Every morning, Mamie Van Doren walks down to the beach near her home in Southern California and sits on the same rock with her feet in the Pacific. “It kind of heals me,” she says.
At 95, she has outlived just about everyone. Her memoir, You Thought I Was Dead: My Life of Celebrities, Sex, and Champagne, is out now from Simon & Schuster, and she already has started the next book — about Marilyn Monroe, who would have turned 100 this month.
Mamie — rhymes with “pay me” — knew her before she was Marilyn. To her, she is still Norma Jeane Baker, a teenager who defended a stranger at the Ambassador Hotel pool during the war years in Los Angeles.
By the 1950s, Hollywood had repackaged them both as blond bombshells and set them against each other — Van Doren was Universal’s answer to Fox’s Monroe, measurements printed side by side in fan magazines. Monroe died in 1962. Van Doren kept going. She has stories she has kept quiet for decades — about Howard Hughes, Tony Curtis, Jack Webb and others. Some, she is telling fully for the first time. She recently spoke with THR.
You’re 95. You seem extraordinary. What’s the secret?
Well, one thing: I never smoked. I never did drugs. When I was a teenager, I did smoke pot, but I didn’t like it. I never drank that much. I stayed away from bad people. I love dogs. I’ve always had dogs, and they’re my best friends. And I didn’t stay with anybody that wasn’t kind to me. I’ve kind of been my own woman. I do pretty much what I want to do and what makes me feel good.
Who did you look up to when you were coming up?
I’ve always admired older actresses. When I was younger, I just loved Mae West and Marlene Dietrich. I just followed them and copied them in everything. And of course my favorite was Jean Harlow — I was only five when she died. After seeing pictures of her with platinum blonde hair, I thought: one day I’m going to have that hair. And so I bleached it, made it blonde.
Your name used to be Joan Lucille Olander. How did it become Mamie Van Doren?
[A photographer] came to see me for some sexy pictures. He was going to do a story on the new contract player. That’s me. So he went over to the gallery where I was taking pictures and met me and said I didn’t have a name. And he says, “What about Mamie?” Because Mamie [Eisenhower] was the first lady then. And then they got the Van Doren from somebody’s nickname around there, and they took that name and gave it to me, made me Mamie Van Doren.
What did you think?
I thought it sounded too old. It sounded more like a mature woman. I said, “I’m going to have to create another image for this name. I’m going to have to make it happen.” And I think I did.
You’ve known Marilyn Monroe since before she was Marilyn Monroe. How did that start?
I met her when I was 12 years old. I was swimming in the pool at the Ambassador Hotel. She was a model, and they were having this beauty contest, and they were walking around the swimming pool, and I was in the pool carrying on, trying to get some attention. Somebody said, “Get the kid out of the pool.” I’ll never forget it. I felt horrible. And then some gal, Norma Jeane, said, “Don’t talk to her like that.” I thought: “This is coming from somebody, a real beauty.” I ran over to her and I said, “My name is Joanie Olander. I know your name is Norma Jeane. I just want to thank you.” She said, “You’re so sweet.” And then I just went back to my place — my apartment with my family was right behind the Ambassador Hotel.
By the time you were both at the studios, you were being set up as rivals.
Universal would market me as their answer to Fox’s Monroe. The Hollywood magazines had us side by side. But I ran into her at parties during those years, and she only had one black dress that she wore all the time. I thought: “Doesn’t she have any money to buy another dress?” She was under contract at Fox. She just had one of those cheap contracts — $60 a week or something like that.
Tony Curtis told you something about her once.
He said she was a bad lay. I thought: “What is he going to say about me?”
When was the last time you saw her?
I saw her at the Russian Tea Room in New York a week before she died. I was doing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes onstage. And I was asleep — I always sleep during the day — and I got a call from [columnist] Earl Wilson. He said, “Have you seen what’s happening on television? Turn it on.” So I turned it on, and Marilyn was being carried on a gurney with a dirty, old-looking blanket on top of her. I was devastated. Then I had to do that play that night, and I could hardly get through it. I started to cry.
Do you feel Hollywood ate her alive?
Well, it seemed that way, doesn’t it? She was vulnerable, and I think she actually thought that Bobby Kennedy was going to leave his wife for her. And she probably thought JFK would do the same thing. He had no intention of doing that, and neither did Bobby. So, they disillusioned her, and it was more rejection. And she had the rejection from Yves Montand, who she was doing a movie with — she thought he was coming back and marrying her and divorcing Simone Signoret. I can’t tell you any more because I’m going to write my book. I’ve got some real goodies in there. You won’t believe it.
Tell me about Howard Hughes. You were 14 years old when he discovered you.
I went to the Mocambo club — I’d never been there, I’d been outside asking for autographs. A family friend took me inside, and all of a sudden a waiter came over and gave me a note. It said that Howard Hughes would like to meet me. The people that were with me said, “Oh my God, it’s wonderful. He owns a studio.” I gave his associate my phone number. [The next day at] about 8 o’clock in the morning, he called me. I hadn’t even had a chance to tell my mother.
Your mother was okay sending you in a car to meet Howard Hughes, knowing his reputation?
My mom was 16 when she got pregnant and had me at 17. She didn’t think anything much about it. I told her everything – I didn’t keep any secrets from her. She told me, “If you do anything, you’ve got to tell me so you won’t get in any trouble.” She really protected me.
So you had breakfast together. What happened?
He sent a car, and we went to the Players restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. The first thing he asked me was if I was a virgin. So, I knew he was looking for a virgin. I didn’t tell him whether I was or I wasn’t. I didn’t think it was any of his damn business.
And then he took you to the Garden of Allah. What was that place like?
Oh, it was like a little town in there. A lot of trees — beautiful, full trees. And then the pool was shaped like the Mediterranean. The water was very dark blue and very, very cold. And they had cottages — little houses — and they were really beautiful inside. Very large and open. And then it smelled — you could smell the wood. I remember the strong scent of the room because it was kind of old.
It was the essence of Hollywood in one place. Writers, movie stars, parties every night.
Oh, yeah. A lot of writers went there because they liked to write there and there was a lot of history there. We had a wonderful dinner, and it was an experience where I didn’t know whether I should or I shouldn’t.
And that’s when you had your Jean Harlow moment.
I got out of the shower with a towel around me, and I was thinking — did Jean Harlow do it? Do you think I should? And I thought: “Hell, Jean did it. I’m going to do it.” So I jumped in.
How was it?
He treated me really kindly. And I told him, “I can’t be with you without a condom.” And I looked, and there was one already on. When I looked, there wasn’t that much there. Compared to the one [man] I’d had before, this one was smaller.
Tony Curtis was another story entirely.
I had a bungalow at Universal right between Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis — those were for the superstars. He was doing Spartacus. He knocked at the door at lunchtime, and I invited him in. And that was when we did it.
How was it?
Oh my God. He just came and came and came. I’ve never seen anyone like that. I thought, “Well, maybe he hadn’t been doing it with Janet [Leigh]. What was he saving it up for?”
You write in the book about Elizabeth Short — the Black Dahlia. You knew her.
I kept that to myself for a long time. I promised my mother I wouldn’t say anything to anybody because everybody was under suspicion and I was scared to death. But she was not a prostitute. Everybody called her a whore. She wasn’t a whore. She worked her butt off to get tips — to go to Hawaii.
Why Hawaii?
She wanted to go there with her fiancé. He was a flying ace — he got killed, went down on his last flight. They were planning on going to Hawaii together, and then his body was sent there. She wanted to go there and fulfill what they were going to do together. She was staying through New Year’s to make more money. And I gave her the $100 that I got so she could get there faster.
And then she was murdered.
When I saw that picture in the newspaper that morning, I fainted. My mother had to call the doctor. I thought I was going to die.
The police never questioned you?
Never. Never heard one word from the police.
There’s another, more disturbing chapter in the book about Jack Webb, the star of Dragnet.
I had told it a long time ago — about 30 years ago — and nobody really saw it. Aaron Spelling introduced us. Jack said he’d like to meet me and he asked me to go to dinner. Very boring. I didn’t enjoy it at all. About two weeks later, he asked if I’d like to come to his producer’s house to look at a movie.
On the way home, he said he had to stop off at his house. I said I’d wait in the car. He was adamant about me coming in. So, I went in and sat near the door. He comes out of the kitchen with a glass of wine and says, “This is the greatest wine you’ve ever tasted. Just take a sip of it.” I took a tiny, tiny sip. All of a sudden, I started getting dizzy. The next thing I knew, I was tied up in a chair. Then I was in a bed. I was drugged and raped.
Why couldn’t you go to the police?
He was connected with the police department. Nobody would believe me. So I had to endure it. That was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I never trusted a man after that.
And you kept it secret for decades.
Nobody would believe me. He was Jack Webb.
It’s in the book now.
It is. And I’ll tell you something — I’m very, very grateful that I have lived this long. I appreciate things more today than I ever have.
This story appeared in the June 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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