| Mamie Van Doren  AKA Joan Lucille Olander
Born: 6-Feb-1931
Birthplace: Rowena, SD
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: High School Confidential! In her prime, Mamie Van Doren was often mistaken for Marilyn Monroe, both being blonde beauties. Unlike Monroe, though, Van Doren's films are not remembered as classics, and many are hardly remembered at all. Her career trajectory went from supporting roles in borderline-A level films to leading roles in B's to exploitation films, drive-in quickies, and straightforward trash.
She was the first woman to sing rock and roll in a Hollywood musical, Untamed Youth (set in a women's prison). In the teensploitation drama High School Confidential, she played Russ Tamblyn's seductive "aunt". She played a hooker in 1959's Call Girl, and returned to prison for Girl's Town, which shocked censors with a shower sequence where audiences could see Van Doren's naked back. As Eve in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve she wore only fig leaves, and in many of her films, like Sex Kittens Go to College, Party Girls for the Candidate, or The Blonde from Buenos Aires, audiences knew what they were getting just from the title.
A lot of actresses are sexy, but Van Doren could crank it up to the point where the Catholic Church expressed its official disapproval. Her best movies never hesitated to showcase her ample curves, often enhanced with "bullet bras" or other padded undergarments. Her on-screen wardrobe usually consisted of tight sweaters, low-cut blouses, form-fitting dresses, and daring (for the era) swimsuits.
She has, as she says, "married a few people I shouldn't have," and she has slept with many more. But she also said no to men who rarely heard that word, including Henry Kissinger and Warren Beatty. She says she was drugged and raped by Jack Webb. "As the fog in my brain lifted, I looked up and saw Sgt. Joe Friday humping me with a wild look in his eyes. I remember wondering numbly if he was going to kill me. [...] He was just the kind of sick fuck who liked to have weird sex with unsuspecting young women."
She entertained American troops in Vietnam during the war, but not with a USO tour. The USO would only send stars to sites they felt were secure from enemy attack, but Van Doren, in the depths of suicidal depression, wanted to visit troops at the front line. She made her own flight arrangements for what she called "my suicide mission", and spent three months in combat zones.
Before her success in movies, she worked as a night club singer. During and after her film career, she often worked as a cabaret entertainer. She has also appeared in touring productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Van Doren loves computers, and used an early Macintosh in the mid-1980s to write her autobiography, Playing the Field: My Story. Now well into her 70s, in good health and excellent spirits, Van Doren runs a website where she chats very frankly about the assorted Hollywood legends she has slept with, and writes at length about current events and politics. She also sells autographed "nipple prints" and homemade short films starring herself, such as A Girl and Her Banana. Father: Warner Carl Olander (defense plant worker, b. 1908, d. 1992)
Mother: Lucille Harriet (Bennett) Olander (homemaker, b. 1912, d. 1995)
Boyfriend: Johnny Grant (honorary Mayor of Hollywood, dated in late 1930s, early '40s)
Boyfriend: Howard Hughes (millionaire, dated in late 1940s)
Boyfriend: Jimmy McHugh (songwriter, b. 1894, dated 1948, d. 1969)
Slept with: Johnny Carson, Jack Dempsey, Robert Evans, Eddie Fisher
Slept with: Cary Grant, George Hamilton, Joe Namath
Husband: Jack Newman (clothing magnate, m. 1950, div. 1950)
Boyfriend: Nicholas Conrad Hilton Jr. (hotel magnate, dated 1953)
Boyfriend: Jack Palance (actor, dated 1953)
Boyfriend: Rock Hudson (actor, dates arranged by studio, 1953)
Boyfriend: Jeff Chandler (actor, dated 1954)
Husband: Ray Anthony (musician and actor, m. 29-Aug-1955, sep. 1959, div. 1961, one child)
Son: Perry Ray Anthony (b. 18-Mar-1956, with Anthony)
Boyfriend: Steve Cochran (actor, dated 1959)
Boyfriend: Elvis Presley (dated, 1959)
Boyfriend: Steve McQueen (actor, dated 1959)
Boyfriend: Bo Belinsky (pitcher, California Angels, b. 1936, dated in early 1960s, d. 2001)
Boyfriend: Tom Jones (singer, dated 1965)
Husband: Lee Myers (baseball player, m. 1966, div. 1967, d. 1971 auto wreck)
Boyfriend: Burt Reynolds (actor, dated 1971)
Husband: Ross McClintock (business executive, m. 1972, div. 1973)
Husband: Thomas Dixon (comedian, m. 1979)
Abortion
Raped by Jack Webb (1953), according to her
Beauty Contest Miss Palm Springs (1949)
Swedish Ancestry
Risk Factors: Depression, LSD
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Slackers (1-Feb-2002)
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)
The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966)
Girls Town (5-Oct-1959)
The Beat Generation (3-Jul-1959)
High School Confidential! (30-May-1958)
Teacher's Pet (1-Apr-1958)
Untamed Youth (10-May-1957)
The Second Greatest Sex (Oct-1955)
Francis Joins the WACS (30-Jul-1954)
All American (1953)
Two Tickets to Broadway (20-Nov-1951)
Official Website:
http://www.mamievandoren.com/
Author of books:
Playing the Field: My Story (1987, memoir, with Art Aveilhe)
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