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| Lake and Perlow |
Nat Perlow edited The Police Gazette, the world's-first tabloid, when it launched in 1845.The Police Gazette would make references to New York underworld "sparking in Tompkins Park" and "sinister looking Orientals" who introduced "the Mongolian curse" to New York women."
Lake spent part of her childhood in Montreal as her father came to be treated for tuberculosis.
She had mental issues and eventually moved to Florida with her family, where her Hollywood career was launched after she won a beauty contest.
Perlow came to Montreal when Joe Azaria bought the struggling publication and moved it here in 1968.
Lake, a longtime alcoholic, returned to Montreal to shoot Footsteps in the Snow, shot in early 1966 and released later that year.
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| Lake greeted at Montreal City Hall by Councillor Lucien Gagne 12 April 1966 |
They met as early as 1960, while another announced their engagement one year later.
After she died Perlow and Jim Schneider transported Veronica Lake's dead body over the border in a gold Station Wagon to Vermont in 1973, When they got to the border they told the guard that she was just sleeping.They pretended she was still alive because Perlow sought to respect her wish that her death be reported to have taken place in a wholesome environment.
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| Perlow with Muhammad Ali (possibly in Mtl) Oct. 1974 |
"Veronica Lake once told me that so many of the stars faded or were destroyed by the system because they were failures at success and people love to read about them because they can identify with many of their problems."
Perlow died in 1988.
Nat Perlow, who lived with actress Veronica Lake, on Queen Mary Road, near St. Joseph's Oratory.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia says Veronica was seen by many staff members at Fletcher Allen hospital in Burlington Vermont, during a nearly two week stay before her death. Is it possible she was commuting up to Montreal during this period, you know, between rounds at the hospital. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleten early 1973, she returned to the states. According to the doctors who treated her, she was already "pretty far along" with an acute case of hepatitis and she was not long in Saranac Lake before she was admitted to Will Rogers Hospital. According to her doctor in Vermont, Warren Beeken, Saranac Lake did not have the resources to treat her as well as the Medical Center in Burlington, so on June 26, 1973 she was transferred to the Fletcher Allen Hospital.
DeleteHer presence in the hospital was not publicized- because, according to her publicist William Roos- "Frankly, I didn't think she was going to die". He was not aware of the extreme state of her medical condition. According to Dr. Beeken, her case of hepatitis had persisted for some time before she entered the Fletcher Allen Hospital, and her condition had deteriorated rapidly. Word of her true identity quickly spread throughout the facility, and the hospital staff visited her room to pay their respects. She visibly brightened due to the attention, signing autographs for the nurses and speaking confidently of future plans. According to one nurse who attended her in her final days, "She was very cheerful and friendly, happy and looking forward to the future, and still retained a shadow of her former beauty." Yet, she was also utterly and completely alone- with no guests or phone calls, a sad state for one once so well known. Dr. Beeken looked in on her one last time on the evening on July 6, when acute renal failure had set in.
Wikipedia is wrong.
ReplyDeleteHow do you account for the difference between your account of Ms. Lake's death and the version given by Dr. Beeken as mentioned here: http://www.bunksplace.com/veronica.html
ReplyDeleteWhat is your source for your version?
barry.oco@gmail.com
I wrote a feature article on this several years ago. It was online up until a couple of months ago when the paper went broke.
ReplyDeleteSource is a guy who was in the car with the dead body.
If I find time I'll look to see if I still have it somewhere and then maybe post it here, or not.
Really I'd do it much more quickly if there were money involved.
It's very intriguing!
ReplyDeleteYour source, I believe is Jim Schneider. In order for his version to be accurate, Mr. Perlow would have to arrive at a hospital, alone with a dead body, in the middle of the night and have hospital staff collude withthereto falsify medical records rather than alert the police.
It's certainly not improbable.
Does anyone have any contact information for Mr. Jim Schneider?
ReplyDelete