Background

Veronica Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockleman in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Harry Ockleman, a merchant marine officer, and Constance Charlotte Trimble. The year of her birth is sometimes erroneously given as 1919. At an early age, her family moved to Saranac Lake, New York.

Education

She attended St. Angela's Elementary School. After her father died in a work-related accident in 1932, she attended Villa Maria Convent School, a boarding school in Montreal, Quebec. This later led to publicity stories that falsely claimed she took a premedical course at McGill University in that city. In 1937, she left Montreal and attended Miami High School. At age fifteen she won a beauty contest and became Miss Florida. She soon went to California and studied at the Bliss Hayden School of Acting.

Career

She first appeared on stage in a school play, Poor Little Rich Girl, at the age of eight. Her first full-length film was All Women Have Secrets (1939) which starred Jeanne Cagney and Peter Lind Hayes. In these early films she used the name Constance Keane. The last name came from her stepfather, Anthony Keane, a staff artist for the New York Herald Tribune.

She reached new heights in her professional career during the wartime years, when she was active in war-bond drives, helping to raise $12 million. She first attracted considerable attention in I Wanted Wings (1941) with her husky voice and the blonde "peek-a-boo" hairstyle that swept over part of her face. This helped her add a touch of romance to the film, which starred Ray Milland and William Holden. It was also on this film that she first used the name Veronica Lake, which was given to her by producer Arthur Hornblow.

Lake subsequently showed her comedic talents in the Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels (1941), which costarred Joel McCrea. He had wanted Lake to be cast as his leading lady over the objections of Paramount studio executives. When it was discovered that she was pregnant, some of her scenes were rewritten and the movie turned out a success.

Lake never took her work seriously, but this was one film she wanted to be remembered for. Later that year, she made Hold Back the Dawn with Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, and Paulette Goddard. In I Married A Witch (1942), Lake was once again part of a cast of well-established actors, even though she herself was still a relative newcomer. Fredric March, Robert Benchley, and Susan Hayward starred in this spoof of ghost films in which Cecil Kellaway and Lake played seventeenth-century witches. Always independent, and sometimes described as tough, her relations with March got off to a bad start. He regarded her as an amateur. The director, Rene Clair, also had a low opinion of her, but producer Preston Sturges insisted on hiring her. By the conclusion of the film's production, Clair admitted that he was wrong and apologized to her.

She frequently appeared indifferent, aloof, or belligerent on the set, but she apparently did so to overcome her fears. Also in 1942, she began a profitable association with Alan Ladd. She was selected to play opposite him partly because he was only five feet, four inches tall, and she was five feet, two inches. Their first picture, This Gun for Hire (1942), made Ladd a superstar, and Life magazine named Lake the top box-office attraction in 1943. Among their other pictures were The Glass Key (1942), a story of political corruption and murder, and The Blue Dahlia (1946), one of the most absorbing crime films of the 1940's. The fine cast, which also included William Bendix, made the movie another box-office hit for Ladd and Lake.

Saigon (1948) marked the beginning of Lake's decline in Hollywood. The film had a weak plot and her public appeal was on the wane. In all, she starred in twenty-six pictures. During the Hollywood years she was romantically linked with such figures as Aristotle Onassis, Tommy Manville, and Howard Hughes. A difficult personal life complicated by emotional instability--she was quick to anger and often irresponsible--and alcoholism contributed to her downfall.

During the 1940's, Lake appeared on such radio programs as "Lux Radio Theatre" and "The Burns and Allen Show. " In the 1950's, she made television appearances on "Lux Video Theatre, " "Saturday Night, " "Texaco Theater, " and "The Tonight Show, " among others.

In 1953 she rebounded in one of her most successful stage plays, Voice of the Turtle, which opened in Atlanta, Ga. By 1961, her acting career was in a shambles. She worked in a factory and as a cocktail waitress and barmaid in New York City. When newspaper stories revealed her occupation, fans mailed her money which she proudly returned. She showed remarkable resilience despite her turbulent life and within two years made something of a comeback. In 1963, she received good notices for her role as fading film star Gale Joy in an off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward. She continued to work in radio, television, low-budget films, and on the stage, mainly in summer stock.

In 1967, she resided in Freeport, the Bahamas, and then moved to England, where she appeared on a stage in A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1969, she toured the British provinces in Madame Chairman, a play in which she had invested. It never opened in the West End of London as intended. It drew small audiences and poor reviews as a play, but she received raves for her "star quality. " At forty-seven she was still trim and attractive with an intriguing voice. She died from hepatitis in Burlington, Vermont.

Achievements

• Lake won both popular and critical acclaim for her role in Sullivan's Travels and for femme fatale roles in film noirs with Alan Ladd, during the 1940s. She was also well known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. She also released her memoirs, "Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake", in 1970.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Glass Key

    (Based on Dashiell Hammett's best-selling novel, The Glass...)

  • So Proudly We Hail: Cinema Classics

    (Academy Award winner Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goodard ...)

  • I Married a Witch (Criterion Collection)

    (Veronica Lake (Sullivan's Travels) casts a seductive spel...)

  • Sullivan's Travels

    (Written and directed by Preston Sturges, Sullivan’s Trave...)

  • Ramrod Blu-ray

    (A rancher defies her father and spurs on a range war she ...)

  • Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake

    (Ex library copy. Some markings on pages. Dust jacket in c...)

  • The Blue Dahlia
  • This Gun For Hire('42)
  • Sullivan's Travels
  • Flesh Feast

Connections

In 1940 Lake married John Detlie, an art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. They had two children, one of whom died in infancy. In 1943, she divorced John Detlie, and she married Andre de Toth, a director, in 1944. They had two children. In 1951, she and de Toth filed for bankruptcy, and they divorced in 1952. In 1955, she married Joseph McCarthy, a songwriter, and they were divorced in 1960. She married her fourth husband, Robert Carlton Munro, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1972.

Father:

Harry Ockleman

Merchant marine officer

Mother:

Constance Charlotte Trimble

Spouse:

Joseph McCarthy

Songwriter

Spouse:

John Detlie

Art director

Spouse:

Andre de Toth

Director

Spouse:

Robert Carlton Munro

stepfather:

Anthony Keane

References

• Veronica Lake: A Comprehensive Career Retrospective
• Peekaboo: The Story of Veronica Lake
• Veronica Lake: A Photo Gallery: The Peekaboo Blonde
• Veronica Lake's Film & Television Co-Stars From A to Z