Famous for her performances in such films as 1958’s Teacher’s Pet alongside Clark Gable. Mamie Van Doren is one of the preeminent sex symbols of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Of course, her bombshell qualities made her a contemporary of other actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. While Mamie is close friends with Marilyn and distressed by her suicide, Jayne Mansfield is averse to Mamie, calling her a second-rate Marilyn Monroe. Of the three, Mamie Van Doren is the only one still living. At the age of 90, Mamie doesn’t look the same as she used to, but she still looks relatively incredible! However, nothing compares to vintage photos of the actress, such as the ones we’ll be looking at in this video! Join Facts Verse as vintage photos of Mamie Van Doren reveal more than we expected.
MAMIE VAN DOREN AS JOAN LUCILLE OLANDER
Joan Lucille Olander is famous by stage name Mamie Van Doren, born in Rowena, South Dakota, on February 6, 1931. Mamie Eisenhower, who was the first lady of the United States during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, inspired her stage name. At the age of only 15, Mamie makes her first small steps towards her eventual show business career. She begins working at a venue in Pantages Theatre as an usher. Young Mamie shows an interest in show business during this period and begins getting small roles in films temporarily.
While trying to get her start in the entertainment industry, young Mamie participated in various beauty pageants to great avail. This leads her to work as a model and she can be on various magazine covers by the late 1940s. Mamie’s good looks stand out from the crowd, and she uses this to her advantage as her first step!
ALL AMERICAN AND YANKEE PASHA
Some of the minor roles that Mamie receives early in her career, feature as All American and Yankee Pasha. However, her breakout turn didn’t come until she starred in the 1957 feature Untamed Youth. Leading up to that point, Mamie had performed in around a dozen pictures, with many of them being B movies. Following her role in Untamed Youth, Mamie enters the 1960s as a celebrity in Hollywood sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe.
A year following her breakout performance in Untamed Youth, Mamie appears alongside Clark Gable and Doris Day in Teacher’s Pet. Mamie falls in love with Clark during the production of the film, one of many celebrities that she links. However, Mamie maintains to this day that Clark Gable was the best of them all!
MARILYN MONROE
Entering the 1960s, Mamie ventured from a film into stage acting. She performed in various stage productions, including playing her friend Marilyn Monroe’s role in a production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She continues performing in films throughout the 1960s. The roles she offers aren’t what she’s hoping for after the success of films like Untamed Youth and Teacher’s Pet. Instead, she appears in several more B pictures throughout the 1960s, with being Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women.
In the 1970s, Mamie enters a new phase of her career when she performs at various nightclubs in Las Vegas. She also worked in television sporadically up until the 1990s. She can perform guest-starring roles in The Bob Cummings Show, The Red Skelton Hour, The Real McCoys, and Burke’s Law. In the late 1970s, she took on guest-starring spots on the popular series Vega$ and Fantasy Island. Her last guest-starring role on a television series up until this point was in a 1993 episode of L.A. Law, in which she made a cameo as herself.
GOLDEN AGE
Nowadays, Mamie Van Doren takes it easy with her current husband, profiting off of merchandise that she sells online. She’s one of the few Golden Age sex symbols still around, surviving contemporaries as Marilyn Monroe by a great deal. At the age of 90, Mamie didn’t look the same as in her prime, but she keeps her appearance well! The actress considers one of the greatest beauties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She hooks up with many notable male celebrities from the period in addition to her various husbands. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button to show your support! Also, subscribe to the channel if you like to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
FIVE MARRIAGE
Mamie Van Doren has been married five times throughout her life, and is currently still with her fifth husband today! More interesting than Mamie’s various husbands, however, are the men that the star hooks up with during her prime. There are male stars that link to Mamie, including Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, and also Clark Gable.
Mamie’s first marriage was to a man named Jack Newman, whom she married when she was only 17 years old. Their marriage was short-lived, and her second marriage was to a musician by the name of Ray Anthony. Mamie and Ray had a son named Perry Ray Anthony. After five years of marriage, Mamie divorced her second husband and moved on to her third husband, Lee Meyers. She married Lee in 1966, and they divorced only two years later. Mamie’s fourth marriage isn’t successful as the others, marrying and divorcing her fourth husband Ross McClintock within a year. Finally, in 1979, Mamie marries Thomas Dixon, and it seems the fifth time proves to be the charm! The two are still together to this day, well over five decades later.
MAMI VAN DOREN AND JACK DEMPSEY
As soon as Mamie Van Doren broke into the entertainment industry during her teenage years, she had to fend off gentlemen callers. Infamously, Mamie has recalled that Howard Hughes approached her when she was only 15 years old and asked her if she was a virgin, as well as wondering if she lived with her parents. Years later, she was romantically involved with actor Jack Dempsey at the age of 18, and they were even engaged for a short time.
Mamie has never been afraid of flaunting her sexuality, and she has never shied away from publicly expressing that she isn’t above casual sexual encounters. In addition to the aforementioned celebrities, Mamie also apparently hooked up with astronaut Buzz Aldrin and politician Henry Kissinger, though she didn’t let the latter figure get too far at the behest of friend Marilyn Monroe. According to Marilyn, hooking up with politicians was a dangerous game.
FRANK SINATRA AND JOHNNY CARSON
Other celebrity figures that Mamie Van Doren has been romantically linked to include Frank Sinatra and Johnny Carson, though one of Mamie’s favorite casual encounters that she has experienced over the course of her life was with the Elvis Presley. Though the two were evidently only together for one night, Mamie claims that it was certainly a night that she has remembered fondly since!
Mamie didn’t fall in love with every man that she hooked up with, but there was one Hollywood celebrity whom she claimed she had more feelings for than any other. That celebrity was Clark Gable, who she appeared alongside in Teacher’s Pet. Mamie grew obsessed with her male costar during the feature’s production, though sadly couldn’t bag him as one of her subsequent husbands.
WITH MARILYN AND JAYNE MANSFIELD
Besides all of the male celebrities that Mamie Van Doren has brushed shoulders with throughout her lifetime, she was also a contemporary of such female stars as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Mamie knew both of them personally during their lifetimes, maintaining a good relationship with the former and a poor relationship with the latter. She and Marilyn were personal friends, with the two even sharing the same dramatic acting coach for some time. Mamie was incredibly devastated by Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, considering the blonde bombshell to be a great mentor and important connection.
If Mamie Van Doren and Marilyn Monroe’s relationship had been an amicable one, Mamie’s relationship with Jayne Mansfield was much sourer. The two worked together in the 1966 film Las Vegas Hillbillys, and it wasn’t the best experience for Jayne. Jayne likely found herself jealous of the younger star, though Mamie never found the same success in the industry that either she or Marilyn did. According to Jayne’s testimony during the filming of the picture, she considered Mamie Van Doren to be a fairly cheap imitation of Marilyn Monroe, and Jayne wasn’t all that entirely fond of the actual Marilyn!
FAMILY OVER CAREER
After Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield passed away during the 1960s, Mamie Van Doren found herself slightly alone in the world. She moved from Los Angeles to Newport Beach, not liking the counter-culture scene that was developing around the Sunset Boulevard area because she felt that it was a bad environment for her children. Nowadays, Mamie cares more about family than being a sex symbol, which is perhaps why she’s doing so well!
Mamie Van Doren looks incredible for her age, though nothing beats looking at vintage photos of the Golden Age sex symbol during her prime! Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Mamie Van Doren was a close friend of Marilyn Monroe’s, or did you think competing Old Hollywood sex symbols couldn’t get along? As always, like this video to show your support, subscribe, and hit the notification bell if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
