Somewhere around here I have a link to an excellent source of biographical information on actors. I can't find that URL (or my membership information) so here's a brief description from a site here.

. . .Following World War II, her career ebbed due to a variety of circumstances, including marriage and motherhood, excessive drinking, and poor career choices. Her second husband was famed director Andre De Toth. After she and De Toth parted company in 1952, Lake made her way to New York in order to work in early television and the legitimate stage. However, her goals didn't pan out, and by 1960, Lake had fallen on hard times and was working as a waitress. In the early 1960s, she attempted a comeback, which was somewhat successful, and wrote an autobiography. Her last film is the shockingly low-budget horror flick Flesh Feast (filmed 1967; released 1970) which she starred in and financed. (This film is extremely hard to find today, but was released on video in the early 1980s.) After several more failed marriages and years of alcohol abuse, the once gorgeous actress died in 1973 at the age of 53.

I don't want to make her case out worse than it was, but I'm certain that those "hard times" included prostitution. She was a unfortunately the classic "sex object."

MD