Parents: Harry Ockleman, Danish seaman, died in ship explosion February 1932; Constance Charlotta Trimble.
Birth year usually given as 1919 but her autobiography and Lenburg's highly negative biography both indicate 1922.
Her height variously given as "barely five feet" to 5' 2" Photos indicate the shorter height.
Children: Elaine Detlie, b. 21 August 1941; William Detlie, lived 8-15 July 1943; Andre Michael De Toth III, b. 25 October 1945; Diana De Toth, b. 16 October 1948.
She took up flying in 1946 and in 1948 flew her small plane from Los Angeles to New York.
A 1943 Paramount newsreel shows her adopting an upswept hairdo at the behest of War Womanpower Commission, to discourage "peekaboo bangs" on Rosie the Riveter.
Women in the 1940s (and even Kim Basinger 50 years later for the movie L.A. Confidential (1997)) lost most or all of their hair trying to copy her platinum blonde hair color.
Got her big break when teamed with the only actor in Hollywood relatively near to her in height, Alan Ladd. Ladd was 5' 6" and she was just 4' 11".
She was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea in the Virgin Islands.
During World War Two, the rage for her peek-a-boo bangs became a hazard when women in the defense industry would get their bangs caught in machinery. Lake had to take a publicity picture in which she reacted painfully to her hair getting "caught" in a drill press in order to heighten public awareness about the hazard of her hairstyle.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6918 Hollywood Blvd.
Kim Basinger won an Oscar as "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" for portraying a prostitute who is supposed to look like Lake.
She and Alan Ladd made 7 movies together: The Blue Dahlia (1946), Duffy's Tavern (1945), The Glass Key (1942), Saigon (1948), Star Spangled Rhythm (1942), This Gun for Hire (1942) and Variety Girl (1947). In Variety Girl (1947), Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) and Duffy's Tavern (1945) they appear as themselves.
Cousin of actress Helene Marshall.
Veronica Lake Detailed Biography
Veronica Lake was a popular American film actress, most famous during the 1940s. She was born in Brooklyn, New York with the name Constance Frances Marie Ockleman.
Lake popularized an iconic hairstyle, with one of her eyes always obscured by her blonde hair. During World War II she changed her trademark hairstyle to get her hair out of her eyes as a publicity move to encourage women working at war industries to adopt more practical hairstyles.
Her noted movies included Sullivan's Travels, This Gun for Hire, and The Blue Dahlia.
Veronica Lake died of hepatitis in Burlington, Vermont at the age of 53.
