Veronica Lake

 "You could put all the talent I had into your left eye and still not suffer from impaired vision."

Constance Frances Marie Ockelman was born in Brooklyn. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932. Her mother, married Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, and Constance began using his surname. In 1938, the Keanes moved to Beverly Hills, where Constance enrolled in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting (now the Beverly Hills Playhouse). She appeared as an extra in a number of movies, her first appearance on screen being for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the film "Sorority House" (1939). The part wound up being cut out of the film but she was encouraged to continue. She attracted the interest of Fred Wilcox, an assistant director, who shot a test scene of Constance performing from a play and showed it to an agent. The agent, in turn, showed it to producer Arthur Hornblow Jr. who was looking for a new girl to play the part of a nightclub singer in a military drama, "I Wanted Wings" (1940). Still, in her teens, the role would make her a star. It was Hornblow who changed her name to Veronica Lake. According to him, her eyes, "calm and clear like a blue lake," were the deciding factor in her new name.

It was during the filming of "I Wanted Wings" that Lake developed her signature look. Lake's long blonde hair accidentally fell over her right eye during a take and created a "peek-a-boo" effect. "I was playing a sympathetic drunk, I had my arm on a table... it slipped... and my hair- it was always baby fine and had this natural break- fell over my face... It became my trademark and purely by accident," she recalled. "My hair kept falling over one eye and I kept brushing it back. I thought I had ruined my chances for the role. But Hornblow was jubilant about that eye-hiding trick. An experienced showman, he knew that the hairstyle was something people would talk about. He had a big picture and lots of talk would bring customers to see it."

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 (below).

Lake and Alan Ladd (the only actor in Hollywood relatively near to her in height; Ladd was 5' 6" and she was just 4' 11") made 7 movies together: "Star Spangled Rhythm" (1942), "This Gun for Hire" (1942) , "The Glass Key" (1942), "Duffy's Tavern" (1945), "The Blue Dahlia" (1946), "Variety Girl" (1947) and "Saigon" (1948). "Alan Ladd was a marvelous person in his simplicity. In so many ways we were kindred spirits. We both were professionally conceived through Hollywood's search for box office and the types to insure the box office. And we were both little people. Alan wasn't as short as most people believe. It was true that in certain films Alan would climb a small platform or the girl worked in a slit trench. We had no such problems together."

Happy Birthday, Veronica Lake!