• Mood: pensive
• Music: 'Over The Rainbow' - Eva Cassidy

Hedy and me

Last night as I was channel-hopping, I came across an item on Hedy Lamarr, the moviestar. I was immediately interested -- you don't hear about her too often, and the movies she starred in don't come to our screens all that often, either. As a result, I can't really say whether that's a good thing, or a bad thing.

However, I've been hearing about Hedy all my life. The reason for this, is that I was named after her. In the 40s, when my mum was a little girl in the Dutch East Indies, she saw one of her movies (I don't know which and my mum doesn't remember the name) and was bowled over by her presence on the silver screen. She thought she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen or was ever likely to see, and decided then and there that if she ever had a daugher, she would name her after Ms. Lamarr.

Like all Asians, my mum is pretty superstitious. She believed that if she named her daughter after the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, that daughter would grow up to be beautiful as well. Personally, I wish Mum had known about Ms. Lamarr's scientific mind and technological prowess (the original idea and 1942 patent that led to mobile phone technology had been hers), then perhaps I too could have been brilliant, but alas! I'm just stuck with having the same hair colour.