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Mamie Van Doren isn’t done spilling secrets.
The actress and sex symbol has written a new memoir, “You Thought I Was Dead,” in which she lays bare her decades-long career in showbiz. The 95-year-old is also the subject of a new documentary about her life that’s currently in production.
In her latest tell-all, the star addresses Hollywood’s notorious casting couch and how it continues to impact stars today.
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Mamie Van Doren has a new memoir, “You Thought I Was Dead: My Life of Celebrities, Sex, and Champagne.” (Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
“Predatory brutes like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein have been ousted, tried and punished by the #MeToo movement,” Van Doren wrote.
“Women can, and should, feel empowered by the support of their sisters. … Young women being preyed upon and seduced by rapacious Hollywood producers, stars and studio heads is a tired cliché, but like all clichés, it is based on reality. The casting couch was, and is, part of Hollywood’s shameful legacy.”
“But through all the tears and fears, I am living proof that it is survivable,” Van Doren added.
In her new memoir, Mamie Van Doren references Harvey Weinstein (left) and Bill Cosby (right) while reflecting on how attitudes toward sexual misconduct have changed in Hollywood. She said the #MeToo movement helped shine a light on behavior that was often ignored in earlier eras. (Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty Images; Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images)
Van Doren painted a picture of Hollywood where young actresses were often vulnerable to powerful men.
“It was a classic example of the predatory environment in the movie industry during the so-called Golden Age,” she wrote.
Actress Mamie Van Doren is seen posing at home in Los Angeles. (Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
“A new starlet in her first movie was like blood in the water to the male sharks at the studio.”
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Van Doren knows the subject firsthand. Recalling her early years in Hollywood, she described feeling “used” and “guilty,” writing, “I was now part of that multitude of stories about the casting couch.”
“Now I felt drained and exposed. And worst of all, used,” she wrote.
Rock Hudson and Mamie Van Doren were unknown movie hopefuls when this photo was taken. (Getty Images)
“How many more lies would I have to tell before I got what I wanted? As I drove home, I asked myself if this was the way I wanted to become a movie star. Tonight, the answer had clearly been that I would f— for it. But there was a cold, sick knot in the pit of my stomach, signaling that my conscience was weighing in.”
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Mamie Van Doren attends The Thalians 50th Anniversary Musical Extravaganza Gala at the Hyatt Regency Century City Plaza in Los Angeles in 2005. (Michael Tran/FilmMagic)
“So, did I want to continue this?” she wrote. “‘Well, I’m in it now,’ I told myself. … ‘Let’s see what the next move will be.’ I was learning a hard lesson about Hollywood’s promise and threat: You may be allowed to reach the heights, but at the same time, you may be cursed or feel powerless and unprotected — and slightly sullied.”
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In the book, Van Doren portrays Hollywood as an industry that could be exploitative and disappointing, even after achieving stardom. She described how fellow blonde bombshells, like Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Stratten, met grim ends, their dreams “swept away and turned into nightmares.”
“That, boys and girls, is Hollywood,” she wrote.
Mamie Van Doren has been making movies for more than seven decades. (Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
“I wake up every day to a new obituary. I have been blessed with a long life. When you reach this point in the hill climb, it’s only natural to see one’s contemporaries fall by the wayside. Father Time doesn’t miss. … I’ll dare to quote the Book of Job, King James Version, 1:15. ‘And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.'”
Van Doren’s memoir also focuses on experiences far removed from Hollywood, including her time entertaining troops during the Vietnam War.
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Actress Mamie Van Doren attends The Hollywood Show at the Westin LAX Hotel in Los Angeles on April 20, 2013. (Albert L. Ortega/WireImage)
“The rain started again, but I did my whole show,” she recalled. “When it was over, all of us were soaking wet. Everyone was grinning. As the soldiers straggled back … one stopped me and said something that I would hear a lot in the next few months: ‘Mamie,’ he told me gratefully, ‘I can’t believe you’re here.'”
“And there was a part of me that couldn’t believe it either. Vietnam so far had been like a fever dream,” she wrote. “I couldn’t escape the alarming sense of being out of control, no longer in charge of my life, but at the mercy of authorities I didn’t know, in service of a war I didn’t understand.
Mamie Van Doren poses for a photo in a movie studio setting, date unknown. (Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Images)
“… I got into bed that night clutching my little brown Bible next to my heart, praying to somehow survive the forces swirling around me, praying that I would live to see my son again, and praying that I would manage to bring something worthwhile to the combat soldiers’ dark world.”
Some of Mamie Van Doren’s best-known films include “Teacher’s Pet,” “High School Confidential!,” “Untamed Youth,” “Girls Town” and “The Beat Generation.” (John Kisch Archive/Getty Images)
Van Doren described meeting Charlie, an 18-year-old Marine from Toledo. As a gift, he gave her his “lucky charm,” a scratched and dented Zippo cigarette lighter. Van Doren initially refused, but he insisted. When she asked him about his luck, he grinned and said, “I got matches to light my smokes. And I got an M-16 for the rest.”
Days later, Van Doren learned Charlie had been killed in an ambush.
Before releasing her latest memoir, Mamie Van Doren shared her story in the 1987 autobiography “Playing the Field: My Story.” (David Livingston/Getty Images)
“I flicked Charlie’s Zippo again and stared at the flame,” she wrote. “I closed it and extinguished the flame. ‘Goodbye, Charlie. May angels sing you on to heaven.’”
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Mamie Van Doren, known as “the last living blonde bombshell,” poses in her southern California home in March 1999 at age 68. (David McNew/Getty Images)
In 2020, Van Doren told Fox News Digital she loved her life outside of Hollywood in her later years.
“I got away from all the bad stuff that was going on,” she said at the time. “This was around the ‘60s when I left. There were a lot of drugs. Marilyn [Monroe] died. Jayne [Mansfield] died. A lot of my contemporaries were gone. I just thought it was time to leave Hollywood. It just wasn’t agreeing with me.”
Van Doren was previously married to bandleader and actor Ray Anthony from 1955 to 1961. They share a son, Perry Ray Anthony. (Getty Images)
“And I had a son,” she pointed out. “I wanted to give him a better life than Hollywood. And he got interested in boats. I took a different turn and a different lifestyle from what I was used to. I kept some of my friends. I didn’t have that many friends in Hollywood to begin with. I shy away from going to parties so much. I had stacks of invitations, and I just never used them.”
Mamie Van Doren told Fox News Digital she doesn’t mind being recognized as a sex symbol. (Universal-International/Getty Images)
Despite her tumultuous past, she had no qualms about still being recognized as a sex symbol.
“I think I was born with it,” said Van Doren. “I certainly opened a lot of doors during a postwar time when things were very conservative. I was way ahead of my time. … I wasn’t going to be playing nun roles, that’s for sure.”