The iconic Hollywood pin-up rose to fame with her trademark blonde hair and died as a waitress in a hotel bar.
Veronica Lake became one of the biggest stars on the screen overnight. She made twenty-six films and, in the early 1940s, she became considered a style icon thanks to her characteristic peek-a-boo hairstyle, which would be imitated by hundreds of women. However, barely two decades after achieving cinematographic glory, the actress ended up completely alone, helpless and drunk.
Like so many other Hollywood stars, Veronica Lake had to invent herself from scratch. The daughter of an employee of an oil company, the actress was born in the New York district of Brooklyn under the name of Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in November 1922. When she was barely twelve years old, her father was killed by the explosion produced on an oil tanker, which that caused him a deep trauma.
A year after that episode, her mother Constance remarried (with an illustrator from whom Veronica would adopt her last name) and she moved with her family to Florida, where the actress participated in some contests. of beauty. “One of the jurors told her mother that if they ever went to Hollywood, he would arrange for the girl to get a screen test,” said her biographer and friend, writer Donald Bain. "The mother didn't think twice and they went to Hollywood."
Already then, Lake was beginning to develop a whole series of emotional problems. Her mother, obsessed with the idea of making her a star, despite the fact that she had not the slightest interest in being a public figure, took her to her doctor, and he diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia. Those close to her say that Lake, who always strove to project a false appearance of a tough girl, was actually quite a vulnerable and fragile person.
In 1938, her family settled in Beverly Hills (California), where she was enrolled in the famous Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Ultimately, her mother viewed acting as a form of treatment for her mental illness. Before long, Lake demonstrated her abilities as an actress and landed her first role in a film from the classic Hollywood production company RKO Pictures titled Sorority House (1939).
At that time, Hollywood changed her name and gave her some supporting roles in feature films where she used to play ingénue college girls. At the same time, she met Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) studios art producer John Detlie, who in 1941 became her first husband and, the following year, also the father of her first daughter.
The star of the moment
At the beginning of the forties, Lake also became the S- symbol of the moment. Her long, wavy blonde hair, parted on one side of her and covering her right eye, became her own hallmark and caused a sensation in the country. "The government distributed some communications to public service centers," commented an executive from Hollywood studios. “They were aimed at women who, due to circumstances of the war, collaborated with her work. They were told to be careful, to tie up their hair and not let it hang down like Veronica Lake, because they could get caught in the machinery.”
The film The Raven (1942), where she shared the lead with actor Alan Ladd, gave Lake's professional career a big boost and increased her cachet. However, it didn't take long for her personal life to begin to unravel. When her husband was posted to Seattle after enlisting in the Army, Lake stayed in Hollywood and began dating other men.
Before getting divorced, the actress became pregnant again and discovered that the father of the child was not her husband. Many of her in Hollywood began to refer to her as 'the slut', and Detlie forced an abortion on her. Paramount executives, fearing the story might get out, made up after Ella Lake had fallen after tripping over a wire during a radio show.
At the height of her fame, Lake began drinking excessively to alleviate the symptoms of her mental illness. It was then that she fell madly in love with the Hungarian filmmaker André De Toth, a domineering man who married her in December 1944 and pressured her to have children with him as soon as possible (which apparently caused her emotional instability). and severe depression).
Despite everything, Lake continued shooting feature films such as the film noir The Blue Dahlia (1946) or the drama Saigon (1948), where, in addition to sharing the limelight with his colleague Alan Ladd, he generated succulent income. In her prime, the actress earned $4,500 a week. The problem was that the more money she earned, the more she and her husband spent. "[Veronica and André] immediately bought a ranch, a farm and a plane so he could fly," said her biographer. “She received flight lessons. They had money again, but they spent it all”.
At the edge of the abyss
Adding to her financial crisis was the fact that, in 1948, her mother decided to take her to court, alleging that she had sacrificed her entire life for her daughter, and that she had promised to support her. for the rest of her life. Constance won that lawsuit, and Lake complied with the agreement, but the affair separated them forever. For her part, De Toth, far from supporting her wife in her worst stages, dedicated himself to taking advantage of her. When the value of her debts exceeded that of her assets, the state repossessed her home and ranch in Chatsworth.
On the verge of bankruptcy (and madness), Lake left her husband and took her children to New York. Because she felt that she was pigeonholed as an erotic myth and always played the same roles, she left Hollywood without looking back. Since then, she has worked in television, married music publisher Joseph McCarthy, and had the opportunity to tour with a theater company representing Peter Pan, where she played the title role. To do this, she cut off the hair that had catapulted her to her success and, in a way, she began to leave her past behind.
“I've reached a point in my life where it's the little things that matter,” she confessed. “I was always a rebel and I probably could have gone a lot further if I had changed my attitude. But if you think about it, I've come pretty far without changing my attitude. I'm happier that way."
Although happiness and peace remained elusive to Lake, who also divorced her third husband (another heavy drinker like her) and ended up working in a hotel bar where in the early sixties she would be recognized by a journalist from the New York Post. "People felt very sorry for me," she would later write. "But I really enjoyed the job. Looks like I've found peace. Spare yourself the high pressures of success. I've been through that already."
The news of her new social status occupied all the front pages of the Big Apple newspapers. Hurt by that intrusion into her private life, the actress moved to Florida, and from there she traveled to London, where she accepted a job in low-budget plays.
A sad end
At the beginning of the seventies, she released her last film, Flesh Feast (1970), a B-series film where she played a doctor who works in a peculiar plastic surgery hospital, and published her memoirs, Veronica, in which she addressed her days darker and spoke candidly of Hollywood, a factory of stars that "crushed me like a production on an assembly line."
After a two-decade hiatus, the actress decided to return to Los Angeles, where she somehow made her peace with the movie mecca. "She came to town to promote her autobiography, which was the discovery of the real star," said writer Jeff Lenburg. She "she went to Paramount studios, and just walking through those studios again brought back a flood of memories, good and bad."
Former advertising agent and good friend of hers William Roos commented that the actress was happy with her and she planned to return to shooting a movie when, during a trip to Vermont in 1973, she had to go to the doctor for severe pain in her The abdomen. There she was diagnosed with cirrhosis, and at the end of June of that year, she had to be admitted to a hospital to be treated for acute hepatitis.
Lake passed away on July 7, barely fifty years old and totally estranged from her family. So much so, that neither her mother nor her children attended her funeral. Her ashes remained in a Vermont funeral home until 1976, when her colleague Donald Bain paid $200 and passed them on to two of her best friends. Fulfilling the actress's wish, the couple threw them into the Miami sea.
