Atomic Blonde: The Films of Mamie Van Doren

The terms “blonde bombshell”, “sex kitten” and “sex symbol” belong to another age. Aspiring starlets were “discovered” by talent scouts or big time movie producers. Mamie Van Doren, born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, South Dakota in the early 1930s, was discovered by millionaire movie maker Howard Hughes. Mamie's first film, a cameo in Hughes' film Jet Pilot, consisted of one line of dialogue, actually only one word: “Look!” Hughes placed the young Olander in a number of RKO Pictures, including His Kind of Woman and Two Tickets to Broadway. Mamie's career, however, was not limited to her...