Hollywood (Jan - Mar 1943)

£ve , a\«ead7 Aft i°T r « SVve * [ The good people in a certain neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, would be mighty surprised if they knew that their new neighbor, the skinny little blonde with the long pigtails, shiny face and bobby socks who does her own marketing every morning and wheels her baby carriage every afternoon, is none other than Hollywood's femme fatale, Veronica Lake. Veronica refuses to play up to her screen reputation. She dresses, acts and lives as she pleases, and she pleases to do them as Mrs. John Detlie. Veronica Lake, the star, is a person who exists only between the hours of 8 to 5 when she's working in a picture. When the last scene has been shot, slinky, seductive Lake vanishes like a puff of smoke. She .has the odd idea that it is possible for an average woman to live an average life and still be a movie star. This was comparatively simple finagling when her husband was in Hollywood working as a studio set designer. But last summer when Uncle Sam stationed him in a Seattle camp, it looked as though a conflict would set in. A choice was imminent. Which would it be: career in Hollywood or keeping house near her husband's camp? Veronica never hesitated. She tacked a "For Sale" sign on her house in Mandeville Canyon, Hollywood, and moved into a little five-room bungalow in Seattle. And with typical Lake deadpan, she said nothing. Aha, thought Hollywood smugly, so that's how it stands. Veronica, who had never displayed a great drive about her career, was placing love before success. That set flame to the rumors that she was planning to retire. "Rubbish!" said Veronica flatly when she was asked about it. "Why should I retire? I will say this — if things ever got Being a screen siren is only a portion of Veronica Lake's three-cornered life. Her new film is So Proudly We Hail By HELEN WELLER to the point where my career interfered with my husband and baby, I would give up the career. But there is no interference, and I don't anticipate any yet. Just because Johnny is in uniform is no reason for me to get panicky and decide that everything I've worked for up until now must be tossed aside. Like thousands of other women whose husbands have been sent to camps in far-off towns, I made up my mind that I would be a camp-follower irrespective of where Johnny was sent. But I didn't want to jeopardize my career, if I could help it. "As it turned out, we were lucky. Johnny was stationed in Seattle, about 1,000 miles away from Hollywood. Quite a distance, I'll admit, but it could have been much worse. He might have been sent 3,000 miles away — or overseas — so we had to be thankful for that. Then, the nature of picture work allows for long vacations. We put in long, concentrated stretches of work, but then we often have several weeks of loafing. The first few months when Johnny was in service I was too busy to have more than two weekends in Seattle. I went straight from I Married a Witch into Star Spangled Rhythm. But that was followed by a sixweeks vacation. "I had already rented a little house in Seattle and had all our furniture moved into it. The baby was there, too, in the '«*»erf J.°h» ft * beitZ V«* care of my maid, Clara, and I had no reason to worry about her. Of course," she smiled slowly, "I missed her terribly and my nightly long-distance calls to hear her coo kept me broke. As soon as Star Spangled Rhythm was finished, I scooted up to Seattle and left all that Hollywood represented behind me. I wanted to be just Mrs. Detlie and didn't want any reminder of my career around me. I even skinned my hair into two braids so that my haircomb, that so-called trade-mark, wouldn't advertise me as Veronica Lake to my neighbors. "In Seattle I'm not a career woman at all. I'm completely oblivious of the fact that I have a career. I joined several local clubs in town and with only Clara to help, kept house. In old dungarees I fussed around our backyard and converted it into a victory garden. We have some fruit trees and last fall I picked the peaches and cherries and canned them. I was a dud at my first attempt at canning. I was either putting in too much or too little sugar and I used every pot and pan in the kitchen. But when I finally saw them stored on the pantry shelves, they looked like jewels to me. "This may sound like a gag: you know, the Hollywood glamourpuss who is trying so hard to sound like a little homebody; but believe me, I really cooked, cleaned, took care of the baby and loved it. It was fun to figure out the right kind of drapes for the living room and make an attempt at knitting at night. Johnny had permission to live at home and that made it complete. "Some of the people in town guessed that I was a movie star, and at the beginning of my stay there some of them stared at me when I went marketing and a few even asked for my autograph. But when they realized that I was trying to get away from that sort of thing and live like they 36