A Star Is Born
While the world knows her as Mamie Van Doren, the starlet was born Joan Lucille Olander on February 6, 1931. However, real names are for regular people, so she changed it when she signed her first studio contract. It was President Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration, so the studio heads decided to call her Mamie after Eisenhower’s wife.
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Meanwhile, “Van Doren” was the name of a prominent family of American intellectuals, so they used it as her fake last name. The inspirations behind her name don’t scream blonde bombshell, but the name was perfect for the time. When she took on this new name, it was a far cry from her life growing up in Iowa.