Veronica Lake

Born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York, she was American and of Caucasian ethnicity. Her father, of German-Danish descent, died in an industrial explosion when she was nine, and her mother, of Irish descent, later remarried. Lake spent part of her childhood in Saranac Lake, New York, attended a Catholic boarding school in Montreal from which she was expelled, and eventually moved to Miami, where she attended high school. Her mother later said Lake had been diagnosed as schizophrenic during a troubled youth.

Lake began acting at around age 16 and was active from 1939 to 1954, a span of about 15 years. She won acclaim for Sullivan's Travels and for her femme fatale roles opposite Alan Ladd. She also acted on stage and television. By the late 1940s her career waned amid struggles with mental illness and alcoholism. She made one film in the 1950s, returned in 1966 for Footsteps in the Snow, and in 1970 released her memoir, using the proceeds to finance a low-budget horror film called Flesh Feast. It was her final role. Lake died in 1973 from hepatitis and acute renal failure at age 50. She was married four times and had four children.