Many people thought Veronica Lake’s decline in her film career years earlier had caused her to drink when she passed away from hepatitis at age 50 in 1973.

She was one of Hollywood’s biggest actresses in the 1940s, but the burden of fame got to be too much for her. Shortly before her untimely death, the actress wrote about her experience in a book, according to Fox News. Now that the book has been reissued, her tale is receiving attention once again.

The actress said she turned her back on Hollywood in the newly reissued book “Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake,” according to Closer Weekly on Monday.

The celebrity wrote, “I had to get out. Psychologically, I was never meant to be a picture star.”

Even decades after her passing, acclaim for Veronica’s performance in “Sullivan’s Travels,” a 1941 picture that many see as director Preston Sturges’ “finest film,” continues.

TCM presenter Eddie Muller, who penned a revised preface to Veronica’s 1969 book, said “she had a very forceful stage mother who drove her into show business against her will” when she was Constance Ockelman. With her “peekaboo” haircut, she rose to renown as a femme fatale in films like 1942’s This Gun for Hire. But Veronica thought the picture was quite constricting. Muller claims that she was inherently rebellious. She became weary of others wanting her to conform into a certain mold.

According to Fox News, Veronica had apparently resorted to alcohol to help her cope with the symptoms of schizophrenia, a mental disease for which she had been given a diagnosis when she was a young kid.

“She was behaving the way a lot of men did, and they got a pass. Drinking, showing up hungover — that’s part of Humphrey Bogart‘s legend,” stated Eddie Muller.

In 1952, Lake had had enough and chose to leave the entertainment industry.

She continued, “I replied, ‘The hell with you, Hollywood,'” and stated she had “never been back.”

The source claims that in 1962 Lake was employed in New York City as a cocktail server.

“People felt very sorry for me,” wrote Lake. “But I really enjoyed the job… I seem to have found peace. Spare me the high pressures of success. I’ve been there.”

The three-time divorcee met Andy Elickson, a merchant marine, and said, “I loved him very much.”

The well-known film, stage, and television performer was born in 1922 and was given the name Constance Frances Marie Ockleman.

She was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a youngster at a young age, according to a New York Times investigation. Lake’s mother signed her up for acting classes as rehabilitation. Soon after being identified by casting agencies, she chose the stage name Veronica Lake.

Lake’s career had peaked at age 30 despite appearing in well-known movies like “This Gun for Hire” and “Sullivan’s Travels.” She succumbed to hepatitis at age 50, impoverished, and without many friends or family members at her side.

Lake allegedly died penniless. Before a friend paid to have her ashes delivered to two close pals, her remains were kept at a Vermont funeral parlor for three years.

Lake’s awful demise and her sorrowful departure from Hollywood were previously discussed by Sue Cameron, a former TV journalist for The Hollywood Reporter.

She said, according to Fox News, “When someone becomes a star and they don’t have… family or people who are really supportive and appreciative of them, they don’t do well in Hollywood. It’s very, very hard to be a public personality. And if you don’t have stability, faith or a true sense of self, you will just perish… She looked like she needed a friend.”

Cameron stated Lake, who was just 47 years old, seemed to be in her 70s. She had also had multiple unsuccessful marriages by that point. The Los Angeles Times also noted that Lake visited her children seldom in her final years.

Lake had regrets about her heyday as one of Hollywood’s top performers by the 1960s.

“I hated Hollywood,” Cameron states Lake told her. “I wasn’t a person. I was a commodity. I was being suffocated here and I had to get out.”