Mamie Van Doren
Active - 1951 - 2014 | Born - Feb 6, 1933 in Rowena, SD | Genres - Comedy, Drama, Crime, Musical, Romance | Height: 5' 4"
1950s "sex bomb" Mamie Van Doren could act, but reviewers seldom got any farther than commenting on her torpedo bras and skin-tight capri pants. She made her professional bow as a band singer, acting in stock companies before signing a contract with Universal Pictures in 1953.
There would be a few A pictures in her future, notably the Clark Gable-Doris Day comedy Teacher's Pet (1958), but Van Doren's career was mainly devoted to tawdry exploitation programmers and drive-in quickies. She became the resident Marilyn Monroe-type for fast-buck producer Albert Zugsmith in the late 1950s and early 1960s, starring in such films as The Beat Generation (1958), The Big Operator (1959), The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), and her signature film, Sex Kittens Go To College (1960).
She also showed up in the "musical j.d." epic Born Reckless (singing five songs) and as a neurotic striptease artist in director Tommy Noonan's tickle-and-tease farce Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964). Disappearing from films in the 1970s, Van Doren continued popping up at important Hollywood social functions and awards presentations, as zaftig and exhibitionist as ever, much to the delight of her ever-growing fan club. In 1987 Mamie Van Doren wrote her memoirs, Playing the Field, in which she claims she slept with practically every male star in the entertainment industry.
Available Films:
Active - 1951 - 2014 | Born - Feb 6, 1933 in Rowena, SD | Genres - Comedy, Drama, Crime, Musical, Romance | Height: 5' 4"
1950s "sex bomb" Mamie Van Doren could act, but reviewers seldom got any farther than commenting on her torpedo bras and skin-tight capri pants. She made her professional bow as a band singer, acting in stock companies before signing a contract with Universal Pictures in 1953.
There would be a few A pictures in her future, notably the Clark Gable-Doris Day comedy Teacher's Pet (1958), but Van Doren's career was mainly devoted to tawdry exploitation programmers and drive-in quickies. She became the resident Marilyn Monroe-type for fast-buck producer Albert Zugsmith in the late 1950s and early 1960s, starring in such films as The Beat Generation (1958), The Big Operator (1959), The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), and her signature film, Sex Kittens Go To College (1960).
She also showed up in the "musical j.d." epic Born Reckless (singing five songs) and as a neurotic striptease artist in director Tommy Noonan's tickle-and-tease farce Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964). Disappearing from films in the 1970s, Van Doren continued popping up at important Hollywood social functions and awards presentations, as zaftig and exhibitionist as ever, much to the delight of her ever-growing fan club. In 1987 Mamie Van Doren wrote her memoirs, Playing the Field, in which she claims she slept with practically every male star in the entertainment industry.
Available Films:
Trivia:
Signed by Universal Studios at age 18 with the hope that they could make her their answer to 20th Century Fox's Marilyn Monroe.
Was discovered by Howard Hughes the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. He dated her for five years and launched her career by placing her in several RKO films.
Her film Untamed Youth (1957) was originally condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, but that only served to enhance the curiosity factor, resulting in it being a big moneymaker for the studio.
She took her stage name (Mamie) from "First Lady" Mamie Eisenhower.
"I came to Hollywood determined to follow in Jean Harlow's footsteps, but I was determined not to die young. My hope was to endure. And endure I have."
[on her appearance in His Kind of Woman (1951)] "If you blinked, you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive."
"I have never been a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. I have always been happy in my own skin!"
[The Toronto Sun, January 25, 2008] "All the great sex symbols are dead. Jean Harlow is dead. Mae West is dead. Marlene Dietrich is dead. Marilyn Monroe is dead. And I'm not feeling too well myself."
Signed by Universal Studios at age 18 with the hope that they could make her their answer to 20th Century Fox's Marilyn Monroe.
Was discovered by Howard Hughes the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. He dated her for five years and launched her career by placing her in several RKO films.
Her film Untamed Youth (1957) was originally condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, but that only served to enhance the curiosity factor, resulting in it being a big moneymaker for the studio.
She took her stage name (Mamie) from "First Lady" Mamie Eisenhower.
"I came to Hollywood determined to follow in Jean Harlow's footsteps, but I was determined not to die young. My hope was to endure. And endure I have."
[on her appearance in His Kind of Woman (1951)] "If you blinked, you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive."
"I have never been a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. I have always been happy in my own skin!"
[The Toronto Sun, January 25, 2008] "All the great sex symbols are dead. Jean Harlow is dead. Mae West is dead. Marlene Dietrich is dead. Marilyn Monroe is dead. And I'm not feeling too well myself."