Peekaboo: The Story of Veronica Lake

by Jeff Lenburg

Book Overview

"Noir's first bombshell" -Entertainment WeeklyOne of Hollywood's sultriest sirens of the 1940s, Veronica Lake steamed up movie screens with her fragile beauty and exotic hairstyle. A heartthrob of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312599951
• ISBN13: 9780312599959
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Fascinating And Tragic Hollywood Tale

I knew very little about Veronica before I read this book and now I feel like I understand her a lot better. She was a flawed person and the author does not try to sugarcoat her life. He gives us all the details from her childhood, her rise to fame, her marriages, her battles with alcohol and mental illness, to her tragic end. Her mother was the main source for the book and maybe her memories are tainted but there's also a lot of Veronica's own words in here. There are quite a few unpublished photos too. This book has definitely made me a fan of Veronica and I hope more people read it to learn about her tragic story.

Peekaboo: The Story of Veronica Lake

Apparently some readers who previously reviewed this title must have read a different book, or were too blindsided by their own misinterpretations to realize what a great book this actually is. Lenburg has done a remarkable job in writing this authorized and harrowing story. What some readers have failed to take into account is the historical context of Veronica Lake's mental illness and the era (the 1930s) in which she was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Back then, people were often institutionalized, and medical treatment was far more limited than it is today. Throughout history, many other notable figures, also ravaged by schizophrenia when little was done for their condition, managed to hide their illness and separate their public and private lives. Certainly, Lenburg did not create or fabricate the circumstances that Veronica Lake lived, and the fact she was tormented for years by mental and was a self-professed alcoholic, he did not rely on her "fuzzy" memory of the truth. Every fact and story were carefully corroborated and substantiated by Lenburg by Lake's mother, family members, and over 40 of her closest co-workers and friends. This includes those accounts as told by Veronica in her own autobiography, each corroborated and verified by the author for inclusion. This also includes many new revelations about Lake that she never revealed in her book, such as a secret abortion, spousal abuse, a possible lesbian relationship, extramarital affairs, and much more. In addition, Lenburg uncovers the truth about other stories told the national press by Lake or Paramount's publicity department that, for many years, were believed true by fans and the media only to turn out false. Unlike other "tell-all" books that don't always attribute the source of their information in the text or throughout, Lenburg does an admirable job in this case. He consistently provides testimonial evidence with actual quotes from Lake's mother and the people he interviewed who knew her best about many of the instances and stories described in his book. Similarly, Lenburg presents a fair, balanced, fully fleshed, true and accurate portrait of Lake without exhibiting any bias toward Lake or her mother. Final judgment of both, whether they were each crazy, or who was at fault is at it should be, it's left up to the reader to decide. The bottom line: "Peekaboo" is a fascinating read, well worth the time and effort about a voluptuous vixen who's life was a disaster from beginning to end.

Worth it, but flawed

Veronica Lake must have started out as a child who was distrustful, insecure, and not comfortable with others. At the urgings of her mother, she went to Hollywood. She became the IT girl of the film noir period based upon her photogenic fragile beauty, an accident with her hair that gave her a special look, and her acting ability. She then became an alcoholic. She had several bad marriages, a nervous breakdown, and she proved herself to be a very poor parent. At the height of her popularity, the Hollywood system was paying her $150 per week. Then she made $5000 per week for several more years until her popularity faded, and she was dropped by the studio. One of her husbands spent most of the money, and she died penniless of hepatitis at a relatively early age.Her mother reported that Veronica had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a child. Unfortunately, the author continuously blames every problem or failure on this supposed illness. For example, an actor has to lift Veronica up in front of the camera. Perhaps as a prank, she has forty pounds of ballast sewn into her dress to make herself heavier. The author interprets this as a vengeful trick that a paranoid, schizophrenic Veronica used in order to get even with the other actor. In the book, there is hardly an action that is not seen as a result of the supposed illness. Published after Veronica's death, the book relies heavily on interviews with the mother. The mother was very controlling, and had previously sued Veronica for support payments. In spite of the above comments, you can get an excellent sense of Veronica Lake as a person. This is the main purpose of a biography, and it accomplishes that well. The only other book published exclusively on Veronica Lake is the autobiography "Veronica" which is no longer in print. As such, this is a valuable and useful book for anyone interested in Veronica Lake. She is best known for "Sullivan's Travels", several Alan Ladd pictures including "This Gun For Hire", and for "I Married A Witch". The title of the book refers to her hairstyle in which her hair hung down over one eye.

Veronica Lake - The Girl with the Peek-a-boo Bang

Jeff Lenburg's Peekaboo is a one of the few books written exclusively on the subject of the actress Veronica Lake, the other notable book being the, long out of print, autobiography Veronica. The style of the writing is unfortunately over-sensationalised at every turn. There is a definite leaning towards the downbeat and difficulties encountered by the young Constance Keane who would become one of the IT girls of her generation. This does tarnish the books feel somewhat but if you are a fan of Veronica Lake or of the 40's Hollywood scene, as depicted in LA Confidential this is a book for you.I'm a long standing fan of Constance Keane's movies and material on "Veronica Lake" is exceedingly hard to find. So on the upside this book is exclusively about her, it does cover some interesting interviews and personal notes from the people who knew her and has some very nice photographs (all be it poorly reprinted in this edition.) Known for her trade mark hairstyle, The Peek-a-boo Bang, Veronica Lake captured the imagination of the 30's and 40s cinema going public. Her work in the ground-breaking early film noir movies, "This Gun for Hire" & "The Blue Dahlia", still stand-up well today. Along with her comedy roles in films like "Sullivan's Travels" and "I Married a Witch".This book is a must for Noir movie fans and people who like a biography with tragedy at its heart, a worth while addition to your reading list.

Peekaboo

This book is a pretty thorough account of the depressing life of Veronica Lake. Lenberg interviewed her mother, and several co-stars, but none of her children or husbands. I don't know how accurate it is (I wasn't there), but he scuppers one or two rumours, such as Lake having to change her hair during the war because women across the country were copying her and getting it caught in machinery - that was a myth from the publicity dept. Lake really was tragic, but also self-pitying (she had four failed marriages, not three, as it says in the description, and the secret abortion was pretty grim - she didn't want the baby, so she jumped off a table; the baby arrived prematurely, and died seven days later). I can't look at her in I Married a Witch or Sullivan's Travels in the same way, so if you idolise Veronica Lake, and want to go on doing so, steer clear. On a different point: the typesetting in the book is terrible. There are syntax errors and mis-spellings on almost every page (the words "of her" is always written "other" etc). Cover photo is fantastic, though.