Vera Ralston was a Czech figure skater and actress. She later became a naturalized American citizen. She worked as an actress during the 1940s and 1950s. Ralston was born V?ra Helena Hrubá to a wealthy jeweler in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her age was uncertain; Ralston at various times gave 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1923 as her year of birth.

As a figure skater, she represented Czechoslovakia in competition under her birth name Vera Hrubá.

She competed at the 1936 European Figure Skating Championships and placed 15th. Later that season, she competed at the 1936 Winter Olympics, where she placed 17th. During the games, she personally met and insulted Adolf Hitler. Hitler asked her if she would like to “skate for the swastika.” As she later recalled, “I looked him right in the eye, and said that I’d rather skate on the swastika. The Führer was furious.”

Hruba competed at the 1937 European Figure Skating Championships and placed 7th.

Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She 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. Her success did not last. Following a string of broken marriages and long struggles with mental illness and alcoholism, she died of hepatitis.

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. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was ten. Her mother, née Constance Charlotta Trimble, , married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and Lake began using his last name.

Lake was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, and from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake 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.

In 1938, Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. 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. She was then introduced to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes. She was still a teenager.

Virginia Valli was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s.

Born Virginia McSweeney in Chicago, Illinois, she got her acting start in Milwaukee with a stock company. She also did some film work with Essanay Studios in her hometown of Chicago, starting in 1916.

Valli would continue to appear in films throughout the 1920s. She also would be an established star at the Universal studio by the mid-1920s. The bulk of her films would be between 1924 and 1927.

In 1925 Valli performed in The Man Who Found Himself with Thomas Meighan. The production was made at a Long Island, New York studio.