Mamie Van Doren is an American actress, singer, model, and sex symbol who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. A blonde bombshell, she is one of the "Three M's" along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and contemporaries. In 1953, Van Doren, then named Joan Lucille Olander, signed a seven-year contract with Universal, which hoped that she would be their version of Marilyn Monroe. During her time at Universal, she starred in teen dramas, exploitation films, musical, and comedy films among other genres. She has married five times, and had intimate affairs with many other Hollywood actors. She was one of the leading sex symbols in the 1950s.
Girls Town is a 1959 American drama film directed by Charles F. Haas and starring Mamie Van Doren, Mel Tormé, and Ray Anthony. Paul Anka also appears in his first acting role. Van Doren stars as a juvenile delinquent who is sent to a girls' school run by nuns, where she finds herself unable to help her sister. The film capitalizes on the 1950s rebellious-teen exploitation films, with catfights, car races, music from Anka and The Platters, and sexy outfits.
Ray Anthony is an American retired bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter and actor. He is the last living member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women is a 1968 American science fiction film, one of two films whose footage was taken from the 1962 Soviet SF film Planeta Bur for producer Roger Corman. The original film was scripted by Alexander Kazantsev from his novel and directed by Pavel Klushantsev. This adaptation, made by Peter Bogdanovich, who chose not to have his name credited on the film, included new scenes added that starred Mamie Van Doren. The film apparently had at least a limited U.S. release through American International Pictures, but became better known via subsequent cable TV showings and home video sales. The film contains no footage from Planeta Bur that was not used in the earlier Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965).
War of the Colossal Beast is a 1958 black-and-white science fiction film, written, produced, and directed by Bert I. Gordon for his Carmel Productions, and starring Dean Parkin, Sally Fraser, and Roger Pace. It is the sequel to Gordon's earlier The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and was distributed theatrically by American International Pictures as the bottom half of a double feature with Attack of the Puppet People. The film's storyline picks up where The Amazing Colossal Man left off, although it was not marketed as a sequel and features a different cast. The film's brief death-scene finale was filmed in color.
The Violent Years is a 1956 American exploitation film directed by William Morgan and starring Jean Moorhead as Paula Parkins, the leader of a gang of juvenile delinquent high school girls. The film is notable for having an uncredited Ed Wood as the author of its screenplay. It was released in 1956 on a double bill with the German import Conchita and the Engineer.
Albert Zugsmith was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialized in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
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.
Dixie Kay Nelson, known professionally as Lori Nelson, was an American actress and model mostly active in the 1950s and early 1960s. She had roles in the TV series How to Marry a Millionaire and the films Revenge of the Creature, All I Desire, and I Died a Thousand Times.
A sex kitten is a woman who exhibits a sexually provocative lifestyle or an abundant sexual aggression. The term originated around 1956 in articles in the British and American press and was originally used to describe French actress Brigitte Bardot. Sources believe Bardot's role in And God Created Woman was what inspired the term in the mid-1950s.
Star in the Dust is a 1956 American Technicolor Western film directed by Charles F. Haas and starring John Agar, Mamie Van Doren and Richard Boone. It was based on the 1953 Lee Leighton novel Law Man.
Sex Kittens Go to College is a 1960 American comedy film by Allied Artists Pictures, produced and directed by Albert Zugsmith and starring Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot. The film was also released in its European print with an additional nine-minute dream sequence showcasing the robot Thinko with four striptease dancers.
The Girl in Black Stockings is an American B-movie mystery film released by United Artists in 1957. Directed by Howard W. Koch, it stars Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, and Mamie Van Doren.
Vice Raid is a 1959 B-movie crime drama directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Mamie Van Doren and Richard Coogan. It was issued on a double bill with Inside the Mafia.
Guns, Girls and Gangsters is a 1959 American film noir crime film directed by Edward L. Cahn starring Mamie Van Doren, Gerald Mohr, Lee Van Cleef, and Grant Richards.
College Confidential is a 1960 American B-movie drama directed by Albert Zugsmith and starring Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows and Mamie Van Doren.
All Mine to Give is a 1957 Technicolor melodrama film directed by Allen Reisner and starring Glynis Johns, Cameron Mitchell, and Rex Thompson. When first one parent, then the other, dies, their six children have to look after themselves in the Wisconsin of the mid-19th century.
Heinrich Weidemann (1899–1982) was a German art director.
James Daniel Parnell was an American film and television actor.
American actress Mamie Van Doren has been in 41 films from 1951 to 2012. Van Doren was discovered by Howard Hughes as Miss Eight Ball, and Hughes put Van Doren in 4 RKO movies, including Jet Pilot, His Kind of Woman, and Two Tickets to Broadway. These movies would have Van Doren playing minor roles, where she was often uncredited or credited as Joan Olander.
