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BY LOUELLA 0. PARSONS
THE INFLUENCE Of Andre de Toth,
the director, has been very important
in the life of Veronica Lake. She is no
longer the little girl who doesn’t care.
She cares very much now what people think of
her and she is eager to win the respect of her
fellow workers and to explain why she has
done some of the things in the past that have
brought criticism on her—not really serious
things, but impulsive, foolish little exhibitions
of temperament.
Veronica very much resents the implication
that she is irresponsible and unreliable. Those
are two fighting words where she is concerned
and she explained to me why she feels they
are unjust I had dinner with her and her direc*
tor- fiance and it is no longer a secret that when
her divorce is final, she will marry him.
“Nobody took the trouble when I was only
17,” she said, “to sit down and talk with me
and give me good advice. Somebody started
a. story that was wickedly untrue. I had no
way of combating the gossip, which I knew,
and the man about whom it was told, knew,
was an absolute He.
“I was only a youngster and I had to fight
all by myself. That would have been a beau
tiful chance for someone to have helped me
combat the cruel fabrication, hut, no, they
Just let me suffer by myself and I certainly
suffered.
“I had just been married a short time and
was In love with my husband. On Christmas
Day I had his family and my family for din-
ner. We turned on the radio
and we heard it announced
that I was at the head of the
table at that certain man’s
house. My Christmas was
spoiled and I made up my mind
then that I was going to fight
with every ounce of strength.
That’s why I have been what
people have called a 'd\lficulV
girl.”
Veronica is only 21 now, which
is very young, and she feels she’s
lived a lifetime of actual tragedy
—first with the trouble with her
husband, Major -John Dotlie, and
then with the death of her little
boy, and finally, with the inabil
ity of people, some of them in
her studio, to understand her
problems.
“I think now,” she said, “I
have worked out everything
and Paramount knows I am no
longer an unreliable, harum
scarum girl. Seventeen is only
a child,” Veronica went on. “A
girl that age needs sympathy
and understanding, not cen
sure, scolding and bitter crit
icism.”
Veromyh feels now that she
has gone past those first un
formed impetuous years. At the
ripe old age of 21 she wants,
more than anything else, to
achieve dignity and to have her
studio understand her problems.
She has discarded all the foolish
things of life, even the peek-a
boo hairdo, which brought her
into almost unprecedented fame.