Samy is a well known Cuban hair stylist who has shops all over the world.
Samy's family emigrated to Chicago when Samy was a young child. After reaching adulthood, he moved to Miami, where he opened an upper class beauty salon and started to become famous through magazine ads and television talk show appearances.
During the 1990s Samy's fame expanded as he opened his own line of products, Samys Products, and started writing hair care columns in different Spanish publications. He also became a regular on Univision's show Despierta America, and coined the now famous phrase Si tu te ves bien, yo me veo mejor (If you look good, Ill look better).
Samy in the 2000s has dedicated his efforts to opening hair shops in different places, and , in addition to his Miami salon, he now owns stores in New York, Madrid, San Juan, Lima and Mexico City.
Despite remaining an upscale hair dresser who caters to the rich and famous, Samy offers the general public that writes to him with questions free hair tips through his magazine columns, and he also offers free make overs to the normal public on each of his weekly Despierta America appearances. He calls these make overs the Samysazo.
Veronica Lake (November 14, 1922 [1] – July 7, 1973) was an American film, stage and television actress. Lake won both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan's Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noirs with Alan Ladd, during the 1940s. She was also well known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. By the late 1940s however, Lake's career had begun to decline in part due to her struggles with mental illness and alcoholism. She made only one film in the 1950s but appeared in several guest-starring roles on television. She returned to the screen in 1966 with a role in the film Footsteps In the Snow, but the role failed to revitalize her career.
Lake released her memoirs, Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake, in 1970. She used the money she made from the book to finance a low-budget horror film Flesh Feast. It was her final onscreen role. Lake died in July 1973 from hepatitis and acute kidney injury at the age of 50.
Early life
Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, was of German- Danish descent, [2][3][4] and worked for an oil company aboard a ship. He died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932. Lake's mother, Constance Charlotta (née Trimble; 1902–1992), of Irish descent, married Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, also of Irish descent, in 1933, and Lake began using his surname. [5] The Keanes lived in Saranac Lake, New York where Lake went to St. Bernard's School for a time. She was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida where Lake attended Miami High School, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to her mother. [6]
Career
In 1938, the Keanes moved to Beverly Hills where Constance Keane enrolled Lake in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting (now the Beverly Hills Playhouse). She first began working in films as an extra. [7] Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House. Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed. During the making of Sorority House, director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. While still a teenager, Lake was introduced to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes.
Success
Lake's breakthrough role was in the 1941 war drama I Wanted Wings. The film was a major hit in which Lake played the second female lead. It was during the filming of I Wanted Wings that Lake developed her signature look. Lake's long blonde hair accidentally fell over her right eye during a take and created a "peek-a-boo" effect. The hairstyle became Lake's trademark and was widely copied by women. [8] She followed up with starring roles in more popular movies, including Sullivan's Travels, This Gun for Hire, I Married a Witch, and So Proudly We Hail!. René Clair, the director of I Married a Witch, said of Lake "She was a very gifted girl, but she didn't believe she was gifted." [9] For a short time during the early 1940s, Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. At the peak of her popularity, she earned $4,500 a week. [8]
She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd which began with the 1942 hit This Gun for Hire. [10] Initially, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical necessity: Ladd was just 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair with him was Lake, who stood just 4 feet 11 1⁄2 inches (1.51 m). They became a popular onscreen duo and would make four more films together including the film noirs The Glass Key (1942), The Blue Dahlia (1946) and Saigon.[10]
During World War II, Lake changed her trademark peek-a-boo hairstyle at the insistence of the government to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles. [11] Although the change helped to decrease accidents involving women getting their hair caught in machinery, doing so may have damaged Lake's career. [12][13] She also became a popular pin-up girl for soldiers during World War II and traveled throughout the United States to raise money for war bonds. [13]
Decline
Lake's career faltered with her unsympathetic role as Nazi spy Dora Bruckman in 1944's The Hour Before the Dawn. Scathing reviews of The Hour Before the Dawnincluded criticism of her unconvincing German accent. She had begun drinking more heavily during this period, and a growing number of people refused to work with her. To boost her career, Paramount tried Lake in a series of comedies. [18] Few were successful but she was in the popular thriller The Blue Dahlia (1946), in which she again co-starred with Alan Ladd. Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.
After a single film for 20th Century Fox, Slattery's Hurricane in 1949, her career collapsed. By the end of 1951 she had appeared in one last film Stronghold (which she later described as "a dog"). Lake and her second husband, André de Toth, filed for bankruptcy that same year. [19] The IRS later seized their home for unpaid taxes. [20]
Lake then turned to television and stage work. She performed in summer stock and in stage roles in England.[21] In October 1955 she collapsed in Detroit where she had been appearing on stage in The Little Hut.
Later years
After her third divorce, Lake drifted between cheap hotels in New York City, and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. In 1962, a New York Post reporter found her working as a barmaid at the all-women's Martha Washington Hotel in Manhattan. [23] The reporter's widely distributed story led to speculation that Lake was destitute. After the story ran, fans of Lake sent her money which she returned out of "a matter of pride". [21] Lake vehemently denied that she was destitute and stated, "It's as though people were making me out to be down-and-out. I wasn't. I was paying $190 a month rent then, and that's a long way from being broke." [24] The story did revive some interest in Lake and led to some television and stage appearances, most notably in the off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward. [24]
In 1966, she had a brief stint as a TV hostess in Baltimore, Maryland, along with a largely ignored film role in Footsteps In the Snow. She also continued appearing in stage roles. [13] By the late 1960s, Lake had moved to England. Her memoirs, Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake, were released in the United Kingdom in 1969, and in the United States the following year. In the book, Lake discusses her career, her failed marriages, her romances with Howard Hughes, Tommy Manville and Aristotle Onassis (whom she claimed proposed to her), her alcoholism, and her guilt over not spending enough time with her children. [8] In the book, Lake stated that her mother pushed her into a career as an actress. Looking back at her career, Lake wrote, "I never did cheesecake like Ann Sheridanor Betty Grable. I just used my hair." She also laughed off the term "sex symbol" and instead referred to herself as a "sex zombie". [21] Also in 1969, Lake portrayed the role as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire on the English stage. She won rave reviews for her performance. [25] With the proceeds from her autobiography, she co-produced and starred in her final film, Flesh Feast (1970), a low-budget horror movie with a Nazi-myth storyline.
Lake then moved to Ipswich, England, where she met and married Royal Navy captain Robert Carleton-Munro, in June 1972. [21] The marriage lasted just one year and Lake returned to the United States in June 1973. She went to the Virgin Islands to await her divorce decree when she fell ill. [26]
Personal life[edit]
Lake earned her pilot's license in 1946 and later flew solo between Los Angeles and New York. [27]
Marriages and children[edit]
Lake's first marriage was to art director John S. Detlie, in 1940. They had a daughter, Elaine (born in 1941), [28] and a son Anthony (born July 8, 1943). Anthony was born prematurely a week after Lake tripped and fell over a cable while filming. Anthony died on July 15, 1943. [29] Lake and Detlie separated in August 1943 and divorced in December 1943. [28] In 1944, Lake married film director André de Toth with whom she had a son, Andre Anthony Michael III (known as Michael De Toth), and a daughter, Diana (born October 1948). Days before Diana's birth, Lake's mother sued her for support payments. [30]Lake and De Toth divorced in 1952. [31]
In September 1955, she married songwriter Joseph Allan McCarthy. [32] They were divorced in 1959. Lake's fourth and final marriage was to Royal Navy captain Robert Carleton-Munro in June 1972. They divorced after one year. [26]
In June 1973, traveled back to the United States. On June 26, she checked into the Medical Center of Vermont in Burlington. [25] She died there on July 7, 1973, of acute hepatitis and acute kidney injury. [33] Her son Michael claimed her body. [34] Lake's memorial service was held at the Universal Chapel in New York City on July 11. [35] She was cremated and, according to her wishes, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. In 2004, some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store. [36]
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Veronica Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevar
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