popcorn......all for $2.oo..........oh n Randolph Scott
Eugene
Candal Tickets bought at Grant School would get you in all summer long and
the pop corn candy bar and soda would all be under a buck. I know you all
remember Ma and Pa Kettle. Come on give up that age and admit it. LOL. I liked
the Tarzan movies. Glad someone is restoring it. The Ville deserves it.
Tess
Rheinhardt That's great this is getting restored, I've always thought
it was a shame it ever closed. I remember watching the exorcist from the
balcony...Scary!!!!
Steve
Mack I remember seeing some Beatles movies there..like 4 in a row and
starting at about midnight.
I remember that also, it was like 1976 or 77, I think. I remember walking
home around 5 am lol.