A Lazy Friday at the Beach

Pictures Here!

 

Featuring Mamie:
A full page ad in the prestigous Artforum magazine for
Blonde Bombshell: A Photographic Appreciation of the Species
The show is put on by the talented David Wills. If you're in New York, see it at the Tribeca Grand Hotel East Gallery
It's now called the Mamie Gallery!

Note from Mamie: "There's been a lot of speculation about just where this picture was taken. My favorite rumor is that it was at Howard Hughes' house! Almost too good a story to deny. But here's the absolute truth: This was my first house on Rising Glen Road, off Sunset Plaza Drive, circa 1956, bought with money from Untamed Youth, and decorated by me. The furniture, including the ottoman, was custom made from my designs. The photo was shot by Bernard of Hollywood (Bruno Bernard). It is a really wonderful picture, full of 1950's style." --Mamie 01.20.05

 

New Year's Hijinx!
Photos from the Mansion!
Click it!

 

January 06 UPDATE!
More Rare New Photos!
The Universal Talent School
Here!

 

Mamie Reviews "The Aviator"
Here!

 

It's Hef's New Year's Party!
Here!

 

Sunday, 12.19.04 Update
Perry and his new BEEEMER!
Mamie Interviewed about Glamour Girls
Sunday Morning with Starlet & Rainbow

 

Friends Meet Again
Noir Author John Gilmore and Mamie Reunion
[More]

 

Three New Videos
From the Justice Howard Photo Shoot
Here!

 

Thanksgiving Day
November 25, 2004

On the Beach!
Here!

 

Holiday Shopping

Here!

 

Mamie in Liz Smith's New York Post column
Monday, November 8, 2004

Speaking about Mamie's appearance with Anthony Hopkins, Dino Delaurentis, Jackie Collins and others in L.A. Magazine's Classic Hollywood Edition, Liz wrote: "[...]blonde survivor Mamie Van Doren... insists she invented the '50s bullet-bra; says Henry Kissinger once wanted her; and how, after spotting Tony Curtis "prancing around" in his "Spartacus" loincloth, she thought, "My God, I've got to see what's under that!" And she says she did, too. "

 

Fright Night At Hef's
Read all about it here!

 

Mamie is the Classic Bombshell
in the November Los Angeles Magazine
Click it!

 

Mamie at the Hollywood Collector's & Celebrities Show See the photos here.

 

UPDATED 09.21.04
MORE Photoshop Art by Robert Glass
Enter

 

Updated Friday, 06.25.04
Fahrenheit 9/11

 

Memorial Day
May 31, 2004
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This flag was kindly presented to me by SSG Kevin Nagel and Master Sergeant Glen Johnson. As you can see, it has flown over Mazar-e-Sharif, Afganistan. Everyone please honor our service men and women of all generations and of all wars this Memorial Day weekend.

 

Memorial Day, May 31, 2504 dawned clear and warm. A spring day filled with the warm breezes that promise summer. The celebration of this ancient holiday is a quaint ritual now, a long look back down the centuries at the sacrifice, bravery, heroism, madness, greed, and horror that characterized war. The celebrants, from their comforting perspective of history, smile and raise their glasses to the dead who gave their all for the distorted vision or outsized ambition of some leader, monarch, or demigod. For them, wise as they are, the clash of arms to settle some detail of wealth distribution or real estate squabble is a nearly unimaginable artifact of history. The meaning of grand memorials to the fallen brave no longer causes their pulse to race. Mothers no longer tearfully send their children off to fight. Fathers no longer weep at their children's gravesides, their own garrison caps held reverently to their chests. Wars are over in this year of the future. Someone in some country has finally solved this ancient problem in human evolution. A mutant in some distant land was born missing the evil gene that we have carried since before we swung down from the trees and picked up a club. That mutant reproduced enough, thankfully, that on this future spring morning, it occurs to no one to go to war. They look back at us from that future with sorrow at our folly. Embracing each other's differences with a joy that we could not have understood, they toast us, a primitive, war-like species, not evolved enough to have survived.

 

Visit Mamie's Torture Garden

Click it!

 

Pix from Afganistan!

Here!

 

Here are a couple of photos of pen pal and friend, handsome Master Sergeant Vernon Stevenson, known to his buddies as "Steve".
He's one of the guys who's there for us.

 

Mamie's Home Theater Hot new movies, kids! Eighteen years or older, please!Here!

 

My email box, like yours, is overflowing with adverts for increasing penis size.
My thoughts.

 

Two shots from the Venice Film Festival in 1958.

 

Instant Apocalypse September 20, 2003 I recently received an email from a young Vietnam veteran named Russ Carmean, who hitched a ride in my helicopter to Chu Lai. He was nice enough to allow me to reprint the lovely account of our trip, and it can be read in the Vietnam section of this website. I'll give you a link to it in a moment, but before you go, there are a couple of things I need to get off my chest--a non-trivial exercise given my chest. Russ's story got me to thinking about that God-forsaken war so long ago and how it relates to the current war going on in Iraq. (Yes, regardless of the platitudes coming from our leaders, it is still a war!) I have been thinking about the Vietnam vets who are friends of mine and how they have been damaged by their war experiences. Some have merely been dented. A few have been shattered. The thousands whose names are on the Wall represent our lost generation. How many writers, thinkers, statesmen did we lose? Did we lose the one person creative enough to show us a way to kick this powerful narcotic, war. I can say with certainty that we are denting, shattering, and losing a new generation. I don't believe that we have asked ourselves and our leaders loudly and strongly enough why we should do this. We are told that we are fighting terrorism in its geographical center. First we were told that about Afganistan, then we were told that about Iraq. Where next? The more things we are told about why we have invaded Iraq, the less they make sense. There were known stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction; we cannot find them. There were connections between Iraq and Al Queda; we have never proved them. The White House bean counter who said the Iraqi war would cost more than 100 billion was muzzled by his bosses; now we're asked to pony up another 87 billion with no end in sight, while citizens of this country are forced to choose every day between food and life-saving medication. If we want to fight terrorism here at home, fund the states, counties, and cities the money they were promised to build stronger local security. Where are we going? What are we thinking? It appears that we want to fight "terror" by creating ever more terror around the world. I have, in my life, seen 12 presidents come and go. They have declared war, inheirited war, and mishandled war. I can tell you from my long perspective, that war no longer makes sense. Someone must, eventually, show us the way to stop it. That said, I have pretty much stayed out of politics on this website. I will continue to do that. But I am going to share with you two quotes from two famous men. The first you may have heard often, at least every time you watch the movie "Patton." "Compared to war," Patton said, "all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance." Think about that. What does that say about the human race? The second quote from is my old favorite, Mark Twain, in which he gives us his assessment of the human race. "Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for 'the universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth." It's time for action, children. Now, please read Russ Carmean's wonderful story here.

Mamie in 1956 doing her part to keep up the morale of the airmen.

Special Thanks to Frank Sheffield
for some great Mamie pix circa 1956!
Mamie visits Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas
Click!
(Opens a new browser window)

"God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do,
and the eyesight to tell the difference!"

Thanks for the great quote, Frank!

 

Leni Riefenstahl Leni Riefenstahl died on Monday, September 8, 2003. You can read about it in all the papers. That she was 101 years old; that she made propaganda films glorifying Germany, Adolph Hitler, and the Nazis; that she was still working with a camera up until last year. She was as controversial film maker as ever yelled "action!" Truth be told, there were probably a lot of things to criticize about Leni. All the should haves and could haves that might follow a person who lived within the German borders in those terrible years and enjoyed the good graces of Adolph himself. As luck would have it, Leni and I had a mutual acquaintance, a writer who had done interviews with both of us. He told me many things about Leni, things that are hard to read between the lines of a magazine piece, and I found myself fascinated by her. Marlene Deitrich, Ana May Wong, and beautiful Leni Leni was a great artist. (She was also a very sexy looker in her own right.) She photographed moving pictures in ways that had been undreamed of before. She put cameras in places no one had ever put them. You can find Triumph of the Will, a film of a giant Nazi Party rally in 1934, and Olympia, a documentary of the 1936 Olympics and see what I mean. She was also unafraid to buck the Furher eye-to-eye. When Jesse Owens beat the best the Master Race had to offer, setting world records in the process, Hitler wanted him cut out of Olympia. Leni said no and Jesse stayed in the picture. Her still photography is lushly gorgeous, much of it shot underwater wearing scuba gear and at an age when most people are happy to stay upright in a rocking chair and eat solid food. She photographed a disappearing tribe in Africa and made an underwater documentary film. She had a sort of triumph of her own will to keep on keeping on after a long lifetime of difficulty and criticism. Leni and I appeared in the same issue of Vogue Hommes International magazine a year ago. Our mutual friend suggested to each of us that it might be fun to do a photo shoot. I agreed in a second and said I would fly to Bavaria to do it. Leni liked the idea too and said she wanted to photograph me wearing no makeup. I had never let anyone do that before, but I said yes. Unfortunately, the shoot never occurred. Leni was still recovering from injuries she suffered in a helicopter crash in Africa in 2000. She also had cancer. It would be easy to dismiss Leni as another Nazi, gone. But she never belonged to the Nazi party and was cleared of all war crimes charges. And her art cannot be dismissed. She made beautiful pictures, commissioned by the wrong guy, just like Mercedes made airplane engines and Dr. Porche made the Volkswagen. Leni's eyes saw things differently and she was able to help us see them too. What could she have shown us working for the right guy? She had always wished to die in her sleep. She did that on Monday. Peace, Leni. --Mamie Here's the BBC retrospective of Leni Riefenstahl.

Here!

More Pix Here!

Photos from Julie Strain
Here!

 

FOUR Videos of a magazine photo shoot with Julie Strain!

New! Here!


Here


And Here


And Here

 

Mamie/Julie photo shoot!
Here!

 

Video from a photo shoot with Mamie and Julie Strain!




Now on Mamie Today!

 

 

font face=verdana, arial, sans serif size=2 color=f6f6ab> "As we rattle our sabers louder these days, here's a poem from a Vietnam Vet that's worth considering. When our leaders are done with all the tough talk, it's our sons and daughters who have to carry out the mission." ---Mamie THE MAN - The Soldier Today is his last battle, In this here war torn land Sweat is on his forehead, A rifle is in his hand. His mind begins to wander, Thinking of his home. Remembering how it used to be, His girl is on the phone. And then a shot rings out, Making his mind go blank. another shot is burning, It came from his left flank. Blood is pouring from a gash, High on his left side. He crawls into the bushes, He knows he has to hide. After a long hard battle, Silence can be heard. He waits there for a Medic, 'Riving in a wingless bird. He is lifted from this hell, And placed on a clean white bed. The Doctors look at a happy face, And pronounce "This man is dead". A soldier is a fighting man, Courageous, bold and true. He tries to keep the freedom land, For those people like me and you. He lays his life upon the throne, For which is not to odd. He knows that if all else should fail, He'll go to meet his God. Written in April 1968 In Saigon, Viet Nam by (Then) SSG O.V. Rocky Rollison Reprinted by permisison

 

Here's one of the best Vietnam websites I've seen!
Click it!
(Opens a new browser window)
It was set up by Bob Sanford who was with E Company
1/11th Infantry 5th Division from June 70 to May 71.

 

Here's a very cool website with
pics of Mamie in 1956!
(Opens a new browser window)

 

Getting Older is Essential by Mamie Van Doren

Memory gratifies. Time is a grand vintner, bottling up memories in your cerebral cellars to be mellowed with time, later decanted to the next generation. I have been blessed with a rich life during which I have met presidents, kings, racing drivers, jocks, and just about every other imaginable sort of celebrity. I am often asked to recall those encounters--and in the spirit of expanding the bounds of good taste, I often do. Who would have dreamed that the Eisenhower years or even the swingin' sixties would become so interesting to a generation that never lived through them? And who would have dreamed that I would get so much pleasure out of telling them about it? Personally, the greatest thing about getting older is being here to enjoy it. That may seem profoundly obvious at first glance, but consider the longevity of my peers--the so-called glamour girls from decades past. Thelma Todd, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Francis Farmer, Carole Landis, Veronica Lake, Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Joi Lansing, Cleo Moore, Jayne Mansfield, Barbara Ruick, Leigh Snowdon, Barbara Nichols, Barbara Peyton, Marilyn Maxwell, Marie McDonald, Marie Wilson, Diana Dors, Sharon Tate, Inger Stevens, and Dorothy Stratten were all, in varying degrees, famous, blonde, beautiful, and billed as sex goddesses of their respective eras. Most of them did not live to see fifty-five. Our profession is perhaps the most competitive in the world. For, to be glamorous, to be beautiful, is to be doomed eventually to be disappointed. As my friend, the late Dorothy Lamour, one of the most glamorous women I have ever known, once said, "Time keeps rollin' on." She shrugged. "What're you going to do?" Answer: get as old as you can. It's essential. Whether or not you make your living being beautiful, the longer you live, the more you recognize that special something deep inside all of us that radiates beauty. Regardless of the outside of you, the beauty inside you will never change, for as long as you live. Shine that beauty on someone else. Time passes quickly and it is the best way to leave your mark. In the memory of others is true immortality.

It's a Man's World by Mamie Van Doren

If you turned the world upside down and women ran it, there would be some profound differences. Back in the 1960’s I made a movie called “Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women.” As sci-fi stories go, it wasn’t an especially original idea. Women ruled the planet, ate nothing but raw fish, and were entirely lesbian. Suppose you woke up tomorrow morning on a planet ruled by women. How would you fare? Imagine “Hail to the Chief” being sung by Aretha Franklin for Hillary Clinton. Men would be jumping out of windows coast to coast or heading for the hills to form militias. I know it will never happen. Women have been second class citizens since the first amoeba grew a dick and began paddling around the primordial soup in search of a sweet little girl amoeba to stick it in. I’m sure it didn’t take long for the first female amoeba to discover just what hoops the male amoeba would jump through for a little amoeba ass. We have schemed and plotted ever since, using pussy power to make our way and raise our young in this man’s world. Gloria Steinam once wrote that if men menstruated, having a period would become an enviable thing. Men would brag about how long theirs lasted and how much flow they had. So true. I mean, guys, you’ve had everything pretty much the way you wanted it. And, given the state of things on this planet, I can’t say that you have all that much to boast about. But we’re kind of used to it. You boys will storm around and wreck the best parts of civilization, while you glorify the most destructive inventions and ideas imaginable. You’ll sacrifice a generation or two of the world’s youth to the glory of some belief, or theory, or dogma that really only represents a different way of distributing material wealth, while maintaining control over the masses of the poor. And, when the campaign is over, blood dripping from your hands, you step back in horror at the deeds you’ve done, and you come to our breasts for comfort. And you fuck us and another generation begins.

 

"It's possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen."

From the March 23, 1999 Chicago Tribune article.
"...As her conversation wound down, Van Doren grew philosophical. 'I always admired Mae West. She wrote all of her own lines, you know. If she were alive today I think she'd be here now, sitting at the computer, getting the word out, speaking for all the old blondes who aren't here to represent themselves.' Continue to rest in peace, Mae. Mamie's got you covered." Photos from the article here.