In 1937, she left her husband, going first to Paris and then to London. There, she was discovered by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, who brought her to Hollywood and gave her a new name. As Hedy Lamarr, she became obe of the most successful actresses of the late '30s and early '40s and attained the status of a sex symbol. In her very first film, "Algiers," she succeeded in breaking the dominance of the peroxide blondes à la Jean Harlow and established a new female type in the American cinema: the elegant and enigmatic dark-haired beauty. In a career that lasted into the late '50s, she acted in over 25 films together with Hollywood stars like Clark Gable, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland. In her choice of roles, though, Hedy Lamarr did not prove to have a hot hand. She turned down lead parts in "Casablanca" and "Gaslight," and often chose to act in films of no lasting cinematic value. Her typecasting in the role of the elegenat beauty also proved to be a problem. She seldom succeeded in escaping from this cliché – in the romantic comedy "Come Live With Me," for instance, in which she starred with James Stewart, playing an Austrian émigré who fled from the Nazis.

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