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This auction is for one Stunning Starlets Authentic Autograph Card of MAMIE VAN DOREN, from 2011 Leaf Pop Century Trading Cards. The signature is in Blue Ink with serial number #06/10. It's card #SS-MVD within the set, in MINT-NRMT condition.
Mamie Van Doren (born Joan Lucille Olander, February 6, 1931) is an American actress and singer; who rose to popularity as Universal Pictures's version of 20th Century Fox's Marilyn Monroe.
She starred in several cult classic Hollywood films including Untamed Youth (1957); High School Confidential (1958); Born Reckless (1958); Guns, Girls, and Gangsters (1959); Girls Town (1959); Vice Raid (1960); and, College Confidential (1960). These films earned Van Doren two nicknames: "Hollywood's Bad Girl" and one of "The Three M's". The other two were, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.
In early 1946, Joan began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered beauty contests. Van Doren was married for a brief time at seventeen. She and first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage dissolved quickly, upon her discovery of his abusive nature. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles "Miss Eight Ball" and "Miss Palm Springs." She was also engaged to marry legendary boxer Jack Dempsey, but broke off the engagement when she signed her first contract with Universal.
Joan was discovered by famed producer Howard Hughes on the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. The pair dated for several years. Hughes launched her career by placing her in several RKO films.
Hughes provided Van Doren with a bit part in Jet Pilot at RKO, which was her motion picture debut. Her line of dialogue consisted of one word, "Look!" and she appears uncredited in the film. Though production of the movie was from 1949 to 1953 (delays by Hughes), it was not released until 1957. The following year, 1951, she posed for famous pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas, the painter of the glamorous "Vargas Girls." His painting of Van Doren was on the July cover of Esquire.
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. About her appearance in that one, Van Doren has said, "If you blinked you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive."
Van Doren then began working on the stage. She was a showgirl in New York in Monte Proser's nightclub version of Billion Dollar Baby. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh discovered her for his musicals, then decided she was too good for the chorus line and should have dramatic training. She studied with Ben Bard and Bliss-Hayden. While appearing in the role of Marie in a showcase production of Come Back, Little Sheba, Van Doren was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International.
On January 20, 1953, Van Doren signed a contract with Universal Studios. The studio had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the same kind of success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe. Van Doren, whose signing day coincided with the inauguration of President Eisenhower, was given the first name Mamie for Ike's wife, Mamie Eisenhower. Other Van Dorens, who were unrelated to Mamie, were a prominent and noted family of American intellectuals; these Van Dorens included two Pulitzer Prize winning brothers, Carl (biographer) and Mark (poet), and Mark's wife Dorothy, an academic and historian. Mark and Dorothy's son, Charles Van Doren, made front page news both by winning $129,000 on a television game show in 1957, then admitting in 1959 that the program was rigged. The publicity around this scandal kept the 'Van Doren' name in the newspapers and tabloids.
Van Doren's first movie role for Universal was in the Tony Curtis film Forbidden (1953), playing a bit part as a singer. She then made The All American (1953), (also starring Tony Curtis), playing her first starring role as Susie Ward, a wayward girl who is the man-trap at a campus beer joint. In Yankee Pasha (1954), starring Jeff Chandler and Rhonda Fleming, she played a slave girl, Lilith. In 1955, Van Doren was cast in Ain't Misbehavin', a musical comedy starring Rory Calhoun; and starred in the crime-drama film, Running Wild.
In 1956, she played opposite a young "unknown" at the time Clint Eastwood in Star in the Dust. The film starred John Agar and Richard Boone. Van Doren (second billed in the opening credits), appears in a rather small role as a daughter of a ranch owner. Star in the Dust was Van Doren's last film with Universal, for she was tired of being cast in small non-"breakthrough" roles; therefore, she stopped accepting film offers from Universal, and started working more successfully with other studios.
Van Doren went to star in several bad girl movies that later became cult films. She also appeared in some of the first movies to feature Rock & Roll music and became identified with this rebellious style, and made some rock records. In the film Untamed Youth in 1957, she was the first woman to sing rock and roll in a Hollywood musical. This film was later featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000's "Untamed Youth" (1990).
Some of Van Doren's more noteworthy movies include Teacher's Pet (1958) at Paramount, Born Reckless (1958) at Warner Bros., High School Confidential (1958), and The Beat Generation (1959), the latter two at MGM. But Van Doren was just as well known for her provocative roles. She was in prison for Girls Town (1959), which provoked censors with a shower scene where audiences could see Van Doren's naked back. As Eve in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) she wore only fig leaves, and in other films, like The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina (1959), Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) and Vice Raid (1960) audiences were clued in as to the nature of the films from the titles.
Many of Van Doren's film roles showcased her ample curves, and her onscreen wardrobe usually consisted of tight sweaters, low-cut blouses, form-fitting dresses, and daring (for the era) swimsuits, but she and such other blonde bombshell contemporaries as Cleo Moore, Sheree North, Joi Lansing, Greta Thyssen, and Barbara Nichols did not attain the same level of superstar status as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn, Mamie and Jayne Mansfield were known as "The Three M's." But by comparison, where Monroe succeeded in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Mansfield had a big success with Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, (a part that was originally written for Van Doren, who turned it down), Universal stuck Van Doren with Francis the Talking Mule in Francis Joins the WACS, in 1954.
As Van Doren's career declined, many of the productions she starred in were low-budget B-movies. They are largely unknown to later generations, though some have gained a following for their high camp value.
In 1959, Universal chose not to renew her contract. Van Doren was now a free agent and had to struggle to find work. Some of her later movies were foreign and independent productions, which would do little to keep her image in front of the public's eye.
The first one these "forgettable" films was Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), co-starring Tuesday Weld. The following year, she won first billing in the foreign production; The Blonde from Buenos Aires. Afterward Van Doren took time off; not returning to the screen until 1964; having a top role in The Candidate. Perhaps her best "later career" film was 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt, co-starring and directed by Tommy Noonan.
Two years later The Las Vegas Hillbillys was released by Woolner Brothers. This film co-starred Jayne Mansfield; a rival of Mamie's; this was the only time two of "The Three M's" appeared together in a film. She then appeared in The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966), a science-fiction film; two years later she starred in another sci-fi film Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), directed by Peter Bogdanovich; that featured a completely unknown cast other than Van Doren. To this date Van Doren's last film appearance was a cameo role in Slackers in 2002.She posed twice for Playboy in 1963 to promote her movie 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964), though she was never a Playmate.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard.
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