Actor-inventor Hedy Lamarr: Is today’s stunning animation the greatest Google Doodle yet?

Not only is it among the tech titan’s most stylish ever, as well as aptly cinematic, but today’s homepage Doodle marking the 101st birthday of the late Hedy Lamarr will surely spark deeper interest in the screen legend’s amazing life.

I’ve long been fascinated with Lamarr, largely because her true adventures could be as dramatic as nearly anything she so memorably put to screen

Oot only is it among the tech titan’s most stylish ever, as well as aptly cinematic, but today’s homepage Doodle marking the 101st birthday of the late Hedy Lamarr will surely spark deeper interest in the screen legend’s amazing life.

I’ve long been fascinated with Lamarr, largely because her true adventures could be as dramatic as nearly anything she so memorably put to screen

During World War II, Lamarr also put her mind to the war effort, determined to invent something that would help defeat Hitler. (Her first marriage had resulted not only in reportedly hosting the Fuhrer, but also in gaining knowledge of torpedoes.)

She and California neighbor/composer George Antheil co-created a frequency-hopping system (using a player-piano roll) so radio-guided torpedoes could avoid interference jamming — an invention for which they received a patent in 1942, though the U.S. military would not employ the technology for two more decades (during the Cuban Missile Crisis).

Lamarr, whose work laid the foundation for spread-spectrum communication technology, began to be truly recognized for her scientific accomplishments in the ’90s, in the last years of her life. She died in Florida in 2000 after long periods of seclusion. She was 85.

Last year, a century after her birth, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria, Va. “Although Lamarr and Antheil never profited from their invention during their lifetime,” the Hall of Fame site says, “it was acknowledged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997 as an important development in wireless communications.”

Today, Google helps the world celebrate Lamarr with a Doodle that will be viewed by many, fittingly, via wireless technology.

“We love highlighting great stories about women’s achievements in science and technology,” Doodle artist Jennifer Hom writes on the company’s blog. “When the story involves a 1940s Hollywood star-turned-inventor who helped develop technologies we all use with our smartphones today … well, we just have to share it with the world.”