Mamie Van Doren

Mamie Van Doren ˈmeɪmi væn ˈdɔːrən born Joan Lucille Olander February 6 1931 is an American retired actress The last living blonde bombshell from the Golden Age of Hollywood she is one of the Three Ms a group formed by Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield who were contemporaries In 1953 Van Doren then named Joan Lucille Olander signed a sevenyear contract with Universal which hoped that she would be their version of Monroe She starred in teen dramas exploitation musical comedy and rock and roll films among other genres many of which have gone on to become cult classics She was one of the leading sex symbols in the 1950s Van Doren was born and raised in Rowena South Dakota but her parents moved to Sioux City Iowa and eventually to Los Angeles in 1942 before she married Jack Newman In 1949 at the age of eighteen she won Miss Palm Springs and Miss Eight Ball As Miss Eight Ball she was discovered by film producer Howard Hughes who put her in the RKO films His Kind of Woman 1951 Two Tickets to Broadway 1951 and Jet Pilot 1957 in minor roles In 1950 she was dating the heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey over thirtyfive years her senior in New York City and was engaged to him However she left him to go back to Los Angeles On January 20 1953 Van Doren signed a contract with Universal who wanted her to be Universals equivalent of Monroe While at Universal Van Doren changed her name to Mamie Van Doren the Mamie from thenFirst Lady Mamie Eisenhower and the Van Doren from Universals telling Van Doren she was more Dutch than Swedish During her time at Universal Van Doren starred in movies such as The Second Greatest Sex 1955 Running Wild 1955 and The All American 1953 Outside of Universal she starred in Untamed Youth 1957 Teachers Pet 1958 High School Confidential 1958 Born Reckless 1958 The Beat Generation 1959 and Sex Kittens Go To College 1960 She starred on television shows such as Whats My Line The Jack Benny Program and The Bob Cummings Show After Universal failed to renew her contract in 1959 Van Doren struggled to find work as a free agent She starred in many B movies such as Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women 1968 The Las Vegas Hillbillys 1966 with Mansfield and 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt 1964 a film which challenged the Hays Code The same year she appeared in the June 1964 Playboy magazine with nude photos of her on the set of the film Van Doren has married five times and had intimate affairs with many other Hollywood actors She went to Vietnam in the 1970s to entertain troops during the Vietnam War Partially because of the sudden deaths of Mansfield and Monroe she decided to retire from acting In 1987 Van Doren released her autobiography Playing the Field My Story On February 1 1994 she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame In 1998 she created her website describing herself as the first authentic kitten on Cyberspace Description above from the Wikipedia article Mamie Van Doren licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia