Hedy Lamarr enjoyed her biggest success in 1949 with the box-office hit "Samson & Delilah," her first color film, but none of her subsequent work was able to follow up on this success. Her last major role was in the 1957 release "The Female Animal," in which she played an aging film diva. A decade later, a comeback attempt failed after she was arrested and charged with shoplifting on January 28, 1966 in Los Angeles. Although she was found not guilty in court, she lost her role in the film "Picture Mommy Dead" in which she had been set to play the female lead. Another scandal resulted from her purported autobiography "Ecstasy and Me," which also came out in 1966. The book is mostly full of Hollywood gossip, and indulges in a long series of kiss-and-tell stories starring the actress herself. Lamarr felt that the book damaged her reputation, and she sued the ghostwriter and the publisher, charging them with "misrepresentation," but the harm done to her image proved to be irreparable. Beginning in th early 1970s, Hedy Lamarr increasingly withdrew from public life. She moved from the West Coast to New York, and from there to Miami in the '80s. A few years ago, she setled in the vicinity of Orlando, where she lived until her death on January 19, 2000 in total seclusion.

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