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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 215637" data-attributes="member: 7">I can easily see the comparison between Mamie and Jeanne Carmen. Mamie definitely stretches her importance to the fifties and particularly to the Three M's clique, or whatever you want to call them. She and Jeanne both emerged in the eighties to ride the reassurance of people that suddenly "knew Marilyn so well", and some of it I can kind of buy, but I'd probably return it because it would look fabricated. Universal didn't seem like they knew what they were going to do with Mamie. I mean, it seems like they wanted her to be a big star for them, but they couldn't never find the right vehicle for her, and they certainly didn't seem willing to put themselves on the line to creating any specifically for her, either. She did become a well-known pin-up girl pretty quick, but she seemed to predominantly occupy a younger demographic than either Marilyn or Jayne. Sure, those two women had a host of younger fans, but Mamie seemed cemented in that age bracket of American juveniles who spent their time riding skipping school, smoking in the hallways, and sneaking out at night with a rebel boy or girl. And naturally that audience geared Universal to placing her in a string of secondary roles in reasonably popular movies. They certainly weren't going to place her at the head of anything because her audience wasn't going to leave the drive-in. Mamie says she left Universal around 1956 because they had basically refused to give her any substantial film roles. She apparently made her decision after they cast her in Star in the Dust, a western starring B-movie staple John Agar. While she gets top female billing, she has a relatively minor role in the story. This was what Mamie said nudged her to leave the studio. Of course, that story is subjective. The studio itself could have decided to let Mamie go because she wasn't pulling her weight. Who knows? She did go on to have larger roles in movies thereafter, namely Born Reckless, a cheapy drive-in western she did with Jeff Richards. When thinking about this movie, I'm reminded of how she once said she was able to get top billing because she didn't need a man to carry her pictures. Well, it's easy to see why she got top billing in a movie such as this one. I mean, who the heck is Jeff Richards anyway? Her other movies during this time were all B-movie quickies that got some attention, either for their risque (for the time) content or the stars headlining them, but she was never really the star of them. Even High School Confidential, one of her more popular movies in today's pop culture, has her playing a supporting role to Russ Tamblyn. When you browse the internet and you find pictures of Mamie with either Jayne or any one else remotely famous (I don't know if I've ever seen any of her with Marilyn), she always seems like she saddled into the picture right before the shot was took. She always looks like she was thrown in at the last minute. <img src="http://i.imgur.com/99P9tTu.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> As a trivial tidbit, Jeanne Carmen did have a bit part in Mamie's aforementioned movie Born Reckless.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?