5 Historical Figures That Led Double Lives

Though history has a way of flattening its subjects into one-dimensional symbols, these figures prove there was much more to them than what ended up being printed in our history books. 

Let's journey into the past to uncover the overlooked stories of five remarkable historical figures.

1. Charles Lindbergh 
2. Hedy Lamarr 
3. Isaac Newton
4. Coco Chanel 
5. Mata Hari 

Charles Lindbergh 

After completing the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927, American aviator Charles Lindbergh was catapulted to international fame. Shortly after returning to the United States, Lindbergh embarked on a nationwide tour promoting aviation technology, quickly establishing himself as the face of the nascent aeronautics industry. 

After meeting his wife, Anne Morrow, during a diplomatic trip to Mexico in 1927, the couple married on May 27, 1929, in Englewood, New Jersey. Just over a year later, their first son, Charles Jr., would be born. 

When Charles Jr. was just shy of 2 years old, he was kidnapped from the family’s New Jersey home in what would quickly be dubbed “the crime of the century.” A few months later, the young boy’s body was discovered, and the Lindberghs moved to Europe to escape the intense media scrutiny, splitting their time between France and England while having five more children together. 

While the family lived in Europe, Charles continued his political activism, espousing some controversial views and sympathizing with Nazi Germany. The family eventually returned to the United States, and Charles continued traveling extensively for his work in civilian and military aviation. It’s during these travels that Lindbergh started not one, not two, but three secret families away from his wife. 

Alongside the six children he had with Anne, Charles fathered at least seven other children with three German women - a pair of sisters and his private secretary. 

Following Charles’s death from lymphoma in 1974, his marital indiscretion would remain hidden from the public until the early 2000s when a DNA test confirmed Lindbergh to be the father of Germans Astrid Bouteiul and her two brothers, David and Dyrk Hesshaimer. 

Hedy Lamarr 

While forging a career as a star of the silver screen, Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr managed to find time to help invent a radio guidance system designed to combat frequency jamming from Axis forces during World War 2.  

After beginning her film career in Czechoslovakia during the early 1930s, Lamarr married Fritz Mandl, a wealthy munitions dealer with ties to Italy’s fascist regime. Through her tempestuous relationship with Mandl, Lamarr was introduced to numerous scientists working on military technology, furthering her interest in the field of scientific invention. 

After leaving Mandl, Lamarr headed to London, where she secured a Hollywood contract with MGM studio executive Louis B. Mayer. Beginning in the late 1930s, Lamarr made a slew of appearances in well-received MGM films, costarring actors like Clark Gable, but eventually grew tired of being typecast as the “exotic seductress.” It’s around this time that Lamarr is reported to have begun experimenting with inventing as a way to relieve boredom. 

After becoming friendly with composer and pianist George Antheil, the pair began working together on their radio guidance system, filing a patent for the technology in 1941. After presenting the technology to the U.S. Navy for potential use, they were turned away and abandoned the project. Despite this, the technology would later be implemented and improved upon during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. 

By the early 1950s, Lamarr’s film career had begun to stall, leading to the actress largely retreating from public life by the end of the decade. Lamar later died at the age of 85 at her Casselbury, Florida home in January 2000.

Isaac Newton

In addition to his groundbreaking work in physics, English polymath Isaac Newton still managed to make time in his life for crimefighting. 

Their finances in freefall, the English Crown enlisted Newton’s help when a counterfeiting practice called “clipping” began plaguing the English economy. Through carefully shaving or “clipping” a thin layer of silver off a coin, fraudsters could collect the shavings, melt them down, and recoup some of the silver spent.

Serving as Master of the Mint from 1699 until his death in 1727, Newton investigated widespread counterfeit networks and even did some hands-on detective work to topple a massive clipping scheme run by William Chaloner. 

Alongside helping take down fraudsters like Chaloner, Newton helped reorganize the Royal Mint to ensure quality and prevent counterfeiting attempts in the future through introducing milled edges and improved engraving techniques to the production of coins. 

Coco Chanel 

After beginning a romantic relationship with Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage (a member of the German nobility and a known Nazi intelligence officer), French designer Coco Chanel began conspiring with Abwehr, the Nazi counterintelligence organization, to pass information from the Nazi Party to her contacts in British high society. Her relationship with von Dincklage afforded her special wartime privileges in return for her collusion with Nazi forces. Around 1940, Chanel even took up residence in the posh Hôtel Ritz, a Nazi intelligence headquarters, during the occupation of Paris. 

In conjunction with her deeply held antisemitic views, Chanel had a financial motive to work with the Nazis. The French designer attempted to leverage her Nazi connections to regain control of Parfums Chanel, the fragrance branch of her brand, by using draconian Aryanization laws to try to force the Jewish Wertheimer family to surrender their stake in her brand. Despite her efforts, Chanel’s plot was foiled by the Wertheimers, who had anticipated the move and instead transferred their stake to a non-Jewish business associate.

Chanel went on to undertake a slew of Nazi intelligence missions under the code name “Westminster.” As part of the failed Operation Modellhut, she intended to contact British diplomats through her friend, Vera Lombardi, a British socialite. The intelligence mission fell apart when Lombardi, instead of helping Chanel negotiate a back-alley peace deal between the Nazis and British, reported her longtime associate’s Nazis ties to British intelligence.

Chanel was later taken in for questioning about her Nazi ties by French authorities following the country’s liberation in 1944. Despite a plethora of evidence tying her to the Nazi regime, Chanel was released without charge, reportedly due to her high society ties, specifically her friendship with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. She subsequently decamped to Switzerland, where she successfully rehabilitated her image and grew her fashion empire.

Mata Hari 

Born Margaretha Zelle, Mata Hari was a Dutch exotic dancer and escort accused of spying for Germany during the First World War. 

Following a failed marriage to a Dutch army captain, Zelle decamped to Paris, where she reinvented herself as “Mata Hari,” an exotic dancer persona inspired by her time spent in the Dutch East Indies during her marriage. Hari invented an elaborate backstory for herself, claiming to be a Javanese princess trained in a sacred style of dance. 

Being that Hari predicated her provocative style of dance on “sacred tradition,” her performances quickly grew in critical acclaim, bringing her to the attention of the upper echelons of European society. Alongside performing, Hari began working as an escort, eventually becoming the paramour to a slew of highly influential government officials across Europe. 

As a citizen of a neutral country, Hari could travel fairly freely throughout Europe even after the outbreak of World War I, something that would later bring her to the attention of the French military intelligence. When one of Hari’s lovers, Russian captain Vadim Maslov, was injured in battle, Hari was allowed to visit him on the condition that she agreed to spy for France. 

Following a few failed low-stakes intelligence missions, Hari was arrested by French authorities after she was accused of spying for Germany. Following a shoddy trial teeming with shaky circumstantial evidence, Hari was convicted of espionage and executed by firing squad on October 15, 1917. 

While Mata Hari came to symbolize a sort of “femme fatale” or deceitful seductress archetype, later historical reexamination of her life painted her as an inconsequential opportunist rather than a master spy or double agent. Some historians have also speculated that Mata Hari’s conviction and execution for espionage were, in part, to provide a scapegoat for the French and bolster morale. 

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