Veronica Lake (November 14, 1922 – July 7, 1973) was an American film actress and pin-up model who enjoyed both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s, as well as her peek-a-boo hairstyle.

Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of Danish-Irish descent, worked for an oil company onboard a ship. When she was about one year old, the family moved to Florida but returned to Brooklyn before she was five. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was 9. Her mother, née Constance Charlotta Trimble (1902-1992), (listed as "Veronica F." on the 1920 census), married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and his step-daughter began using his last name.

"Connie" (as she was known) was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, which she hated and from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida, where Connie attended high school in Miami, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was, according to her mother, diagnosed as schizophrenic.