Veronica Lake (14 November 1922[1] – 7 July 1973) was a popular American film actress and
pin-up model who enjoyed both popular and critical acclaim, especially for her
femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s.
Her success was fleeting. Following a string of broken marriages and long struggles with mental illness and alcoholism, she died almost destitute.
Early life and career
Veronica Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York on
November 14, 1922. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of German-Dutch descent, worked for an oil company onboard a ship. When she was about one year old, the
family moved to Florida but returned to Brooklyn before she was five. Her father died in an
industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was 9. Her mother
(née Constance Charlotta Trimble) married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and Ockelman began
using his last name.
Connie was sent to an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, which
she hated. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Constance Keane attended high school in Miami, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled
childhood and was allegedly diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic during her teenage years, although no records exist to verify this diagnosis.
In 1938, Keane moved with her mother and step-father to Beverly Hills, California, where her mother enrolled Keane in the celebrated Bliss-Hayden School of Acting
at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Her first appearance on screen was for
RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House.
Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed.
During the making of Sorority House, director John Farrow first noticed how her
hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. She was then introduced
to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow Jr. He changed her name to Veronica
Lake because, "[w]hen I think about Veronica, I think about classic, and ... [her] beauty is a classical beauty", and the
surname suited her blue eyes.
Her contract was subsequently dropped by RKO. She married art director John S. Detlie
in 1940. Another small role in the comedy, Forty Little Mothers, brought unexpected attention. In 1941, she was signed to
a long term contract with Paramount Pictures. On August 21, she gave birth to a
daughter, Elaine Detlie.
1940s icon
Her breakthrough film was I Wanted Wings (1941), a major hit in which she played the second female lead and was said to
have stolen scene after scene from the rest of the cast. This success was followed by another, Hold Back the Dawn (1941). She was soon regarded as a witty, intelligent and trend-setting
actress and had starring roles in more popular movies, including Sullivan's Travels (1941), This Gun for Hire
(1942), I Married a Witch (1942, claimed to be the inspiration for the 1960s
hit television series Bewitched), The
Glass Key (1942) and So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Looking back at
her career years later, Lake remarked, "I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair."
I Married a Witch was a hit. Co-star Fredric March, probably annoyed by her
impatience with his need for multiple takes for many of their scenes together, started calling the movie "I married a bitch" and
refused to talk about the experience or work with her again.
For a short time during the early 1940s, Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood and was
also known for her onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. At first, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical
necessity: Alan Ladd was just 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair
with him was Veronica, who stood just 4 feet 11½ inches (1.51 m). They made four films together.
A stray lock of her shoulder-length blonde hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic peekaboo hairstyle,
which hid one eye, and was widely imitated. During World War II, she changed her trademark
image to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles.
Although widely popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work
with. Eddie Bracken, her co-star in Star
Spangled Rhythm (1942), was quoted as saying "[s]he was known as 'The Bitch' and she deserved the title." In that
movie, Lake took part in a song lampooning her hair style, "A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang", performed with
Dorothy Lamour and Paulette Goddard, although
some of Lake's vocals were dubbed.
Lake's career stumbled with her unsympathetic role as Nazi sympathizer Dora Bruckman in 1944's
The Hour Before the Dawn. During filming, she tripped on a lighting cable and her second child, William, was born
prematurely on July 8 1943, dying a week later from
uremic poisoning. By the end of 1943, her first marriage ended in divorce.
Meanwhile, scathing reviews of The Hour Before Dawn included criticism of her unconvincing German accent, which was said
to have interfered disastrously with her acting.
Nevertheless, Lake was making $4,500 per week under her contract with Paramount when she married director André de Toth in 1944. Their son, her third child, André Michael de Toth III, was born October 25 1945. Lake is said to have begun drinking more heavily during this
period and people began refusing to work with her.
Paramount cast Lake in a string of mostly forgotten films. A notable exception was The
Blue Dahlia (1946) in which she again co-starred with Alan Ladd (who reportedly was also less than fond of her).
During filming, author Raymond Chandler referred to her as "Moronica Lake". Paramount
decided not to renew her contract in 1948.
Tragic spiral
Her fourth child, Diana de Toth, was born October 16 1948.
Lake was also sued by her mother for support payments that year. After a single film for 20th
Century Fox, her career collapsed. By the end of 1952, she had appeared in one last film (Stronghold, which she
later described as "a dog"), filed for bankruptcy, and divorced de Toth. The IRS seized the remainder of her assets for unpaid taxes. Lake resorted to television and stage
work, and in 1955, married songwriter Joseph A. McCarthy.
After breaking her ankle in 1959, Lake was unable to continue working as an actress. She and McCarthy divorced, and she
drifted between cheap hotels in Brooklyn and New York City and was arrested several times for
public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.
A reporter found her working as a barmaid at the all women's Martha Washington Hotel in Manhattan. At first, Veronica claimed that she was a guest at the hotel and covering for a friend. Soon
afterward, she admitted that she was employed at the bar. The reporter's widely distributed story led to some television and
stage appearances. In 1966, she had a brief stint as a TV hostess in Baltimore,
Maryland, along with a largely ignored film role in Footsteps in the Snow.
Her physical and mental health declined steadily and by the late 1960s Lake was in Hollywood, Florida, apparently immobilized by paranoia (which
included claims she was being stalked by the FBI).
She published her autobiography Veronica amid much publicity and positive reviews. With the proceeds, Lake co-produced
and starred in her last film, Flesh Feast (1970), a very low budget horror movie with
a Nazi-myth storyline.
She then moved to the UK, where she had a short-lived marriage with "English sea captain" Robert Carleton-Munro before returning to the U.S. in 1973, having filed
for divorce. Lake was immediately hospitalized and although she is said to have made a cheerful
and positive impression on the nurses who cared for her, she was apparently estranged from her
three surviving children. She had no guests or visitors and was destitute again.
Lake was 50 when she died of hepatitis and acute renal
failure (complications of her alcoholism) near Burlington, Vermont. Her ashes
were scattered off the Virgin Islands.
Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard for
her contributions to the motion picture industry.
Quotes
- "I wasn't a sex symbol, I was a sex zombie."
- "You could put all the talent I had into your left eye and still not suffer from impaired vision."
- "I've reached a point in my life where it's the little things that matter... I was always a rebel and probably could have got
much farther had I changed my attitude. But when you think about it, I got pretty far without changing attitudes. I'm happier
with that." (1970)
Trivia
- She was of Danish and Irish descent.
- She was reportedly only 4 feet 11 inches (1.50 m) tall (although some accounts place her height two or three inches higher).
According to Celebrity Sleuth magazine, Lake said her "measurements" were 33C - 21 1/2 - 33 1/2.
- She learned to fly in 1946 and piloted her small plane from Los Angeles to New York in 1948.
- A somewhat bizarre twist came in 2004 when some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store.[2]
- She appeared as herself in Variety Girl (1947), Duffy's Tavern (1945), Up in Arms (1944) (uncredited, in
pin-up photo), Star Spangled Rhythm ("Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number) (1942), The Eyes Have It (1942),
and Hold Back the Dawn (1941).
References in popular culture
- The Archie comics character Veronica
Lodge was partially named after Veronica Lake, who was in the midst of her early celebrity when the comic book
character was introduced in the spring of 1942.
- The first two lines of the Rodgers & Hart song "The Girl I Love to Leave
Behind" (which is featured in the 1943 movie Stage Door Canteen) are "She
has hair that she wears like Veronica Lake / So that fifty percent of her is blind."
- Peter Hammill's 2000 album None of the Above contains a song entitled Like Veronica, of which the opening
line is "Wear your hair like Veronica Lake."
- Britney Spears paid tribute to Lake in Spears' video of her single "Lucky".
- Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger
Rabbit was designed after Veronica Lake. Jessica even sports Lake's trademark peekaboo hairstyle. Although in
comparison to Bob Hoskins in height, Jessica probably stood a foot taller
- Aaliyah also sported the peekaboo hairstyle. She even booked a hotel room under the alias of
Veronica Lake. This information comes from her biography made by MTV.
- Dick Tracy villainess "Breathless Mahoney" is supposedly based on Veronica Lake.
- The characters "Veronica Lake and her Escort" walk into the Copacabana night club in Barry Manilow's musical comedy
Copacabana, and are escorted to a table.
Filmography
References
- ^ U.S. Census, April 1, 1930, State of New York, County of Kings, enumeration
district 1657, page 8-B, family 151, Constance Ockelman (sic), age 7 years, born in Brooklyn. Her father, Harry Ockelman,
Jr., is listed as unmarried in the 1920 U.S. Census of Pennsylvania.
- ^ "Veronica Lake's
Ashes For Sale?"
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