"I don't wear panties anymore - this startles the Hollywood wolves so much they don't know what to pull at, so they leave me alone."
She was born Joan Lucille Olander on February 6, 1931 in South Dakota. Miss Palm Springs 1948, at age 15. She was married, divorced, and posed nude all before the age of 18.
So moved to Hollywood as an army brat, and was taken by show business when Mae West signed an autograph and told her she was pretty. She was signed by Universal Studios at age 18 with the hope that they could make her their answer to Fox's Marilyn Monroe, and was christened Mamie Van Doren.
In an era where men ran Hollywood and women were to submit to the casting couch, she slept with who she wanted, and told power brokers, like Howard Hughes, to fuck off. She starred in B movies and teenage operas like Untamed Youth, The Girl in Black Stockings (both 1957), High School Confidential! (1958), The Beat Generation, Guns, Girls and Gangsters, Girls Town, Born Reckless, The Big Operator (all 1959), The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, College Confidential and Sex Kittens Go to College (1960). Shes one of the original bad girls, the dame to blame, a B-movie queen and pinup dream and she wrote her own rules. Shes still out there, still outspoken, and still sexy. Today is her birthday. Go over to her website and say hello. Shes an amazing woman. If you have some time read some of the stories on her site. I promise you its time well spent.
Happy birthday Mamie Van Doren.
daniyell:
that woman fucking rules. And I'm serious, I really did wake up one day and realize that becoming a lawyer would be insane!!!!