Veronica Lake took Peter Pan on the road in 1950, starring in productions across the country,
“If I had stayed in Hollywood I would have ended up like Alan Ladd and Gail Russell – dead and buried by now. That rat race killed them and I knew it would kill me, so I had to get out. I was never psychologically meant to be a picture star. I never took it seriously. I couldn’t ‘live’ being a ‘movie star’ and I couldn’t ‘camp’ it, and I hated being something I wasn’t.” Veronica Lake
Another “blast from the past” and one gal that, until I saw the picture at least, I could’t picture as Pan! Another great one mate!! 😀
I would have liked to see that production too, and it must have been rough to be typecast in films, the theater must have been a relief.
Probably the only time that she really got to act! 🙂
I have a feeling you’re right!
I’m sure she saw it that way! 🙂
V., I am a broken record but I love this picture. Adorable. She is the most “Pan”-like of Peters. That quotation is powerful and touching, I think. I may be over-sensitive but my heart goes out to her. At least she knew her own mind. Warm wishes, R.
(nice work with the tags, you’re an artist.)
Tag artists where I come from paint walls with graffiti – oh, my mom and dad, may they rest in peace, would not approve 😉
I love this quote. She sounds, shall I say, healthy? 😉
Just back from my trip – I walked in the door a half hour ago.
I hate knowing that I’ll have to sift through stacks of mail, emails, phone messages and posts for the rest of the day. Ugh. I’m actually tired from my little getaway. I spent one whole day looking at houses. It was wonderful. The following day I asked a shop owner how long she had lived there and if she would recommend it for a 50 year old divorced woman. She told me she was sixty and had moved there from Connecticut five years ago, after her divorce. She said that the island is primarily made up of women, fifty and older who are divorced or widowed. Apparently there is nary a man to be had. 🙁 So unless I want to live out the rest of my days with that particular set, no prospects for a love life in sight, I’ll need to think long and hard. Otherwise, it was beautiful.
I had to look up Vero Beach, for some reason I thought it was near Sarasota… So, warm and sunny and by the ocean, and not cloistered! Thinking… Have you gone off California? La Jolla, Laguna, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Morro Bay, Carmel (beautiful Carmel), Santa Cruz… However, I keep thinking about you in the south because you had such a nice experience there. What about Charleston, or Savannah? You want to hear the irony? I think Chicago is one of the most open cities, easy to strike up a conversation almost anywhere, outgoing people… And, I know, freezing or sweltering hot. Hm!
I love the south. We always go to Hilton Head (Sea Pines), South Carolina each year. Sitting under a moss laden tree whilst sipping a mint julep – well, it’s hard to beat. It is a soft life down there in the best possible way. I have been to Charleston and love it, but not the beach towns along it’s coast. Charleston is darling. Savannah is another good one. One of my issues was trying to find a place with easy airport access for the kids. I was looking at Atlanta, for this reason, but then I’m about four hours drive from the coast. I looked at California but I think the prices are so insane for the amount of space you get. Not that I need a lot of space but more, perhaps than a postage stamp. 😉 I would kill to live in Carmel or Santa Barbara… but the homes I’ve looked at in my price range look like tool sheds. 🙁
Keep thinkin’ Lincoln. I’d love to be close enough to you know who, to make him a wee bit uncomfortable. 😉
Have you thought of renting a place for a little while to get the feel of the community? See what’s available in maybe a condo, or in a nearby but less expensive town? Also renting takes the heat off of the decision and makes it less final… Bring the kids… See what they think… Oh, and when you live indoor/outdoor, especially in a warm beautiful community square footage may not seem as important…
http://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/usa/california/central-coast/carmel-by-the-sea
http://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/usa/california/central-coast/santa-barbara-area
I’m still thinkin’ !
Ahahaha! Originally I wrote “tagging” and changed it for that very reason. Just imagine : Vickie Lester Graffiti Artiste!
Oh, I much to much of a control freak for that… Over spray, blotches, drips, oh noooooooo!
You,too? Truly a woman after my own heart!
Wait, let me get a rag and tidy that up 😉
V
Something headstrong in those eyebrows and the willful flicks in the hair.
I can see how Ms Lake was happier in the theatre, I sentiment I must to somewhat sharing (hushed silence in such company I know).
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Public life is so strange – either you adapt, or it turns you into a mess – it must be especially brutal on actors as they age. In the theater that’s perfectly fine, but if your face is projected as big as a house, ah oh…
And yet people are allowed to grow old in European films?
Observe the bulk of Britain;s Oscar winning actors… not really a bunch of new kids on the block.
And this year’s wonderful Amour – of course it was never going to win – but probably the best film in the whole Academy list has as its star a woman too old too travel.
Perhaps our demographics dictate that our actors may decay on screen and your ever youthful population will preserve the youthful bloom in your cinema.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I prefer your system, and the only woman who is allowed to grow old gracefully here, is from there! Helen Mirren.
And here she is just another Dame.. Judy, Maggie, Eileen, Harriet Walter plus all the near dames Penelope Wilton, Fiona Shaw, Vanessa Redgrave (refused her damehood). They are all allowed to grow old and for their fame to go on growing too.
Hell we only took Liz Taylor back after you didn’t want her anymore!
Rant over – but more Deneuve less botox please…
The only time Botox is appropriate is when it’s used to keep a wound closed by paralysing the muscles around it. The notion of deadening facial expressions, especially for an actor is so bloody stupid. That’s my rant and you’re welcome to it 😉 And now we will contemplate the beautiful Deneuve and peace will descend over the land. xox, V
Perfumed Dandy – your comments on the bane of botox, and all those wonderful ladies are all so magnificently true, Good Sir! Perhaps one day the world will see sense andabandon all this shallow youth-obsessed superficial nincompoopery and assery. One can but hope 🙂
Regards, George
Indeed Mr Kaplan
Let us hope that this is but a passing phase for when considered how absurd is the proposition that one should set about the business of acting with a face that is frozen!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
V, I know, I know, I should be sleeping but while on the bed I felt compelled to check in by cellphone (it’s an addiction) and read your splendid conversation with the splendid Dandy – and then this WONDERFUL anti-botoxification rant in response. You are so, *so*, RIGHT! And you skewer the stupidity in such a beautiful and acid way… *SIGH* If only the legions of idiots who wish to resemble Michael Palin’s grotesque creepy mother in Brazil (magnificent Katherine Helmond) or the main character in Mannequin 2 On the Move (a literal dummy) would listen 🙂
Now, I am going to turn all devices off. (well after praising the Perfumed One!) Promise.
Hugs, R
PS Can you imagine an American equivalent to the French director Ozon’s 8 Femmes/8 Women, which had the lovely, strong, mature likes of the fragrant Fanny Ardant, super Denueve, legendary Danielle Darrieux, peerless Huppert, etc alongside younger actresses? So many older actresses are so badly treated, some of them only in their thirties or forties. Ridiculous. And it isn’t always much better here, on screen at least – Dames and near-Dames aside. As you say I should contemplate Denueve or in my preference Helen Mirren or Kristen Scott Thomas and let peace bless the land (!) Well, I’m off now. Gooood Niiigghhht!
I had no idea about Veronica Lake performing in stage productions.