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Alan Ladd, Alcoholism, Clara Bow, Frederic March, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Preston Sturges, Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake was in my living room yesterday morning, poised and bored, with the lissome form of a young dancer and the dead eyes of. . .well, the eyes of someone who’s seen Veronica Lake’s future.
Which wouldn’t be a cheery vision.
In the watchful coolness of this siren’s gaze, you’d be right to sense that although so gleamingly young, this was somebody who’d already encountered choppy waters. After a troubled childhood, Veronica Lake–nee Constance Ockelman–had lost her father to an industrial explosion, and later was kicked out of a Catholic Girl’s School for rebellious behavior (which seems to me indicative both of intelligence and possession of a spine). Lake was moved down south, where she was simultaneously lauded as the most beautiful girl in Miami High and diagnosed with mental illness. Continue reading
Dana Dunbaugh Burnell 