In November 1941 Life declared that "the 49th| minute-of the movie I-Wanted Wings is already marked as one of the historic-moments of the cinema. It was the moment when an unknown young actress named Veronica Lake walked into camera range and waggled a head of long blonde hair at a suddenly enchanted public." Not since the blonde locks of Jean Harlow in the 1930s had Hollywood produced such hair mania. Lake's hair, Life reported, had been "acclaimed by men, copied by girls, cursed by mothers, and viewed with alarm by moralists." Alternately called "the strip-tease style," the "sheep-dog style," and the "bad-girl style" by fans and foes, Lake's hair had propelled her into the center of a fashion controversy: could "good girls" let their hair dangle across the forehead and swankily cover an eye? Were Lake's locks bad for morals or good for...