Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory’s Julie Dawn Cole–Where is she now?  I am adding this for the person who keeps commenting about my other Willy Wonka article–I hope you enjoy this one as much as the Charlie article.  =)

We all know her as Veruca Salt, the biggest, brattiest, demanding, diva-licious character found in all the childrens’ movies of the 1970’s. She will be remembered forever and immortalized as daddy’s little girl; the angel with horns who wants what she wants and “wants it now!” and actually gets it. She’s the girl whose daddy had his factory workers shed millions of candy wrappers to ensure her a spot in the factory, the seemingly dainty girl with the lovely fur lined-coat that I thought was so pretty, and the first child to sign the infamous Wonka contract. Veruca was, in my eyes, probably the most fun to watch. There is something so fun in watching a real BRAT act out and then in the end getting what he/she deserves and she played that part perfectly! She was very pretty –although I thought her hair needed a good styling (it always seemed to be needing a simple brushing) but as the old saying goes: “Beauty is only skin deep. Once she opened her mouth, you saw her flaws. The actress who portrayed her is Julie Dawn Cole and she has quite a long list of credits on her resume. Ms. Cole claims that every bit of her snippy attitude was coached and very un-like her true personality. She said she had to be “coached” on how to act like a brat.  (Hard to believe because she did it so well!) There was, however, a bit of real rivalry between her and the actress who played Violet because they both admittedly had crushes on Peter Ostrum who played Charlie. Julie Dawn Cole is the only child from the film who is still acting. She has over 40 TV shows and films (she continues to work in England as an actress) listed in her past and present acting credits. She appeared as “a regular” in several hit shows in England.  She is also a fully trained fitness instructor, but she now spends most of her time running a children’s drama school outside of London.  She has two children and has been known to call her daughter Veruca when she acts bratty.   Julie Dawn Cole  receives no royalties from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.  Strangely, the movie did not do very well at the box office when it was released.  The sponsor of the movie thought it tanked so badly that they never sponsored a movie again!  Ms. Cole says that she is still in possession of the original Golden Ticket and the Everlasting Gobstopper that she was given as a prop when making the film. She was supposed to return both. I guess she is a little bit Veruca after all!

She was a bad egg!