Mamie Van Doren | |
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 Van Doren, ca. 1954 | |
| Born | Joan Lucille Olander February 6, 1931 Rowena, South Dakota, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1931–present |
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| Children | 1 |
Mamie Van Doren (born Joan Lucille Olander; [1] February 6, 1931) [1] is an American actress, singer, and sex symbol. [2] [3] She is perhaps best known for the rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquency exploitation film Untamed Youth (1957).
Van Doren was born on February 6, 1931, in Rowena, South Dakota, the daughter of Warner Carl Olander and Lucille Harriet Bennett. [3] [4] She is of three-quarters Swedish ancestry; the remainder is mixed English and German. In 1939, the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and then to Los Angeles during May 1942.
In early 1946, Van Doren began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television series. She sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered several beauty contests. At age 17, she eloped to Santa Barbara, California, with Jack Newman, but because of his abusive nature the marriage was quickly dissolved. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles Miss Eight Ball and Miss Palm Springs. [5] She was engaged to heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, but broke the engagement upon signing a contract with Universal Studios.
Producer Howard Hughes discovered Van Doren when she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. The pair dated for several years. Hughes launched her career by placing her in several RKO films.
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(December 2017) |
In 1950, Hughes provided Van Doren with a bit part in Jet Pilot at RKO Radio Pictures, which was her film debut. Her line of dialogue consisted of one word, "Look!" and she appears uncredited in the film. Though production of the movie was from 1949 to 1953 (delays by Hughes), it was not released until 1957. The following year, 1951, she posed for pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas.
Van Doren did a few more bit parts in movies at RKO, including His Kind of Woman (1951) starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell and Vincent Price. About her appearance in this movie, Van Doren said "If you blinked you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive."
Van Doren then began working on the stage. She was a showgirl in New York City in Monte Proser's nightclub version of Billion Dollar Baby. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh discovered her for his musicals, then decided she was too good for the chorus line and should have dramatic training. She studied with Ben Bard and Bliss-Hayden. While appearing in the role of Marie in a showcase production of Come Back, Little Sheba , Van Doren was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International.
On January 20, 1953, Van Doren signed a contract with Universal Studios. They had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the same kind of success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe. Van Doren, whose signing day coincided with the inauguration of President Eisenhower, was given the first name Mamie after Ike's wife, Mamie Eisenhower. Other Van Dorens, who were unrelated to Mamie, were a prominent and noted family of American intellectuals; these Van Dorens included two Pulitzer Prize-winning brothers, Carl (biographer) and Mark (poet), and Mark's wife Dorothy, an academic and historian.
Universal first cast Van Doren in a minor role as a singer in Forbidden, starring Tony Curtis. Interested in Van Doren's allure, Universal then cast her in The All American (1953), (also starring Tony Curtis), playing her first major role as Susie Ward, a wayward girl who is the man-trap at a campus beer joint. In Yankee Pasha (1954), starring Jeff Chandler and Rhonda Fleming, she played a slave girl in a supporting role. In 1955, she had a supporting role in the musical Ain't Misbehavin' and starred in the crime-drama Running Wild . Van Doren turned down a Broadway role in the play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and was replaced by newcomer Jayne Mansfield.
In 1956, Van Doren appeared opposite an uncredited and unknown Clint Eastwood in Star in the Dust . Though Van Doren garnered prominent billing alongside John Agar and Richard Boone, she appears rather briefly, as the daughter of a ranch owner. By this time, Van Doren had grown tired of Universal, which was casting her in non-breakthrough roles. Van Doren began accepting bigger and better roles in better movies from other studios.
Van Doren went on to star in several bad girl movies that later became cult films. She also appeared in some of the first movies to feature rock 'n' roll music and became identified with this rebellious style, and she made some rock records. One of her rock 'n' roll films, Untamed Youth , was later featured in the 1990 Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Untamed Youth".
Some of Van Doren's more noteworthy movies include Teacher's Pet (1958) at Paramount Pictures, Born Reckless (1958) at Warner Brothers, High School Confidential (1958), and The Beat Generation (1959), the latter two at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But Van Doren was just as well known for her provocative roles. She was in prison for Girls Town (1959), which provoked censors with a shower scene where audiences could see Van Doren's naked back. As Eve in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) she wore only fig leaves, and in other films, like The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina (1959), Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), and Vice Raid (1960) audiences understood the nature of the films from the titles.
Many of Van Doren's film roles showcased her ample curves, and her onscreen wardrobe usually consisted of tight sweaters, low-cut blouses, form-fitting dresses, and daring (for the era) swimsuits, but she and such other blonde bombshell contemporaries as Jayne Mansfield, Cleo Moore, Sheree North, Anita Ekberg, Barbara Lang, Joi Lansing, Greta Thyssen, and Barbara Nichols did not attain the same level of superstar status as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn, Mamie, and Mansfield were known as "The Three M's", but by comparison, where Monroe succeeded in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Mansfield had big success replacing Van Doren in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? , Universal stuck Van Doren with Francis the Talking Mule in Francis Joins the WACS (1954).
After Universal Studios chose not to renew her contract in 1959, Van Doren became a free agent and struggled to find work. Some of her later movies were foreign and independent productions, which did little to keep her image in the public's eye. Many of the productions were low-budget B movies with some having gained a cult following for their high camp value. [6] [7]
The first of these later films was Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), which co-starred Tuesday Weld. Following the completion of the Argentine film The Blonde from Buenos Aires (1961), Van Doren took time off from her career. She came back in The Candidate (1964), soon followed by Freddy in the Wild West , both of which were low-budget films that left little impact. In 1964, Tommy Noonan convinced Van Doren to appear in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt . Van Doren had turned down Noonan's previous offer to star opposite Jayne Mansfield in Promises! Promises! , and was replaced with Marie McDonald. In 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt, Mamie did a beer-bath scene but is not seen nude. She posed for Playboy to promote the film.
Van Doren next appeared in The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966) released by Woolner Brothers. [7] This film co-starred Mansfield; this was the only time two of "The Three M's" appeared together in a film. A sequel was titled Hillbillys in a Haunted House , but Van Doren turned this role down, and was replaced by Joi Lansing. She then appeared in The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966), a science fiction movie. [6] In 1967, she appeared in You've Got to Be Smart , and starred in the science fiction film Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), the following year, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Van Doren also developed a nightclub act and did live theater. She performed in stage productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dames at Sea at the Drury Lane Theater in Chicago as well as appeared in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and The Tender Trap at the Arlington Park Theater. In the 1970s, Van Doren performed a nightclub act in Las Vegas.
In 1970, Van Doren had a supporting role in the western comedy The Arizona Kid . In 1975, she starred in the film That Girl From Boston, adapted from a Robert Rimmer novel, but the film was never released. Since then, Van Doren has appeared only in cameos in low-budget films. Van Doren's last film appearance was a role in the direct-to-video drama The American Tetralogy (2013). [8]
Van Doren's guest appearances on television include Jukebox Jury , What's My Line , The Bob Cummings Show , The Jack Benny Show , Fantasy Island , Burke's Law , Vega$ and L.A. Law .
Van Doren released Playing the Field (1987), her autobiography, which brought much attention and proved to be her biggest media splash in over 25 years. [9] She has consistently denied in interviews ever having breast implants. In 2006, Mamie posed for photographs for Vanity Fair with Pamela Anderson as part of its annual Hollywood issue.
In an interview with Fox News in February 2020, Van Doren announced that she was working on a follow-up to her autobiography. She remarked that "...a lot has happened between 1987 and 2020. So now I'm writing about what it's like getting older and appreciating life a little more as you go along, as well as getting smarter as you get older. There's so much to write about." [10]
The title of her follow-up book was announced in December 2021 as "China & Me: Wind Flapping, Feather Pulling, and Love on the Wing", a memoir about her pet parrot China. Van Doren describes the story as "a look behind the curtain into my everyday life. It's often funny, but, like so many things in life, it has its moments of sadness. Over the decades I've integrated a wild animal into a human household, played matchmaker to find him a mate, and cared for his offspring. I'm blessed to have had China as companion, confessor, and straight man all these years; and he's still with me today." [11] The book was published in September 2022. [12]
In an interview with Closer in January 2021, she also reflected on the #MeToo movement, 'I've thought a lot about that. There are some things I would question, but I've also always been behind any woman with a problem because I have had plenty of them myself. [In my time] if I wanted to go to bed with someone, I'd go to bed with them, but I never did it for a movie. [A predator] would know that he was in for a fight if he ever came around me. [It would be] nails out, kicking and screaming.' [13]
Van Doren has been married five times. In 1949, she married sportswear manufacturer Jack Newman; she divorced him later that same year. [14] Her second marriage was to bandleader, composer and actor Ray Anthony whom she married in 1955. They had one son, Perry Ray Anthony, born March 18, 1956. [15] The couple divorced in 1961. When Van Doren's early 1960s, highly publicized, on-again off-again engagement to baseball player Bo Belinsky ended in 1964, she married baseball player Lee Meyers in 1966. They divorced in 1968. [16] Her fourth marriage was to businessman Ross McClintock in 1972. They met while working on President Nixon's re-election campaign; the marriage was annulled in 1973. [17] Since 1979, she has been married to Thomas Dixon, an actor and dentist. [15]
In her autobiography, Van Doren acknowledged that she had numerous affairs with celebrities, including Clark Gable, Howard Hughes, Burt Reynolds, Jack Dempsey, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Johnny Rivers, Robert Evans, Eddie Fisher, Warren Beatty, Tony Curtis, Steve Cochran, and Joe Namath. [18] Claiming fidelity to each lover, she said "I don't wear panties anymore – this startles the Hollywood wolves so much they don't know what to pull at, so they leave me alone."
Van Doren was never a Playboy Playmate, but she posed twice for the magazine in 1964 to promote her movie 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964). By this point in her career, her figure measured 38DD-26-36 (self-described in 1997). She said "I don't even want to say double-D because they're even bigger than that."[ citation needed ]
In 1964, Van Doren was a guest at the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California when The Beatles were at the club visiting with Jayne Mansfield, and an inebriated George Harrison accidentally threw his drink on her when trying to throw it on some bothersome journalists. [19] During the Vietnam War, she did tours for U.S. troops in Vietnam for three months in 1968, and again in 1970. [15] In addition to USO shows, she visited hospitals, including the wards of amputees and burn victims.[ citation needed ]
In 1980, Van Doren was referenced in the controversial Canadian Top 20 hit "High School Confidential" by the popular 1980s Canadian new wave band Rough Trade.
Van Doren had a website from the late 90s to the early 2010s. [20] In recent years, Van Doren has made use of Twitter. [21] Van Doren had a theater section, where she would post various movies. She also showed many nude and semi-nude images taken by Julie Strain. Van Doren started her own blog on which she regularly writes about a very diverse array of topics. As of July 2023 she is still posting to her blog. [22] [2] She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2005, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. [23]
| Year | Film title | Role | Studio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Footlight Varieties | Blonde in theater | RKO Radio Pictures | Uncredited |
| His Kind of Woman | Lodge guest at bar | |||
| Two Tickets to Broadway | Showgirl | |||
| 1953 | Forbidden | Singer | Universal Pictures | Uncredited |
| The All American | Susie Ward | First major film role | ||
| 1954 | Hawaiian Nights | Glamour girl | Uncredited Short film | |
| Yankee Pasha | Lilith, Harem slave | |||
| Francis Joins the WACS | Cpl. Bunky Hilstrom | |||
| 1955 | Ain't Misbehavin' | Jackie | ||
| The Second Greatest Sex | Birdie Snyder | |||
| Running Wild | Irma Bean | |||
| 1956 | Star in the Dust | Ellen Ballard | Last film under contract with Universal. Van Doren stopped accepting roles from the studio, because they were not giving her the breakthrough roles she so desperately craved. | |
| 1957 | Untamed Youth | Penny Lowe | Warner Brothers | In this film, Van Doren became the first actress to sing rock 'n roll in an American musical film. |
| The Girl in Black Stockings | Harriet Ames | United Artists | Van Doren's final film to be lined-up for her by Universal in 1956. a.k.a.: Wanton Murder and Wanton Murder Mystery | |
| Jet Pilot | WAF | RKO Radio Pictures | Uncredited. Filmed between 1949 and 1953, delays by director, but not released until 1957. | |
| 1958 | Teacher's Pet | Peggy DeFore | Paramount Pictures | Van Doren's role was originally bigger, but was edited to be smaller because of the outfits she was required to wear in the film. |
| High School Confidential | Gwen Dulaine | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | ||
| Born Reckless | Jackie Adams | Warner Brothers | ||
| 1959 | Guns, Girls, and Gangsters | Vi Victor | United Artists | |
| The Beat Generation | Georgia Altera | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | ||
| The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina | Sabrina | Her first non-Hollywood motion picture release | ||
| The Big Operator | Mary Gibson | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | ||
| Girls Town | Silver Morgan | The first film to feature Van Doren nude. She appears nude through a fuzzy shower door. | ||
| 1960 | Vice Raid | Carol Hudson | United Artists | |
| College Confidential | Sally Blake | Universal Pictures | ||
| Sex Kittens Go to College | Dr. Mathilda West | Allied Artists | ||
| The Private Lives of Adam and Eve | Evie Simms/Eve | Universal Pictures | In this film, Van Doren wore only leaves for dream sequences. | |
| 1961 | The Blonde from Buenos Aires | |||
| 1964 | The Candidate | Samantha Ashley | ||
| Freddy in the Wild West | Olivia | - | a.k.a.: The Sheriff Was a Lady (alternative title) | |
| 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt | Saxie Symbol | Harlequin International Pictures | Filmed as a sequel/spinoff of Promises! Promises! , a film that Van Doren had turned down. | |
| 1966 | The Las Vegas Hillbillys | Boots Malone | Woolner Brothers | Co-starred Jayne Mansfield. This is the only time that any of the "Three M's" appeared together in a motion picture. |
| The Navy vs. the Night Monsters | Nora Hall | Realart Pictures Inc. | The first of two science fiction films that Van Doren made. | |
| 1967 | You've Got to Be Smart | Miss Hathaway | ||
| 1968 | Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women | Moana | American-International Television | The last science fiction film of Van Doren's career. |
| 1970 | The Arizona Kid | Sharon Miller | ||
| 1975 | That Girl from Boston | Pricess Tassel | ||
| 1986 | Free Ride | Debbie Stockwell | Galaxy International Releasing | |
| 1999 | The Vegas Connection | Rita | ||
| 2002 | Slackers | Miss Van Graaf | Screen Gems | |
| 2012 | The American Tetralogy | Mazu or the Goddess of the Sea |
| Year | Album | Format | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Untamed Youth | EP | Prep Records |
| 1976 | Mamie – As in Mamie Van Doren | LP | Churchill Records |
| 1986 | The Girl Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll | LP | Rhino Records |
| 1997 | The Girl Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll | CD | Marginal Records |
| 2011 | Still a Troublemaker | CD/iTunes | Ferguson Records |
| 2017 | Ooh Ba La Baby: Her Exciting Rock N' Roll Recordings (1956–1959) | CD | Hoodoo Records |
| Year | Single | Format | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Salamander/Go, Go, Calypso! | 45 rpm | Prep Records |
| Something to Dream About/I Fell in Love | 45 rpm | Capitol Records | |
| 1958 | Nobody but You/A Lifetime of Love | 45 rpm | Dot Records |
| Don't Fool Around, Sabrina (Be Mine, Be Mine, Be Mine)/Fashion for Ladies | 45 rpm | RCA Records (Italy) | |
| 1959 | The Beat Generation/I'm Grateful | 45 rpm | Dot Records |
| 1964 | Bikini with No Top on the Top (with June Wilkinson)/So What Else Is New | 45 rpm | Jubilee Records |
| 1967 | Cabaret/The Boy Catcher's Theme | 45 rpm | Audio Fidelity |
| 1984 | State of Turmoil | 12" Single | Corner Stone Records |
| 1986 | Young Dudes/Queen of Pleasure | 12" Single | Rhino Records |
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 American satirical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, and Mickey Hargitay, and with a cameo by Groucho Marx. The film is a satire on popular fan culture, Hollywood hype, and the advertising industry, which was profiting from commercials on the relatively new medium of television. It also takes aim at the reduction television caused to the size of movie theater audiences in the 1950s. The film was known as Oh! For a Man! in the United Kingdom.
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award, and soon gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was an American actress and model. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She starred in more than 20 films.
Loni Anderson is an American actress. She played receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–1982), which earned her three Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy Award nominations.
Ginger Grant is a fictional character portrayed by actress Tina Louise in the 1964 to 1967 television sitcom Gilligan's Island.
Joi Lansing was an American model, film and television actress, and nightclub singer. She was noted for her pin-up photos and roles in B-movies, as well as a prominent role in the famous opening "tracking shot" in Orson Welles' 1958 crime drama Touch of Evil.
Cleouna Moore was an American actress, usually featured in the role of a blonde bombshell in Hollywood films of the 1950s, including seven films with Hugo Haas. She also became a well-known pin-up girl.
Sheree North was an American actress, dancer, and singer, known for being one of 20th Century-Fox's intended successors to Marilyn Monroe.
The term bombshell is a forerunner to the term "sex symbol" used to describe popular women regarded as very attractive. The Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper attests the usage of the term in this meaning since 1942. Bombshell has a longer history in its other, more general figurative meaning of a "shattering or devastating thing or event" since 1860.
Promises! Promises! is a 1963 American sex comedy film directed by King Donovan and starring Tommy Noonan and Jayne Mansfield. Released at the end of the Production Code era and before the MPAA film rating system became effective in 1968, it was the first Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (Mansfield).
High School Confidential is a 1958 American crime drama film directed by Jack Arnold, starring Mamie Van Doren, Russ Tamblyn, Jan Sterling, John Drew Barrymore, Jackie Coogan, Diane Jergens and Michael Landon.
Jayne Mansfield was an actress, singer, playmate and stage show performer who had an enormous impact on popular culture of the late 1950s despite her limited success in Hollywood. She has remained a well-known subject in popular culture ever since. During a period between 1956 and 1957, there were about 122,000 lines of copy and 2,500 photographs that appeared in newspapers. In an article on her in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (1999), Dennis Russel said that "Although many people have never seen her movies, Jayne Mansfield remains, long after her death, one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture." In the novel Child of My Heart (2004) by Alice McDermott, a National Book Award winning writer, the 1950s is referred to as "in those Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield days". R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby has claimed that it was Mansfield along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot who made the bikini popular.
The Jayne Mansfield Story is a 1980 American made-for-television biographical drama film directed by Dick Lowry starring Loni Anderson as the actress, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as her bodybuilder husband, based on the life of Jayne Mansfield. The film was originally titled Jayne Mansfield: A Symbol of the '50s. The script is based on the book Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton.
The Las Vegas Hillbillys is a 1966 American country music comedy film directed by Arthur C. Pierce and starring Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. The 1967 sequel film Hillbillys in a Haunted House soon followed with a similar cast.
3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt is a 1964 comedy film starring Mamie Van Doren and Tommy Noonan, who also directed and co-wrote the film.
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is an original stage comedy in three acts and four scenes by George Axelrod. After a try-out run at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston from 26 September 1955, it opened at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway on 13 October, starring Jayne Mansfield, Walter Matthau and Orson Bean. Directed by the author and produced by Jule Styne, it closed on 3 November 1956 after 444 performances.
Yankee Pasha is a 1954 American romantic adventure film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Jeff Chandler, Rhonda Fleming and Mamie Van Doren. Shot in technicolor, it was produced and distributed by Hollywood studio Universal Pictures. The film is based on the 1947 novel Yankee Pasha by Edison Marshall.
The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina is a low-budget 1958 Italian-West German crime-drama-comedy film starring Mamie Van Doren, Antonio Cifariello, and Rossana Martini.
A sex symbol or icon is a person or character widely considered sexually attractive and often synonymous with sexuality.
Mansfield 66/67 is a 2017 documentary musical directed by P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes about the last two years of actress Jayne Mansfield's life. The film examines the rumors surrounding Mansfield's untimely death, and relationship with Anton LaVey as a celebration of Mansfield's life on the 50th anniversary of her death.
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