They were looking for another Marilyn Monroe. What they got instead was Mamie.
With a string of “bad girl” roles, Mamie Van Doren came to be not just a sex symbol, but a symbol of the rebellious youth movement of the day—a decidedly tongue-in-cheek sex kitten who made pulses pound in cult movies like Untamed Youth, Teacher’s Pet, High School Confidential and The Beat Generation.
In Girl’s Town (1959), just the sight of Mamie’s naked back in the shower got censors worked into a dither. The following year, in the film The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, she wore only a couple of well-placed fig leaves…
Inevitably, Mamie’s films got sillier and less interesting—the only thing to recommend them was the increasing amount of skin she was willing to reveal.
But no matter. In the fifties, Mamie was the sex kitten of choice for an entire generation of rockers, mods and beatniks.
Love this. It is very good to be bad. Women of this era were sexier than women today.
ReplyDeleteI love her movies. She was part of an era when women in Hollywood were larger than life. Nice article.
ReplyDeleteHer campy movies from the 50s are trash to be treasured. It's hard to have much more fun with a dvd player than with these. That shower scene mentioned above with the song "Hey Mama!": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX3mWEBWnsw
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