I have never been a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. I have always been happy in my own skin!
I realize there's a line between looking good and being an embarrassment. I don't want to be one of those dames who is trying too hard to appear young. I'm Mamie Van Doren, and I fully intend to act my age.
Being a sex symbol had its advantages. You got to meet a lot of interesting people, and men especially. It was a man's world in those days, and I had a lot of luck with men.
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.
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.
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.
