It’s such a shame that you were put in a category of a dumb blonde, but that’s what they did in the ’50s. You fought the system, but you didn’t win. Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
I was groomed as a so-called sex symbol, a rival to Marilyn Monroe, and from then on, whenever my picture appeared in paper, it was ‘sex kitten,’ ‘sex symbol,’ ‘sex goddess,’ ‘sex pot.’ I’ve accepted it, and I’m flattered, but in some ways, it’s been a hindrance to me because I haven’t been able to be taken seriously as an actress. Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
I truly believe that one of the reasons why I look and feel so well is because I’ve very few inhibitions. I don’t care about age. Life is too short to worry about what other people think. Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and I were so different from each other. I was doing very young movies, and Marilyn, who was ahead of me, was doing a lot of homogenized movies that weren’t quite as wild as the ones I was doing. Jayne was more of a character of herself. Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
I have never been a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. I have always been happy in my own skin! Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
My best asset is my brain. Without my brain, I don’t think the rest of me would be too hot. Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
There’s nothing worse than Hollywood when you’re on the way down. It has a way of telling you, ‘Mamie, get out. You’ve had it.’ Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
I took my acting very seriously. I did over 40 films, and naturally, some of them were called B-movies because the woman was at the top of the billing. Women couldn’t star in their own movies. Mamie Van Doren Read Quote
