Veronica Lake
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Veronica Lake at the height of her career in 1942. |
Veronica Lake, born
Constance Frances Marie Ockelman, also known as
Constance Keane (
14 November 1922,
[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.] Brooklyn, New York –
7 July 1973,
Colchester, Vermont) was a popular
American film
actress and
pin-up model who achieved wide fame and critical praise, especially for her femme fatale roles in
film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s.
Described by
Bette Davis as "the most beautiful person who ever came to Hollywood," her success was fleeting and after a string of broken marriages and long struggles with
mental illness and
alcoholism she died almost destitute.
Constance's father, Harry E. Ockelman, worked on a ship for an oil company. When she was about a year old the family moved to
Florida but returned to Brooklyn before she was five. According to some accounts she was beaten as a child. Her father died in an industrial explosion when she was 12. Her mother, Veronica, married Anthony Keane a year later and Constance began using his last name.
They are said to have lived in
Canada,
New York state and
Miami,
Florida where she graduated from high school. While growing up, she had a troubled childhood. She was supposedly diagnosed as a
paranoid schizophrenic during her teenaged years although there are not any records to verify her diagnosis.
She achieved minor celebrity in Miami for her beauty, and in 1938 Constance moved with her mother and step-father to
Beverly Hills,
California where Mrs. Keane enrolled her daughter in
Hollywood's Bliss Hayden School of Acting.
Her first appearance on screen was for
RKO, playing a small a role among several coeds in
Sorority House (1939). Similar roles followed, including
All Women Have Secrets and
Dancing Co-Ed.
During the make up of Sorority House director
John Farrow first noticed how her hair, always covering her right eye, created a kind of mystery around her and enhanced her natural beauty. She was then introduced to the
Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow Jr, who changed her name to Veronica Lake. Veronica, he has said, because "when I think about Veronica ,I think about classic,and your beauty is a classical beauty" and Lake after her blue eyes.
However her contract was dropped by RKO. She married art director John Detlie in 1940. Another small role in the comedy movie
Forty Little Mothers brought unexpected attention and in 1941 she was signed to a long term contract by
Paramount Pictures, was given her stage name
Veronica Lake (Veronica was her mother's name), and on August 21 gave birth to a daughter, Elaine Detlie.
Her breakthrough film was
I Wanted Wings (1941), a major hit in which she had 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 noted 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, later used as a basis for the 1960s hit television series
Bewitched),
The Glass Key (1942) and
So Proudly We Hail! (1943).I married a witch was a sensation hit,written by Preston Sturges and directed by rene' Clair.However her co-star, fredrich March ,probably annoyed by her continuous need of more than one ciak for many of their scenes together, started to call the movie "I married a bitch" and refused ever after to talk about that experience.The voices about her bad behaviour and bad habits were just started,anyway these problems didn't affect the movie in no way, the couple seems to get along just fine and Lake performance is really enjoyable
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Lobby poster for I Married a Witch (1942). |
For a short time during the early 1940s Veronica 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.The couple was put together at first for merely fisical need: Alan Ladd was just 5' 5" (1.65 m) tall and the only girl on the Paramount lot who could pair with him was then Veronica ,with her 5' 2½" (1.59 m).Anyway their "assemblance" as an item was a really good intuition and was repeted for four films. A stray lock of hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic
peekaboo hairstyle which hid one eye with her shoulder-length blonde hair and was widely imitated. During
World War II she changed her trademark image as a publicity move to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical hairstyles. Some critics have speculated that the loss of her peekaboo look diminished the mystery and allure of her on screen image, damaging her box office appeal. Given the fickle nature of movie audiences there could have been some truth to this initially but other factors were at work.
Although widely popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and professionally she had developed a reputation for being difficult to work with.
Eddie Bracken, her co-star in
Star Spangled Rhythm (1942), was quoted as saying "She was known as 'The Bitch' and she deserved the title." However, in that same movie Lake took part in a song lampooning her own hair style, "A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang" performed with
Dorothy Lamour and
Paulette Goddard, although part of Lake's "vocals" were dubbed.
Lake's career stumbled with her role as
Nazi sympathizer Dora Bruckman in
The Hour Before Dawn (released in 1944). During filming she had tripped on a lighting cable and her second child was born prematurely on July 8, 1943. William Detlie died a week later from
uremic poisoning and there are indications she may have deliberately attempted to miscarry him. By the end of 1943 her first marriage had ended in divorce. Meanwhile scathingly poor reviews of
The Hour Before Dawn included criticism of her unconvincing German accent which was also said to have interfered disastrously with her acting.
Nevertheless Lake was making $4500 per week under her contract with Paramount when she married director
André de Toth in 1944. Their son, 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 plainly refusing to work with her. She had been seeing psychiatrists for years but de Toth didn't approve and according to a published account, once suggested Veronica spend the $50 she would otherwise pay for a doctor's appointment on a new hat.
Meanwhile 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 less than fond of her) but Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.
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 catastrophically. By the end of 1952, she had appeared in one last film (
Stronghold, which she later described as "a dog"), had filed for bankruptcy, and divorced de Toth. The
IRS seized what was left for unpaid taxes. Lake resorted to television and stage work and in 1955 married songwriter Joseph A. McCarthy.
After severely 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 drunkness and disorderly conduct.
A reporter eventually ran across her working as a barmaid and wrote a widely distributed story which 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 (
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 Carelton-Munro before returning to the US 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 had no guests or visitors and was again financially destitute.
Lake was 53 when she died of
hepatitis and acute
renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) near
Burlington, Vermont. Her ashes were scattered off the
Virgin Islands.
Veronica Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to the motion picture industry.
"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)
* She is of Danish and Irish descent.
* She was reportedly only 4' 11" 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.
* Many women are said to have damaged their hair while trying to imitate her platinum blonde color during the 1940s.
* She learned to fly in 1946 and flew her small plane from Los Angeles to New York in 1948.
* Her close friendship with actress Rita Beery, former wife of actor
Wallace Beery, has led to unconfirmed rumours she experimented with
lesbianism.
* She reportedly worked as a waitress in a
White Coffee Pot restaurant in
Baltimore during the early 1960s.
*A somewhat bizarre twist came in 2004 when some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store.
* The
Archie comics character
Veronica Lodge was partially named after Veronica Lake, who was in the throes of her early celebrity when the comic book character was introduced in the spring of 1942.
Veronica Lake is also the name of a fictional
lake located near the small town of
Frostbite Falls, Minnesota (a
parody of
International Falls) on the
animated Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
*In 1997 the
Academy Award-winning film
L.A. Confidential paid homage to Lake's image and manner through
Kim Basinger's starring role in an adaptation of
James Ellroy's crime novel set in early 1950s
Los Angeles. One scene even included a fragment from
This Gun for Hire screening in the background.
*
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 gave tribute to Veronica in her video of her single "Lucky".
*
Jessica Rabbit from
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was designed after Veronica Lake. Jessica even sports the Veronica Lake trademark "Peek-a-Boo" hairstyle.
*In the
Family Guy episode "
Deep Throats," in the restaurant scene Stewie is in drag with a Veronica Lake wig.
Sorority House (1939)
The Wrong Room (1939) (short subject)
Dancing Co-Ed (1939)
All Women Have Secrets (1939)
Young as You Feel (1940)
Forty Little Mothers (1940)
I Wanted Wings (1941)
Hold Back the Dawn (1941) (Cameo)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
The Eyes Have It (1942) (short subject)
This Gun for Hire (1942)
The Glass Key (1942)
I Married a Witch (1942)
Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
The Hour Before the Dawn (1944)
Bring on the Girls (1945)
Out of This World (1945)
Duffy's Tavern (1945) (Cameo)
Hold That Blonde (1945)
Miss Susie Slagle's (1946)
The Blue Dahlia (1946)
Ramrod (1947)
Variety Girl (1947) (Cameo)
Saigon (1948)
The Sainted Sisters (1948)
Isn't It Romantic? (1948)
Slattery's Hurricane (1949)
Stronghold (1951)
Footsteps in the Snow (1966)
Flesh Feast (1970)
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Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Veronica Lake*
Veronica Lake Fan Site
