Old-timey vixen Veronica Lake had a brief career and an even briefer nude scene, but her sexy influence can be seen all over Hollywood. For this reason, we wanted to give the blonde babe her due with a Throwback Thursday article to honor her iconic hair and hourglass figure. #TBT to Veronica Lake!
Veronica was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn in 1922 and was always revered for her looks. She said herself about her teen years, "I jutted out in front pretty good and was aware enough at that age to be able enough to walk certain ways as to give myself some jiggle and jounce." We loved to watch her jutted out parts jiggle and jounce!
The5'2" babe had a knockout hourglass figure which helped contribute to her instant stardom. Her big break came when she did a screen testfor the 1941 film I Wanted Wingswhich fitted her in a tight dress that really accentuated her top half.Famously, director Mitchell Leisen asked her to come closer for a talk. She leaned forward and her chest miracles popped right out of her dress and her hair fell in front of her face! She was so distracted by her hair that she didn't notice her boobs had come out of her dress to say hello to the director. She was very embarrassed - especially when someone on set made a comment about her nipples - but she ended up getting the part. Not only that, but one of the producers suggested she style her hair to fall in front of her eye the way it had on accident. This became her trademark look. If only they had suggested her breasts pop out of her dress, too!
Paramount wanted Veronica to be their next big vamp, but she made an interesting choice starring in a comedy thatprovided her only on-screen nude scene. She showered in Sullivan's Travels, showing her curvy silhouette behind the frosted glass in this black-and-white Preston Sturges comedy. Interestingly, she was six months pregnant during the filming of this movie. We wonder what more we would have seen if she wasn't!
The studio was also very unhappy with Veronica's pregnancy during Sullivan's Travels because it messed with their hopes that she would be the next great sex symbol. How can they build a narrative that the foxy blonde might be sleeping with her costars if she was a mother? Well, today we'd call that a MILF and Veronica was definitely a MILF.
If Lake's peekaboo hairstyle looks familiar, it might be because any Hollywood starlet trying to be sexy has adopted it at some point in their careers. Most famously, however, Lake's look was part of the inspiration for Jessica Rabbit. From the hair to the curves, it's pretty obvious why!
Despite her popularity as a movie star and pin-up girl for soldiers in WWII, Veronica's career was on the decline almost as soon as her rise to fame began. She was quickly labeled as "difficult" and it was hard for her to fight that reputation. For example, her co-star in Sullivan's Travels Joel McCrae refused to act with her again in I Married A Witch, reportedly saying, "life's too short for two films with Veronica Lake." They did make one more film together, however, so he must have missed staring at her gorgeous figure. His gripe with her was that she often showed up late on set and was rarely prepared. But there were other issues going on for the young mom who stumbled chest-first into instant success.She married four times throughout her career, suffered from schizophrenia and had a veryserious alcohol problem. The industry simply wasn't very sympathetic to her, despiteher obvious assets.
After her smash hit in The Blue Dahlia (a movie so popular it lead to a now more famous reference to an unsolved Hollywood murder), she really didn't see success again. She stopped acting in the 1950s after doing television gigs - a far cry from the A-list Hollywoodroles of barely ten years prior - but she did return to the screen in 1966 for the filmFootsteps in the Snow and again in the 1970s ultra low budget movie Flesh Feast. We'd love to feast off that perky flesh of hers!
At the end of her life, Veronica was working as a bartender in New York, happy to leave Hollywood behind her. She died in 1973 at age 50 from alcoholism but left behind the memory of her sultry figure, iconic look, and sole nude scene. Veronica was the very definition of va-va-voom and we are forever grateful for her sexy legacy!
