Mamie Van Doren: Biography

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Mamie Van Doren.Image via Wikimedia Commons

Who Is Mamie Van Doren?

Mamie Van Doren (; born Joan Lucille Olander; February 6, 1931) is an American former actress and model. The last living blonde bombshell from the Golden Age of Hollywood, she is one of the "Three M's", a group formed by Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were 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 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 thirty-five 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 Universal's equivalent of Monroe. While at Universal, Van Doren changed her name to Mamie Van Doren, the "Mamie" from then–First Lady Mamie Eisenhower and the "Van Doren" from Universal's 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), Teacher's 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 What's 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.

Early Life: Where Is Mamie Van Doren From?

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".

Early life

Van Doren was born Joan Lucille Olander on February 6, 1931, in Rowena, South Dakota, nine miles out of Sioux Falls. She is the daughter of Warner Carl Olander (1908–1992) and Lucille Harriet Bennett (1912–1995). Olander and Bennett had met at a Swedish Lutheran Church which had been partially built by them. They married in August 1930. She was named after Joan Crawford, a favorite actress of her mother. She is of three-quarters Swedish and mixed Irish and German descent. Van Doren's father, Warner Olander, worked at a rock quarry, being paid $0.35 cents a load, sometimes earning $7.00 in a day. According to Van Doren, the town consisted of a church, school, railroad station, and a connected filling station, grocery store, a grain elevator, and a hardware store owned by her great-uncle. Her maternal grandmother was born in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Mamie Van Doren's Career and Major Works

In 1939 Van Doren's parents moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where her father got a better job as a mechanic. This led to Van Doren moving onto her maternal grandparents', the Bennetts, 160-acre farm in Rowena. Van Doren later reflected on this, saying in her 1987 autobiography “Playing the Field,” “It was the Depression, times were that hard." She described in her memoir that her grandmother, whom she called "Dah", was an important household figure, while her grandfather, "Pa", took Van Doren into town weekly. She additionally lived with her maternal uncle on the farm. Van Doren also recalls in her autobiography her first experience flying a plane on the ranch. Van Doren would walk a mile and a half to a two-room schoolhouse on the ranch in any weather.

Van Doren grew up sickly, having three operations before the age of seven. She claimed having had a temperature of 106 °F (41.1 °C), yet maintained her grandmother still brought her to school because she wanted to be by herself on the ranch. She almost died at four from a hemorrhage and had a bump removed from her face, which left a small scar and caused her to be bullied in school.

Van Doren moved to Sioux City, Iowa, in 1939 to live with her parents, where she watched movies starring actors such as Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Spencer Tracy, Fred Astaire, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, Mae West, and Ginger Rogers. She was impressionistic, writing in her memoir, "The other thing the movies seemed to promise was love. In every one of those celluloid fairy tales, the heroine lived happily ever after in the company of the man she loved. How I yearned for that. It was then that I set my heart on becoming a Hollywood star." In May 1942 when Van Doren was 11, her family moved to Los Angeles. After staying at a boarding house, Van Doren and her family moved to an apartment on Raymond Avenue, where Van Doren had to sneak through the door. Van Doren and her family soon moved to a bigger apartment.

Mamie Van Doren's Personal Life and Relationships

According to Van Doren, a man exposed his penis to her while she was in a car heading to her home. In her 1964 book, “My Naughty, Naughty Life!,” she recalls the event saying, "For weeks – and occasionally even years later – that man returned to me in my sleep, leaving me a neurotic young girl and even upsetting me as a woman. For several months after that experience, I found myself hating boys and looking upon men as animals. But I'm glad that hatred never lasted."

After her thirteenth birthday, Van Doren convinced the manager of Hollywood Pantages Theatre to make her an usherette, which allowed her to watch popular movies for free. Van Doren often spent time at a drugstore, inspired by the myth of the discovery of Lana Turner at Schwab's Pharmacy. At this point, Van Doren had already dyed her hair platinum blonde.

After being commented on by Nils Thor Granlund, known by his initials NTG, that she looked similar to Jean Harlow, she was cast on his Hollywood TV show in a minor role. However, her parents were worried that she would get in trouble and feared that she would go on to be killed like the Black Dahlia, a still unidentified murder victim whom Van Doren claimed was one of their closest friends. Despite that, Van Doren went on Granlund's show, coated in white pancake makeup and brown lipstick. Van Doren stated that Granlund's show was a prototype of the modern talk show. While making the show, she was known as Little Joanie, the Flower Girl. Van Doren and her mother became friends with Granlund. Van Doren also sang with Ted Fio Rito's Band.

Where Is Mamie Van Doren Now? Recent Years

At the Montecito Hotel in Palm Springs, in the summer of 1949, Van Doren was encouraged to enter the Miss Palm Springs competition, sponsored by the hotel. She won the title, and was subsequently invited to become the Los Angeles Press Club's beauty queen, Miss Eight Ball. Following this, she dropped out of Los Angeles High School, which she had hated.

Acting career

Film producer Howard Hughes pursued Van Doren after she was crowned Miss Palm Springs, and, according to Van Doren, his first question was, "Are you a virgin?" Van Doren said that he was controlling when they dated. She said in a 2005 interview that Hughes took her to a spot on Vermont Avenue for a braless photoshoot in a white sweater. Van Doren would often meet Howard Hughes at the Garden of Allah Hotel. Hughes signed Van Doren a four-film contract with RKO.

Mamie Van Doren's Legacy and Impact

In 1950 Hughes gave Van Doren an uncredited bit part in Jet Pilot (1957) at RKO Radio Pictures, which was filmed from 1949 to 1950 but released in 1957. The title, which starred John Wayne and Janet Leigh, was her film debut. She said that she had a good experience with Leigh, who allowed Van Doren to fly in her jet. Her line of dialogue consisted of one word, "Look!". Van Doren had a small role in Footlight Varieties (1951) as the girl in the theater in the final scene of the film. Van Doren appeared uncredited in Two Tickets to Broadway (1951). The film starred Tony Martin and former co-star Janet Leigh.

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. The film was shot on the back lot of the David O. Selznick Studio. About her appearance in this movie, Van Doren said, "If you blinked, you would miss me. I looked barely old enough to drive." She was on the film for three months and, because of the money she earned, bought an MG car. Van Doren also met Gloria Swanson who asked her, "Is that your real color of hair?"

Van Doren was coached by Natasha Lytess, who had also coached Marilyn Monroe. The two actresses met several times when Van Doren was being coached by Lytess. However, Van Doren stopped her lessons with Lytess because "Natasha spent most of our lessons talking, however, and there was very little time left, after her long-winded speeches on the art of acting, to actually perform for her".

In her memoir, Van Doren tells of her relationship with Charles Fischetti, an American mobster and the cousin of Al Capone, whom she met in Las Vegas who often sent money to Van Doren from Chicago. He died of a heart attack in 1951.

Danielle Cory, an RKO worker and friend of Van Doren, suggested that Van Doren work on stage for the play Billion Dollar Baby, which began her stage career as a showgirl. The show was held at the Proser Cafe Theatre, near Jack Dempsey's restaurant. Cory additionally suggested that Van Doren should audition for Alberto Vargas to be one of the "Vargas Girls" in Esquire. Vargas ended up picking Van Doren as one of his models.

In New York City Van Doren met boxer Jack Dempsey at the Jack Dempsey's Broadway Restaurant. Dempesy frequented the Billion Dollar Baby show and held a celebration for the cast. Dempsey requested to have dinner with Van Doren, which they later had at the Stork Club, and they had a conversation with Sherman Billingsley, the founder of the venue. Since Dempsey was treated as a celebrity, the couple wentto many other clubs, such as the Copacabana and the 21 Club. Dempsey got engaged to Van Doren, then decided to move back to Hollywood because she thought it would be better for her career. According to Barry Lowe, Van Doren was, "Near penniless, out of work, and frightened for the future" due to Billion Dollar Baby not being successful.

At the request of Sammy Fain, Van Doren met songwriter Jimmy McHugh. McHugh had an interest in Van Doren's career and became her manager. Van Doren has stated that since she was managed by McHugh, who was dating gossip columnist Louella Parsons, that Parsons disliked her. McHugh told Van Doren that he would enroll her in a drama school and additionally arranged for her to be at Ben Bard's Theater. Bard had an acting school and put on plays that were attended by film scouts, casting agents, and directors. Van Doren was in Bard's theater productions, such as Once in a Lifetime and At War with the Army. At Bard's school Van Doren was given advice by Carolyn Jones, and she was taught by Aaron Spelling in private, which broke Bard's school rules. Van Doren also went to many of McHugh's parties, attended by Darryl F. Zanuck, Louis B. Mayer, and Buddy Adler. This allowed Van Doren to have a screen test for Paramount Pictures..Van Doren says in her autobiography, Playing the Field, that she decided to do a scene from The Big Knife for her Paramount screen test. Van Doren later stated that during the audition, "I played the scene with as much intensity as I had ever played a role, feeling the character's pain and anguish so acutely that it became my own.” After the audition, according to Van Doren, McHugh told her, "They're going...

Mamie Van Doren's career continues to be documented by reputable media; the facts above are drawn from Wikipedia's biography and public records.

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