The life and death of Veronica Lake

As a newborn baby, she was christened with a cumbersome name—Constance Frances Marie Ockelman; that was in the maternity ward of Brooklyn Hospital in New York City on the blustery morning of Nov. 14, 1922. By the time Constance Frances Marie Ockelman achieved fame among Hollywood's most desired women during the 1940s, she had gone through an amazing personal transformation. Troubled and schizophrenic, Constance Frances Marie morphed into the sexy, film noir actress Veronica Lake. Sometimes known as the "peek-a-boo girl" for a partially hidden eye eclipsed by her long, natural blonde hair, Veronica Lake never left the childhood problems of Constance Frances Marie too far behind. How Constance Frances Marie went from being a delicate newborn with a cumbersome name, to a silver-screen femme fatale and G.I. pinup queen, and then, at the very end of it all, to a corpse laid out in lavender in a Vermont funeral home—dead from renal failure and an hepatitis infection at the age of 50—is the crux of this story. For ease of familiarity, we'll refer to Constance Frances Marie Ockelman as the world came to know her—as Veronica, Veronica Lake. Veronica's sulky personality, golden tresses and cherry lips were what lured moviegoers to view her 28 movies, spanning the years 1939 to 1970. But during the opening years of the Great Depression, the actress's physical trademarks were still in the budding stage. Long after the actress' death in Vermont, Hollywood stars Kim Basinger and Reese Witherspoon have tried to imitate Veronica's good looks and long hair. And so, in death, she continues to inspire others. The animated adult-cartoon character Jessica Rabbit, shown in the 1988 movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", was a direct nod to Veronica Lake. Even online, Veronica's sexy style lives on. For example, hair-fashion expert Sarah Potempa—who has styled President Barak Obama's hair—has posted a do-it-yourself Internet guide to recreating the actress's classic hairdo. But all of these efforts meet with the same fate of most celebrity imitators—they fall short of the real McCoy. There was, and is, only one Veronica Lake. How the sexy 1940s actress ended up at death's door in Burlington's then Fanny Allen Hospital on July 7, 1973, is a sad story. It's not unlike the fate of other Hollywood icons; the tragic end of Marilyn Monroe comes to mind. But we're getting ahead of ourselves— Back, back we must go, back to New York's gritty Brooklyn Borough of the 1930s to better understand Veronica Lake. During most of the decade of the 1920s and into the early '30s, Veronica's father wasn't at home much. Harry E. Ockelman, a large man of Danish-Irish descent, spent a lot of time at sea working as the second mate aboard a U.S. oil tanker. When Harry died in a freak fuel-oil explosion along the Delaware River near Philadelphia in 1932, Veronica was only 10 years old. Mourning Harry Ockelman's death lasted about as long as his Irish wife, Constance Trimble Ockelman, could bear; she didn't like the idea of being the widow of a merchant sailor for long. Within a year of Harry's tragic death in the tanker accident, Constance met and married up-and-coming New York Herald newspaper illustrator Anthony H. Keane. Little Connie, Veronica, had a stepfather and a new surname. In 1934, Keane's persistent lung ailment proved to be an early stage of tuberculosis. On his Manhattan doctor's recommendation, Anthony moved his bride and Veronica to Saranac Lake, N.Y. There, Anthony entered the Trudeau Sanitarium under a new doctor's care. Constance and Veronica were situated in a small house a few blocks away from the facility. "The 1935 Saranac Lake village directory lists an Anthony H. Keane at 1 Watson Place, and the 1936 directory has him at 1 Riverside Drive," according to Amy Catania, executive director of Historic Saranac Lake and the Saranac Laboratory Museum. "We do know that Veronica Lake graduated from St. Bernard's (Catholic) School in 1938," she adds. "And the family lived at 1 Watson Place, now 27 Seneca St. Resident Natalie Leduc, who lived nearby, remembers Veronica as her babysitter." Trudeau Sanitarium, also known as the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium*, was a world famous tuberculosis treatment center established by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau in 1885. Anthony received expert care there although, at the time, the cure for T.B. was two decades in the future. According to a statement made by her mother, after the family left New York to Miami, Veronica was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. In her case, Veronica had all the classic symptoms of the mental disorder, which can appear during a person's late teen years: quirky speech patterns, muddled thinking processes, auditory hallucinations, paranoid tendencies, along with clear signs of a dysfunctional social life. "It was the beginning of a downward spiral of alcoholism and mental illness from which four marriages, three children, and a powerful mother were unable to save her," researcher John Bennett writes on Scott Michael's celebrity website Findadeath.com. "But Veronica never abandoned her conviction to lead life as she saw fit, with great courage and a certain grace." Bennett, who researched much of the story behind Veronica's final year in New York in Vermont, says her move from Florida to California made her an overnight star. Still in her teens, a motion-picture talent scout visited Miami and spotted Veronica in a roll call of young, local theatrical talent. When the scout later met with the Keanes and foretold a screen career ahead for the newfound talent, things changed for Veronica over night, including her name. Thus was born the iconic Veronica Lake as we know her today. With the family's stay in Florida lasting less than a year, it didn't take much to lure the nomadic Keanes to the glamour, and clear, pre-smog air of southern California. As soon as she stepped out of the family sedan in Tinsel Town, the newly branded Veronica Lake was on the fairy tale ride of her life. "Her parents packed up their Chrysler Airflow and headed for Hollywood," Bennett writes. "And in the next four years she became Life magazine's 'Top Female Box Office Attraction'. And she was hailed as a gifted new comedienne in the 1942 film, "Sullivan's Travels". Luckily for Veronica, she was paired with popular actor Alan Ladd in the 1944 film "This Gun for Hire". The duo became America's newest, hottest romantic team during World War II. Regarding her 1970 autobiography, Veronica told a gossip-column reporter that, "If I had written everything I know about Hollywood, there'd be a rash of divorces and at least a hundred people would die of apoplexy." Following a string of popular movies, the offers began to dry up for Veronica. The writing was on the wall: her studio contract had expired and it was not renewed; mental illness and alcoholism began to take their toll. By the early 1950s, Veronica's career hit rock bottom. She had been married three times since arriving in Hollywood a few years before. Now her solo and social drinking benders were seriously affecting her schizophrenia. Between 1952 and 1970, Veronica appeared in only three, low-budget, nearly forgotten films. In between, she attempted a comeback on television, but her audience had moved on to other screen beauties, such as Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monroe. By the 1960s, Veronica decided to abandon California. She moved back to New York, perhaps in the hopes of recapturing her lost childhood. In New York City, Veronica was seen working as a boozy barmaid at the Blarney Stone, now Desmond's Tavern, an Irish watering hole located at 433 Park Ave. One night, a fan followed Veronica home to a seedy flophouse in Greenwich Village. By the late 1960s, Veronica lived up to her nomadic lifestyle; she moved again, this time, back to Florida. In Florida's Hollywood, she became a recluse. She shut herself away from most friends in an apartment where she appeared to have penned her autobiography, most likely under the influence of alcohol and who knows what else. During her time in Hollywood, Fla., Veronica's mental illness plunged her into bouts of severe depression and paranoia. At one point, she told a friend that FBI agents were following her and tapping her phone line. "Those who saw her reported that the once great beauty had turned into a worn out mess, with rotting teeth, unwashed hair, and the pasty complexion of a bloated alcoholic," John Bennett reports. With the 1970 publication of Veronica's autobiography, she enjoyed appearances in the national spotlight again, albeit briefly. "According to doctors who treated her, she was 'pretty far along' with an acute case of hepatitis when she got to the U.S.," Bennett notes. "Anyway, she was not long in Saranac Lake when she was admitted to Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Essex County." Bennett is convinced that what brought the actress to Vermont was her illness. She likely preferred to remain in the Adirondacks. What follows comes from Bennett's research about what happened during the final weeks of Veronica Lake's life: "According to her doctor in Vermont, Dr. Warren Beeken, Will Rogers did not have the resources to treat her as well as the medical center in Burlington across Lake Champlain. So, on June 26, 1973, she was transferred to Fanny Allen (today's Fletcher Allen Health Care). Her presence in the hospital was not publicized, because, according to publicist William Roos, 'Frankly, I didn't think she was going to die.'" A medical report by Dr. Beeken seemed to indicate that Veronica's hepatitis infection predated both her stays at Will Rogers and Fanny Allen. Thus, she had the disease long before she was transferred to Vermont. Once Veronica was moved to Burlington, word spread quickly that the movie star had been admitted to the local hospital. "Strangers visited her room to pay their respects," Bennett claims. "She visibly brightened due to the attention, signing autographs for the nurses, and speaking confidently of future plans. According to one nurse who attended her in her final days in Vermont, she was very cheerful and friendly; happy and looking forward to the future, and still retaining a shadow of her former beauty." Bennett next clims that Dr. Beeken examined Veronica for the final time during the evening of July 6. At that time, Dr. Beeken found that the former actress was experiencing acute renal failure. Before renal (kidney) failure can be reversed, a doctor must identify the underlying cause prior to treatment, which is usually by dialysis. However, the doctor's shocking diagnosis was too little, too late. Early on the morning of July 7, 1973, Veronica Lake passed away at the age of 50. Bennett: "Her long-time agent, William Roos, issued a statement to the press telling of a memorial service for her in a New York City chapel and all sorts of brave talk about the many things Veronica had going on, in terms of her career. However, her service in New York brought only a handful of mourners." None of Veronica's former husbands, still alive at the time of her death, bothered to attend the service. Bennett: "One who did make it was Lake's son Michael, who lived in Hawaii. He had asked his father, director Andre de Toth, Lake's third husband (married 1944-1952), for money to fly to Vermont, but was met with obscenities for even bothering him. He had to take a loan out to fly to Vermont to claim the body, which he found looking 'small and lonely' at the Corbin Palmer Funeral Home located nearby the hospital in Burlington." You will find no gravesite marking the final resting place of Veronica Lake. Her beloved son scattered his mother's cremated remains on the "winds and waves" of the Atlantic Ocean off New York City. Acknowledgements: The writer extends sincere thanks to Scott Michaels and Veronica Lake researcher John Bennett for material used in this article. The quotes—and the image of Veronica Lake's death certificate—are from John Bennett and appear on Scott Michaels' popular celebrity website, Findadeath.com. Also, special thanks to Historic Saranac Lake and the Saranac Laboratory Museum for details about Ms. Lake's life in the Adirondacks and death in Vermont. Editor's note; An extended version of this article appears in the forthcoming spring 2013 issue of North Country Living Magazine.

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The life and death of Veronica Lake

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