Actors - Mamie Van Doren

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Mamie Van Doren

	Actors - Mamie Van Doren

Mamie Van Doren (born February 6, 1931) is an American actress and sex symbol.

Early life

She was born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, South Dakota, the daughter of Warner Carl Olander (March 30, 1908-June 4, 1992) and Lucille Harriet Bennett (January 21, 1912-August 27, 1995).

She is of three-quarters Swedish ancestry; the remainder is mixed English and German. Her mother named her after Joan Crawford. In 1939, the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa. In May 1942, they moved to Los Angeles.

In early 1946, Joan began working as an usherette at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit-part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered beauty contests. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles "Miss Eight Ball" and "Miss Palm Springs".

While appearing in the Miss Palm Springs contest, she was discovered by Howard Hughes.

Early career

She lunched with Hughes, who gave her a bit-part in Jet Pilot at RKO, which was her motion picture debut. Her line of dialogue consisted of one word, "Look!" Though production of the movie was in 1949 and 1950, it was not released until 1957. The following year, 1951, she posed for famous pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas, the painter of the glamorous "Vargas Girls." His painting of Van Doren was on the July cover of Esquire.

She was briefly married at seventeen, when she and first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage dissolved quickly, upon discovery of his abusive nature.

She 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 that one, Van Doren has said, "If you blinked you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive."

She then began working on the stage. She was a showgirl in New York 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, she was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International.

Motion pictures

On January 20, 1953, she signed a contract with Universal. The studio had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe, the reigning sex symbol of the era. It has been said that because the day she was signed was also the day President Eisenhower was inaugurated, the studio decided to give her the name Mamie for Ike's wife, Mamie Eisenhower, and Van Doren because it sounds Dutch.

Her first movie for Universal was Forbidden (1953), playing a singer. She then made All-American (1953), playing Susie Ward, a girl from the other side of the tracks who is the man-trap at a campus beer joint. In Yankee Pasha (1954) starring Tony Curtis and Rhonda Fleming, she played a slave girl, Lilith.

Van Doren starred as the "bad girl" archetype in several teenage cult movies of the 1950s. She also appeared in some of the first movies to feature Rock & Roll music. She became identified with this rebellious style, and made some Rock records.

While she and the other blonde bombshells did not attain the same level of superstar status as Monroe, Van Doren did become one of the leading sex symbols of the day. Marilyn, Mamie and Jayne Mansfield were known as the "Three M's," and Van Doren achieved legendary status as being the sole survivor (although she was referred to as "the poor man's Mansfield").

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Mamie Van Doren ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Mamie Van Doren; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Actors - Mamie Van Doren

Early life

Early career

Motion pictures

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay