The Saturday briefing
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QI recently saw some startlingly erotic pictures of Mamie Van Doren, aged 86. Who is she?
AMamie was discovered at the age of 16 by producer Howard Hughes and later signed to Universal Studios, who fancied her as a younger version of Marilyn Monroe. She became known as one of the “3 Ms”, alongside Marilyn and Jayne Mansfield.
Mamie mostly made B-movies in the 1950s, playing the platinum, provocative bad girl. With titles such as Voyage To The Planet Of PrehistoricWomen and The Private Lives Of Adam And Eve, they are not remembered as classics. But she was the first female actor to sing rock ’n’ roll in a movie, in Untamed Youth in 1957, and gained a lot of fans following a scene in 3 Nuts In Search Of A Bolt, where she takes a beer bath.
Billed as “America’s number one sex kitten”, she was married five times, with most not lasting more than a year. In her autobiography, Playing The Field, she talks frankly about her line-up of famous lovers, including Burt Reynolds, Steve McQueen, Buzz Aldrin and Elvis, and how she fell for Clark Gable while playing his stripper friend in Teacher’s Pet.
She has said her most important work was entertaining troops inVietnam during the war and meeting wounded soldiers.
Mamie is now 89 and very active on Twitter, tweeting about news and politics and sharing the occasional nude
BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Mamie Van Doren, ‘America’s No 1 sex kitten’, still tweets nude pictures in her 80s
sunbathing shot. She is as proud of her curves in her 80s as she was in her 20s.
QCould you tell me more about the ballad singer Donald Peers?
ADonald Peers was Britain’s first pop idol but he was an unlikely one, only finding fame in his 40s after 20 years singing in clubs and working as a painter and decorator.
Peers, below, was born in the Welsh mining town of Ammanford in 1908 and Daily Express wireless critic Collie Knox helped him land his first record contract, after calling him “a young Bing Crosby”.
He had his own BBC radio programme, Cavalier Of Song, where he crooned his signature tune, In A Shady Nook, and was paid a record-breaking £600 a week.At the height of his fame, in 1949, he was receiving 12,000 fan letters a month and had to give up playing golf because he’d find dozens of teenage girls hiding in bunkers.A career highlight was playing to a crowd of 8,000 at the Royal Albert Hall.
He moved to Australia for a few years and when he returned he won fans over again with hits Please Don’t Go in 1969 and Give Me One More Chance in 1972. He had his own TV show, Donald Peers Presents, where he introduced anotherWelshman
– a young Tom Jones.
Donald died in Brighton in 1973, aged 65. He has a bus in the city named after him.
QYet another think tank was referred to in the Daily Express the other day. How many think tanks are there in the UK? How do they get paid?
AThere are thought to be about 140 think tanks in the UK but research last year found that only four per cent of the public can name one.
These groups influence policy makers and even prime ministers, carrying out research on political, social, environmental and economic problems.They churn out reports on everything from Brexit and getting the economy moving after Covid-19 to legalising cannabis and protecting hedgehogs.These reports can then provide legitimacy to policies.
Think tanks could be campaigning for a movement or an idea and the funding of them is often seen as controversial, with some less open about where they get their cash to fund their research.
But it can include a combination of millionaire donations, smaller individual contributions, government grants and contributions from overseas.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance, which campaigns for lower taxes, raised £1million in 2019 for its work but it does not reveal where its funding comes from, saying it respects the privacy of its donors.
Britain’s oldest political think tank, the left-wing Fabian Society, lists its contributors on its website and has seen donations from the likes of Age UK, Countryside Alliance and the comedian Ben Elton over the years.
Anon
I went to the pictures tomorrow I got a front seat at the back I bought a plain cake full of currants
I ate it and took it back Admission is free, you pay at the door
You pick your own seat And sit on the floor.
Here is another version…
I went to the pictures tomorrow I took a front seat at the back I fell from the pit to the gallery And broke a front bone in my back
A lady she gave me some chocolate
I ate it and gave it her back I phoned for a taxi and walked it And that’s why I never came back.
If you can’t remember the words to a favourite verse or song from yesteryear, send us a snippet and we’ll do our best to find all the wonderful words.
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