Hedy Lamarr. Ruth Barton

Schwartau, Hedy presided over a dinner table that accommodated writers such as Ödön von Horváth, and Franz Werfel and his wife, Alma. According to Hedy's autobiography, they also counted Sigmund Freud among their circle. If these names reflected Mandl's cultural interests, some of Mandl's other guests were more sinister. Certainly, they included Mussolini, but, according to Hedy, another diner was Adolf Hitler.²² It seems unlikely that Mandl would have entertained the German leader, even if Hitler were in Vienna at this time; later, Mandl actively moved against Hitler. Mussolini was another matter; he and Mandl shared many interests, not least a friendship with another well-known Austrian fascist, Count Ernst Riidiger von Starhemberg. Von Starhemberg was the owner of thousands of acres of land and some thirteen castles across Austria; in the 1923 Putsch, he fought for Hitler, whom he counted at that time as a personal friend. By the time Von Starhemberg met Mandl, however, he had run through the family fortune and needed the munitions baron's financial support to stay at the forefront of the politics of the day.

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      Mandl and von Starhemberg made a formidable pair. The latter was socially well connected; Mandl brought money and ruthless business acumen to the partnership. Their vision was clear: when democracy became unworkable, Mandl told an interviewer in 1933, then you need a strong pair of clean hands. These were Count von Starhemberg's, he pronounced confidently, a man who had supported his political ideals with his own fortune.²³ These ideals were now invested in a private militia, the Heimwehr, and in February 1934 the twosome deployed the Heimwehr to crush the socialist revolution in Vienna. Equipping the Heimwehr and aligning himself with von Starhemberg were characteristically immoral moves on the part of Mandl, not least because a considerable proportion of the Heimwehr's membership was motivated by anti-Semitism. Von Starhemberg himself was, like Mandl, quite immune to the finer points of ideology, on occasion inciting a crowd with Nazi-inspired slogans and, when it was more convenient, reassuring the foreign press that the Heimwehr completely rejected Nazi racial theories.²⁴ Mussolini bought weapons from Mandl at top rates to help finance his and von Starhemberg's activities, and for a time, as part of his strategy to strengthen Austria against Hitler, the Italian leader threw in his lot with the two Austrians.

      This then was the company the young Hedy Mandl found herself keeping. It was at one of von Starhemberg's balls that a conversation took place that suggests there were more sinister reasons for her marriage to Mandl. According to Jewish-German writer Heinz Liepmann, it is based on an encounter with Hedy that took place on the night of 22 November 1934. By this stage Dolfuß had been assassinated and von Starhemberg was vice-chancellor and minister of State Security. The guests at the ball included Prince Nicholas of Greece, Madame Schiaperelli, Franz Werfel and Alma, Prince Gustav of Denmark, actress Nora Gregor (now von Starhemberg's lover), and General Malleaux of the French General staff. But the figure that caught Liepmann's gaze was that of a young woman whose beauty, heightened by the simplicity of her gown and the size of her diamond pin, outshone this display of wealth. This was Frau Mandl, dancing in the arms of her much-older husband, Fritz. Soon after he entered the ballroom, Liepmann observed Mandl leave with Count von Starhemberg and sensed a shudder of foreboding run through the collection of guests. What were these two men planning? Seizing his chance, Liepmann asked an acquaintance to introduce him to Hedy. “Let us sit down for a moment,” she suggested. “Only then did I notice,” Liepmann recalled, “that her soft alluring beauty was really intoxicating when enhanced by the vital charm of her eyes and her voice. She appeared sophisticated and na'ive at the same time—great international hostess and sweet Viennese girl.”²⁵ They talked about her father, whom Liepmann had known. He was a shrewd businessman, Liepmann remembered, tall, handsome, and always well dressed, with blue eyes and dark hair growing grey at the temples. Hedy sighed at the thought of “my poor old daddy,” but she was soon swept offby another admirer for a waltz. How could the repellent Mandl have won himself such a beautiful young bride, Liepmann wondered aloud to his friend Ödön von Horvath.

      According to von Horvath, the Kieslers had found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy after the death of Hedy's father. Hedy and her mother attempted to win back some of their lost fortune on the stock exchange and, in doing so, lost the rest. Hedy then took a job as a stenographer but was much too pretty to work in an office, “You know what I mean,” von Horvath added suggestively. At last, through the intervention of an old family friend, Hedy was hired at Sascha Studios and it was there that Machaty discovered her. The accuracy of the report is questionable, given that Liepmann apparently believed Emil Kiesler had died a few years previously (Herr Kiesler died unexpectedly of a heart attack a year later in February 1935).

      At this point, Horvath paused and both men listened as a detachment of Heimwehr militia passed by; a single light coming from above suggesting that Mandl and von Starhemberg were engaged in some menacing plot. “Why did she play in Ecstasy at all?” Liepmann wondered. Horvath shrugged. “I think she can hardly be blamed for it,” he answered. “The film itself is a very ambitious and purely artistic work and I think that nobody, least of all Hedy, had the faintest idea that the great public would regard it as a ‘naughty’ film.”

      Sympathetic as he was to Hedy's suffering over the public reception of the film in the previous year, von Horvath suggested that she was foolish not to have kept a low profile after the scandal erupted. Instead, she took a part in Max Reinhardt's 1931 stage production of The Weaker Sex, cast most likely because of her notoriety as much as her acting.

      Gripping Liepmann's arm, Horvath pointed to the figures of Mandl and von Starhemberg walking together arm in arm. Hedy left her dancing partner and walked over to Mandl. The band struck up a waltz and the munitions baron began to dance with his young wife. Liepmann watched him lean over and say something into her ear and observed how her eyes opened wide, apparently in horror. More political machinations were afoot.

      There are perhaps too many inaccuracies in Liepmann's story to render it useful but certainly it is worth mulling over the similarities between the portrayal of the aging husband, unflattering as it was, in Ecstasy and Mandl's own stature and status. Nor should one dismiss the possibility that Hedy's very youthful marriage was sanctioned by her parents because of the financial security they felt it would bring her. Certainly, like Sissy, she may have felt trapped by the obnoxious Mandl and his wealth, age, and position.

      In August 1934, Ecstasy was entered at the Second Venice Film Festival. The version enjoyed by festivalgoers was the one ending with Eva nursing her baby while Adam lost himself in work.²⁶ Because the festival still had no access to a suitable cinema, Ecstasy was screened, as were other entries, in the open air. As darkness fell, the audience took their seats in the garden of the Hotel Excelsior to watch Machaty's film. They were enchanted and saluted the ending with a standing ovation and calls of “Bravo!” It was the longest round of applause to greet any film at the festival. The next day on the Lido, all the talk was of Ecstasy. Should Eva have left her husband? Should they have stayed together to bring up their child? As Francesco Bono remarks, overnight the unknown Austrian Hedwig Kiesler was transformed into a diva. Dressed in the most elegant designs, she was seen around Venice with one arm linked to her husband (apparently now reconciled to his wife's scandalous performance) and the other arm linked to von Starhemberg, who was in town conducting business with Mussolini. One journalist was certain he spotted the young star throwing off her clothes and jumping naked into the sea.²⁷

      Needless to say, controversy also followed the screening of Ecstasy, with the influential Catholic press outraged by its content. II Duce (Mussolini) demanded that a private screening of the work be held in his home at the Villa Torlonia. A print was flown to him in Rome where he is rumored to have gasped over Hedy's beauty, a signal that the film could continue to be shown. As Francesco Bono advises, these anecdotes should be taken with a pinch of salt; particularly in this case, as Hedy already knew Mussolini from his friendship with Mandl.²⁸ Whether the Pope actually banned the film is again a moot point; in any case, this screening turned out to be the only opportunity Italian audiences had to see Ecstasy, which received no further commercial release. The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film that year went to a rather different offering, Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran, but Gustav Machaty won the Cup of the City of Venice as Best Director.

      Tiring of life