Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna on November 9, 1914 as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Her family was well-to-do – father Emil was a bank director and mother Gertrud a pianist. Max Reinhardt discovered her acting talents in the late 1920s and brought her to Berlin. Following her training in the theater, Hedy Kiesler returned to Vienna where she began to work in the film industry as a script girl in the early 1930s. She soon began to get acting parts; her first notable role was in the 1931 film "Man braucht kein Geld," in which she worked with such stars of the German-language cinema as Hans Moser and Heinz Rühmann. She achieved international renown in 1933, when the barely 18-year-old girl played the first nude scene in cinematic history in the Czech film "Ecstasy." The film was banned in many countries around the world, or only an expurgated version of it was permitted to be shown. In that same year, on August 10, 1933, Hedy Kiesler married the Austrian industrialist Fritz Mandl, CEO of the Hirtenberger Patronenfabrik, then one of the world's leading arms producers. The marriage was an unhappy one. As Mrs. Fritz Mandl, she was, indeed, at the center of Viennese high society; nevertheless, she suffered under the domineering regime of a husband who forbade her to pursue her acting career.

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