Age, Biography, and Wiki
Jayne Mansfield was born on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and tragically passed away on June 29, 1967, at the age of 34. She rose to fame as a major Hollywood sex symbol and was the first American actress to appear nude in a starring role in a Hollywood film, seen in "Promises Promises!" (1963).
| Occupation | Stage Actress |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 19 April 1933 |
| Age | 92 Years |
| Birth Place | Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aries |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 29 June, 1967 |
| Died Place | Slidell, Louisiana, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Mansfield stood at a height of 5 ft 5 in (1.66 m) and was known for her curvaceous figure, which was often highlighted in her roles and public appearances.
Mansfield's wardrobe relied on the shapeless styles of the 1960s to hide her weight gain after the birth of her fifth child. Despite career setbacks, she remained a highly visible celebrity during the early 1960s through her publicity antics and stage performances. In early 1967, Mansfield filmed her last role, a cameo in A Guide for the Married Man, a comedy starring Walter Matthau, Robert Morse and Inger Stevens. The opening credits listed Mansfield as one of the technical advisers, along with other star names.
Hargitay made his first film appearance with Mansfield in a bit part in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. The couple became a performing team touring in stage shows, where Mansfield's leopard-spot bikini became a topic of discussion and newspaper coverage. As a highlight, Hargitay tossed her around his waist and spun her in wide circles as her shows made more headlines. On screen, he was Mansfield's male lead in her Italian ventures – The Loves of Hercules and L'Amore Primitivo, and a major supporting character in ''Promises! Promises!''. On stage, he was the male lead in The Tropicana Holiday, The House of Love, French Dressing, and other nightclub acts.
Frequent references have been made to Mansfield's very high IQ, which she claimed was 163. In addition to English, she spoke four other languages. She learned French, Spanish, and German in high school, and in 1963 she studied Italian. Reputed to be Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde", she later complained that the public did not care about her brain, saying: "They're more interested in 40–21–35", a reference to her body measurements.
Newspapers in the 1950s routinely published Mansfield's body measurements, which once led evangelist Billy Graham to exclaim, "This country knows more about Jayne Mansfield's statistics than the Second Commandment." Mansfield proclaimed a 41-inch bust line and a 22-inch waist when she made her Broadway debut in 1955, though some scholars dispute those figures. She was known as "the Cleavage Queen" and "the Queen of Sex and Bosom".
In January 1955, Mansfield appeared at a Silver Springs, Florida, press junket promoting the film Underwater!, starring Jane Russell. She purposely wore a too-small red bikini, lent to her by photographer friend Peter Gowland. When she dove into the pool for photographers, her top came off, creating a burst of media attention. The ensuing publicity led to Warner Bros. and Playboy approaching her with offers. On June 8 of the same year, her dress fell down to her waist twice in a single evening – once at a movie party, and later at a nightclub. In February 1958, she was topless at a Carnival party in Rio de Janeiro. She shimmied out of her polka-dot dress in a Rome nightclub in June 1962. In the three years since making her Broadway debut in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Mansfield had become the most controversial star of the decade.
| Height | 66 m |
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Dating & Relationship status
Jayne Mansfield was married three times: first to Paul Mansfield, then to Mickey Hargitay with whom she had one child, actress Mariska Hargitay, and finally to Matt Cimber. She was known for her tumultuous relationships and her status as a Hollywood icon.
Mansfield took her professional name from her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She married three times, each marriage ending in divorce, and had five children. On June 29, 1967, she died in a traffic collision at age 34.
Until age six, Mansfield lived in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where her father was an attorney practicing with future New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner. In 1936, her father died of a heart attack. In 1939, Jayne Mansfield's mother married sales engineer Harry Lawrence Peers and the family moved to Dallas, Texas, where she was known as Vera Jayne Peers. As a child, she wanted to be a Hollywood star like Shirley Temple. At age 12, Palmer took ballroom dance lessons. She graduated from Highland Park High School in 1950. While in high school, she took violin, piano, and viola lessons. She also studied Spanish and German. Palmer received grades in the high Bs in all subjects consistently.
At age 17, she married Paul Mansfield on May 6, 1950. Jayne and her husband enrolled in Southern Methodist University to study acting. In 1951, Jayne moved to Los Angeles and attended a summer semester at UCLA. She entered the Miss California contest but Paul found out and forced her to withdraw from the competition. She then moved to Austin, Texas, with her husband, and studied dramatics at the University of Texas at Austin. There, Mansfield worked as a nude art model, sold books door-to-door, and worked as a receptionist at a dance studio. She also joined the Curtain Club, a campus theatrical society that included lyricist Tom Jones, composer Harvey Schmidt, and actors Rip Torn and Pat Hingle among its members. Mansfield then spent a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia, while her husband Paul served in the United States Army Reserve during the Korean War.
In 1953, she moved back to Dallas and studied acting for several months under Baruch Lumet, the father of director Sidney Lumet and founder of the Dallas Institute of Performing Arts. Lumet gave Mansfield private lessons and called Mansfield and Rip Torn his "kids". Eventually, Lumet helped Jayne get her first screen test at Paramount in April 1954. Paul, Jayne, and Jayne Marie moved to Los Angeles in 1954. Jayne worked at a variety of odd jobs including: selling popcorn at the Stanley Warner Theatre, teaching dance, selling candy at a movie theater, modeling part-time at the Blue Book Model Agency, and working as a photographer at Esther Williams' Trails Restaurant.
In August 1956, Paul Mansfield sought custody of his daughter, alleging that Jayne was an unfit mother because she appeared nude in Playboy. In 1964, the magazine repeated the 1955 pictorial. Playboy reprinted photos from that pictorial issue, with titles such as December 1965's "The Playboy Portfolio of Sex Stars", and January 2000s "Centerfolds of the Century".
In 1966, Mansfield was cast in Single Room Furnished, directed by husband Matt Cimber. The film required Mansfield to portray three different characters, and was her first starring, dramatic role in several years. It was released briefly in 1966, but did not enjoy a full release until 1968, almost a year after her death. After Single Room Furnished wrapped, Mansfield was cast opposite Mamie Van Doren and Ferlin Husky in The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966), a low-budget comedy from Woolner Brothers. It was her first country and western film, and she promoted it through a 29-day tour of major U.S. cities, accompanied by Husky, Don Bowman and other country musicians. Before filming began, Mansfield said she would not "share any screen time with the drive-in's answer to Marilyn Monroe", meaning Van Doren. Though their characters did share one scene, Mansfield and Van Doren filmed their parts at different times to be edited together later.
Jayne Palmer met Paul Mansfield at a party on Christmas Eve in 1949; she was a popular student at Highland Park High School, and he at Sunset High School in Dallas. On May 6, 1950, they married in Fort Worth, Texas. At the time of their marriage, Jayne was 17 and three months pregnant, while Paul was 20. While most major biographies put the date at May 6, some sources say the marriage was on May 10, 1950. According to biographer Raymond Strait, she had an earlier "secret" marriage on January 28, after which she conceived her first child. On November 8, 1950, Mansfield gave birth to her daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield. Some sources cite Paul Mansfield as the father of her child; others allege that the pregnancy was the result of date rape.
After a series of arguments around Jayne's ambitions, infidelity, and animals, they decided to dissolve the marriage. It was a long process. In February 1955, Jayne filed for separate maintenance and in August 1956 Paul filed for custody of their daughter, Jayne Marie. Jayne filed for divorce in California in 1956; Paul filed for divorce in 1957 in Texas citing mental cruelty, and they received their divorce papers on January 8, 1958. After the divorce, she decided to keep "Mansfield" as her professional name. Paul Mansfield remarried, settled into the public relations business and moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, but failed to win custody suits over Jayne Marie or restrain her from traveling abroad with her mother.
Following her 18th birthday, Jayne Marie complained that she had not received her inheritance from the Mansfield estate or heard from her father since her mother's death.
Mansfield met her second husband, Mickey Hargitay, at the Latin Quarter nightclub in New York City on May 13, 1956, where he was performing as a member of the chorus line in Mae West's show. Hargitay was an actor and bodybuilder who had won the Mr. Universe competition in 1955. Mansfield fell for him immediately, which resulted in a squabble with West. In the ensuing row, Mr. California, Chuck Krauser, beat Hargitay up and was arrested and released on a $300 bond ($0 in dollars).
In 1962, Mansfield had a well-publicized affair with Enrico Bomba, the Italian producer and production manager of her film Panic Button. Hargitay accused Bomba of sabotaging their marriage. In 1963, she had another well-publicized relationship with comedian-singer Nelson Sardelli, whom she said she planned to marry when her divorce from Mickey Hargitay was finalized. The couple divorced in Juarez, Mexico, in May 1963, where Sardelli accompanied Mansfield in her legal preparations. She had previously filed for divorce on May 4, 1962, but told reporters "I'm sure we will make it up." During the acrimonious divorce proceedings, the actress attempted to force a more favorable financial settlement by accusing Hargitay of kidnapping one of her children.
Mansfield discovered that she was pregnant after her divorce from Hargitay. Being an unwed mother would have endangered her career, so she and Hargitay announced that they were still married. Mariska later revealed that Sardelli is her biological father. A court decree in June 1967 made Hargitay the guardian of Mickey, Zoltan, and Mariska, though they continued to live with Mansfield. He married airline stewardess Ellen Siano in 1968, and she accompanied him to New Orleans when he picked up his three children after Mansfield's death. Shortly after her funeral, Hargitay sued his former wife's estate for more than $275,000 ($ million in dollars) to support the children, as he and his wife Ellen would raise them, but he lost the suit. Mansfield had once told Hargitay on a television talk show that she was sorry for all the trouble that she had given him.
Mansfield became involved with Matt Cimber (a.k.a. Matteo Ottaviano, né Thomas Vitale Ottaviano), an Italian-born film director, when he directed her in a stage production of Bus Stop in Yonkers, New York, costarring Hargitay. She married him on September 24, 1964, in Mulegé, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The couple separated on July 11, 1965, and filed for divorce on July 20, 1966. Cimber managed her career during their marriage, and guided her through a series of increasingly tawdry projects like Promises, Promises and The Las Vegas Hillbillys. Mansfield's marriage to Cimber began to collapse in the wake of her alcohol abuse, open infidelities, and her disclosure to Cimber that she had been happy only with her former lover, Nelson Sardelli. Work on Mansfield's film, Single Room Furnished directed by Cimber (1966), was suspended. The couple had one son, Antonio Raphael Ottaviano (a.k.a. Tony Cimber, born October 18, 1965). Cimber and his second wife, dress designer Christy Hilliard Hanak, who he married on December 2, 1967, raised Tony, Mansfield's youngest child. At the time, Mansfield had degenerated into alcoholism, drunken brawls, and performing at cheap burlesque shows. Cimber later worked as an announcer for Married...with Children and a producer for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
In July 1966, Mansfield started living with her attorney, Sam Brody, who had frequent drunken brawls with her and mistreated her eldest daughter, Jayne Marie. Sam's wife, Beverly Brody, filed for divorce, naming Mansfield the "41st other woman" in Sam's life.
Mansfield's son Zoltán made news when a lion attacked him and bit his neck while he and his mother were visiting the theme park Jungleland USA in Thousand Oaks, California on November 23, 1966. He suffered from severe head trauma, underwent three surgeries at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, California, including a six-hour brain surgery, and contracted meningitis. He recovered, and Mansfield's attorney Sam Brody sued the theme park on the family's behalf for $1.6 million ($0 million in dollars). The negative publicity led to closure of the theme park.
Two weeks before her mother's death in 1967, 16-year-old Jayne Marie accused Sam Brody of beating her. The girl's statement to officers of the Los Angeles Police Department the following morning implicated her mother in encouraging the abuse, and days later a juvenile court judge awarded temporary custody of Jayne Marie to Paul Mansfield's uncle William W. Pigue and his wife Mary.
In San Francisco for the city's 1966 Film Festival, Mansfield and Brody visited the Church of Satan to meet Anton LaVey, the church's founder. He awarded Mansfield a medallion and the title "High Priestess of San Francisco's Church of Satan." The media enthusiastically covered the meeting and the events surrounding it, identifying her as a Satanist, and speculating that she was somehow romantically involved with LaVey. That meeting remained a much-publicized and oft-quoted event both of her life and of the history of the Church of Satan. Karla LaVey, Anton LaVey's daughter, asserted in a 1992 interview with Joan Rivers that Mansfield was a practicing LaVeyan Satanist and that she had a romantic relationship with Anton LaVey.
Mansfield received her first truly negative publicity after she and Hargitay pleaded poverty when his first wife, Mary Hargitay, whom he divorced on September 6, 1956, requested additional child support for their nine-year-old, first child, Tina, in September 1958. Mansfield said she slept on the floor of her mansion, was unable to buy furniture, and spent only $71 on her daughter Jayne Marie ($0 in dollars). During this marriage she had three children, Miklós Jeffrey Palmer Hargitay (born December 21, 1958), Zoltán Anthony Hargitay (born August 1, 1960), and Mariska Magdolna Hargitay (born January 23, 1964) who was the biological daughter of Nelson Sardelli.
Mansfield's body was flown from New Orleans to New York and a private funeral took place on July 3 at the chapel of the Pullis Funeral Home in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, officiated by a pastor of the Zion Methodist Church who had known Mansfield since her childhood. Mansfield was buried in Fairview Cemetery next to her father. Mickey Hargitay was the only ex-husband of Mansfield present at the funeral.
In 1968, two wrongful-death lawsuits were filed on behalf of Mansfield and ex-husband Matt Cimber. After a 16-day trial, in 1971, the jury found that Harrison, driver of the car, was negligent, that Rambo, driver of the truck into which Mansfield crashed, was not negligent, and that McLelland, driver of the fog-spraying truck, was negligent but his negligence was not a proximate cause of the accident; a rehearing was denied.
* On Mother's Day of 1960, the Mildred Strauss Child Care Chapter of Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City declared her family as the "Family of the Year".
After Mansfield's death, Hargitay, Cimber, Vera Peers (Mansfield's mother), William Pigue (Jayne Marie's legal guardian), and Charles Goldring (Mansfield's business manager), as well as Bernard B. Cohen and Jerome Webber (both administrators of the estate) filed unsuccessful suits to gain control of her estate. Mansfield's estate was appraised initially at $600,000 ($0 million in dollars), including the Pink Palace, estimated at $100,000 ($0 in dollars), a sports car sold for $7,000 ($0 in dollars), her jewelry, and Sam Brody's $185,000 estate left to her in his last will ($0 in dollars). In 1971, Beverly Brody sued the Mansfield estate for $325,000 ($0 in dollars) worth of presents and jewelry given to Mansfield by Sam Brody; the suit was settled out of court. However, her four eldest children (Jayne Marie, Mickey, Zoltan, and Mariska) went to court in 1977 to find that approximately $500,000 in debt that Mansfield had incurred ($0 million in dollars), including $11,000 for lingerie ($0 in dollars), $11,600 for plumbing of the heart-shaped swimming pool ($0 in dollars), and litigation had left the estate insolvent.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Paul Mansfield (m. 1950-1958) Mickey Hargitay (m. 1958-1964) Matt Cimber (m. 1964-1965) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of her death, Jayne Mansfield's net worth was approximately $500,000, which is equivalent to about $2 million in today's dollars when adjusted for inflation. During her career, she earned significant sums from her performances, including a weekly salary of $35,000 during her peak, which translates to about $372,000 in 2024 dollars.
In February 1958, the Tropicana Las Vegas launched Mansfield's striptease revue The Tropicana Holiday (produced by Monte Proser, co-starring Mickey Hargitay) under a four-week contract that was extended to eight. The opening night raised $20,000 for March of Dimes ($0 in dollars). She received $25,000 per week for her performance as Trixie Divoon in the show ($0 in dollars), while her contract with 20th Century Fox was paying her $2,500 per week ($0 in dollars). She had a million-dollar policy with Lloyd's of London in case Hargitay dropped her as he whirled her around for the show. In 1959, Jayne returned to the Tropicana with her show being extended from a four-week run to eight when Betty Hutton's engagement there failed to materialize. In December 1960, the Dunes hotel and casino launched Mansfield's revue The House of Love (produced by Jack Cole, co-starring Hargitay). She received a salary of $35,000 a week ($0 in dollars) – the highest in her career.
Career, Business, and Investments
Jayne Mansfield had a versatile career spanning film, television, stage, and music. She appeared in notable films like "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956), "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957), and "Too Hot to Handle" (1960). Additionally, she was a successful nightclub performer, known for her energetic stage shows, and released several music albums.
Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, Playboy Playmate, and sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award. She gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
Early in her career, some advertisers considered her prominent breasts undesirable, which led to her losing her first professional assignment – a commercial for General Electric that depicted young women in bathing suits relaxing around a pool. Emmeline Snively, head of the Blue Book Model Agency, had sent her to photographer Gene Lester, which led to her short-lived assignment in the General Electric commercial. In 1954, she auditioned at both Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. At Paramount, Jayne performed a sketch she had worked out with Lumet from Joan of Arc for casting director Milton Lewis. Lewis informed her that she was wasting her "obvious talents" and had her come back a week later to perform the piano scene from The Seven Year Itch. Jayne failed to impress but learned she would have to go blonde. She then performed the piano scene for Warner Brothers, but, again, failed to impress. She landed her first acting assignment in Lux Video Theatre, a series on CBS in the episode "An Angel Went AWOL", aired on October 21, 1954. In it, she sat at a piano and delivered a few lines of dialogue for $300 ($0 in dollars).
In December 1953, Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy. The magazine became a success, in part, because of early appearances from Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, and Anita Ekberg. In February 1955, Mansfield was the Playboy Playmate of the Month, and appeared in the magazine several times. Her February appearance increased the magazine's circulation and helped boost Mansfield's career. Shortly afterward, she posed for the Playboy calendar, covering her breasts with her hands. Playboy featured Mansfield each February from 1955 to 1958, and again in 1960.
Mansfield's fourth starring role in a Hollywood film was in Kiss Them for Me (also 1957), for which she received prominent billing alongside Cary Grant. However, in the film itself she is little more than comic relief; Grant's character relates to a redhead played by fashion model Suzy Parker. The film, described as "vapid" and "ill-advised", was a critical and box-office flop, and marked one of the last attempts by 20th Century-Fox to publicize Mansfield. The continuing publicity surrounding Mansfield's physical appearance failed to sustain her career. Fox gave her a leading role opposite Kenneth More in The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958), a western comedy filmed on location in Spain. In the film, Mansfield's three songs were dubbed by singer Connie Francis. Fox released the film in the United States in 1959, and it was Mansfield's last mainstream film success. Columbia Pictures offered her a part opposite James Stewart and Jack Lemmon in the romantic comedy Bell, Book and Candle (1958), but she turned it down because she was pregnant. Fox then attempted to cast Mansfield opposite Paul Newman in Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), his ill-fated first attempt at comedy.
She performed in a number of variety shows including The Jack Benny Program (on which she played violin), The Steve Allen Show and The Jackie Gleason Show (during the mid-1960s, when the show was the second-highest-rated program in the U.S.). In November 1957, in a special episode of NBC's The Perry Como Show ("Holiday in Las Vegas"), one of her nightclub acts was featured, something quite scandalous for the audience according to the broadcaster. She was a member of the headlining guests for three of The Bob Hope Specials. In 1957, she toured United States Pacific Command areas in Hawaii, Okinawa, Guam, Tokyo and Korea with Bob Hope for the United Service Organizations for 13 days appearing as a comedian; and in 1961, toured Newfoundland, Labrador and Baffin Island in Canada for a Christmas special. Her talk show career includes a large number of appearances which she appreciated for the publicity. One of her more notable appearances on a variety show was on The Ed Sullivan Show (Season 10, Episode 35; May 26, 1957) right after her success with Rock Hunter, where she played violin with a six-person backup band. After the show she exclaimed, "Now I am really national. Momma and Dallas see the Ed Sullivan show!" According to Nielsen, the episode was watched in 13,400,000 homes, reaching a 34% of the total audience and garnering a viewership of almost 30 million.
Her nightclub career became inspirations for films, documentaries, and a musical album. 20th Century Fox Records recorded "The House of Love" for an album entitled Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las Vegas in 1962. She played the roles of burlesque entertainer Midnight Franklin in Too Hot to Handle (1960) and Las Vegas show girl Tawni Downs in The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966). In 1967, an independent documentary Spree (alternative title Las Vegas by Night) on the antics of Las Vegas entertainers was released. The film, narrated as a part of a travelogue of Vic Damone and Juliet Prowse, featured Mansfield, Hargitay, Constance Moore and Clara Ward as guest stars. Mansfield strips and sings "Promise Her Anything" from the film ''Promises! Promises!''. A court order prohibited using any of the guest stars to promote the film.
Later in her career, Mansfield was busier on stage, performing and making appearances with her nightclub acts, club engagements, and performance tours. By 1960, she made personal appearances for everything from supermarket promotions to drug store openings, at $10,000 per appearance ($0 in dollars).
Paul Mansfield hoped the birth of their child would discourage her interest in acting. When it did not, he agreed to move to Los Angeles in late 1954 to help further her career. In 1952, she juggled motherhood and classes at the University of Texas. Early in 1952, Paul was called to the United States Army Reserve for the Korean War. While he served in the army, she spent a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Her life became easier with Paul's army allotment. Returning from the Korean War in 1954, he took a job with a small newspaper in East Los Angeles, California, and lived in a small apartment in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, with Jayne and her pets – a Great Dane, three cats named Sabina, Romulus, and Ophelia, two chihuahuas, a poodle dyed pink, and a rabbit. While in California, she left Jayne Marie with her maternal grandparents and spent the summer semester at UCLA.
Mansfield and Hargitay made personal appearances on television shows such as the Bob Hope Specials. Mansfield and Hargitay had a number of business holdings, including the Hargitay Exercise Equipment Company, Jayne Mansfield Productions, and Eastland Savings and Loan. She co-wrote the autobiographical book Jayne Mansfield's Wild, Wild World with Hargitay. The book also contained 32 pages of black-and-white photographs from the film printed on glossy paper.
Mansfield's drive for publicity was one of the strongest in Hollywood. She gave up all privacy, and her doors were always open to photographers. On Christmas Eve 1954, she walked into publicist James Byron's office with a gift and asked him to oversee her publicity, which he did, for the most part, until the end of 1961. Byron appointed most of the people on her team – William Shiffrin (press agent), Greg Bautzer (attorney) and Charles Goldring (business manager) – and constantly planted publicity material in the media. She appeared in about 2,500 newspaper photographs, and had about 122,000 lines of newspaper copy written about her between September 1956 and May 1957.
Because of the successful media blitz, she achieved international renown. On October 10, 1959, she visited White Hart Lane, England, and watched the Tottenham Hotspur versus Wolverhampton Wanderers FC football match. By 1960, Mansfield had topped press polls for more words in print than anyone else in the world, had made more personal appearances than a political candidate, and was regarded as the world's most-photographed Hollywood celebrity. She made news on a regular basis, for malfunctioning dresses and clothing that burst strategically at the seams, to wearing low cut dresses without a bra. Things worsened when she took charge of her own publicity without advice. According to her agent William Shiffrin, "She became a freak." James Bacon wrote in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1973: "Here was a girl with real comedy talent, spectacular figure and looks and yet ridiculed herself out of business by outlandish publicity."
At the same time, the world's media were quick to condemn Mansfield's stunts. One editorial columnist wrote: "We are amused when Miss Mansfield strains to pull in her stomach to fill out her bikini better; but we get angry when career-seeking women, shady ladies, and certain starlets and actresses ... use every opportunity to display their anatomy unasked." By the late 1950s, Mansfield began to generate a great deal of negative publicity because of repeated exposure of her breasts in carefully staged public "wardrobe accidents". Richard Blackwell, her wardrobe designer (who also designed for Jane Russell, Dorothy Lamour, Peggy Lee and Nancy Reagan), dropped her from his client list because of this. In April 1967, the Los Angeles Times wrote: "She confuses publicity and notoriety with stardom and celebrity and the result is very distasteful to the public."
Mansfield adopted pink as her color in 1954, and was associated with it for the rest of her career. Her original choice was purple, but she thought it too close to lavender, Kim Novak's signature color. "It must have been the right decision," she said, "because I got more column space from pink than Kim Novak ever did from lavender." In November 1957, shortly before their marriage, using money from an inheritance, Mansfield bought the 40-room Mediterranean-style mansion (formerly owned by Rudy Vallée) at 10100 Sunset Boulevard in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. Mansfield had the house painted pink, with cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights, pink fur in the bathrooms, a pink heart-shaped bathtub, and a fountain spurting pink champagne; she then dubbed it the "Pink Palace". Hargitay (a plumber and carpenter before taking up bodybuilding) built the pink heart-shaped swimming pool. The year after reconstructing the "Pink Palace" as a "pink landmark", she began riding in a pink Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible with tailfins, then the only pink Cadillac in Hollywood.
Throughout her career, Mansfield was compared by the media to the reigning sex symbol of the period, Marilyn Monroe. 20th Century Fox groomed her, as well as Sheree North, to substitute for Monroe, their resident "blonde bombshell", while Universal Pictures launched Van Doren as their substitute. The studio launched Mansfield with a grand 40-day tour of England and Europe from September 25 to November 6, 1957. She adopted Monroe's vocal mannerisms instead of her original husky voice and Texas accent, performed in two plays that were based on Marilyn Monroe vehicles – Bus Stop and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – and her role in The Wayward Bus was strongly influenced by Monroe's character in Bus Stop.
The Pink Palace was sold. Its subsequent owners included Ringo Starr and Engelbert Humperdinck. Cass Elliot is often falsely claimed to have owned the home. In 2002, Humperdinck sold it to developers, and the house was demolished in November of that year. What remained of her estate was subsequently managed by CMG Worldwide, an intellectual property-management company.
Social Network
Although Jayne Mansfield passed away in 1967, her legacy continues to influence social media platforms and Hollywood discussions. Her daughter, Mariska Hargitay, often shares nostalgic posts about her mother on social media.
Mansfield gained popularity after playing the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955–1956) on Broadway, which she reprised in the film adaptation in 1957. Her other film roles include the musical comedy The Girl Can't Help It (1956), the drama The Wayward Bus (1957), the neo-noir Too Hot to Handle (1960), and the sex comedy Promises! Promises! (1963); the last established Mansfield as one of the first major American actresses to perform in a nude scene in a post-silent era film.
Twentieth Century-Fox signed Mansfield to a six-year contract on May 3, 1956, in its New York office to mold her as a successor to the increasingly difficult Marilyn Monroe, their resident blonde sex symbol, who had just completed the very difficult Bus Stop. Mansfield was still under contract to Broadway and continued playing Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on stage until September 15, 1956. She undertook her first starring film role as Jerri Jordan in Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956). Originally titled Do-Re-Mi, it featured a high-profile cast of contemporary rock and roll and R&B artists including Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino, The Platters and Little Richard. Released in December 1956, The Girl Can't Help It became one of the year's biggest successes, both critically and financially, earning more than Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had three years before. Soon afterward, Fox started promoting Mansfield as "Marilyn Monroe king-sized", attempting to coerce Monroe to return to the studio and complete her contract. Mansfield next played a dramatic role in The Wayward Bus (1957), an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel of the same name. With this film, she attempted to move away from her "blonde bombshell" image and establish herself as a serious actress. The film enjoyed moderate box-office success, and Mansfield won a Golden Globe in 1957 for New Star of the Year, beating Carroll Baker and Natalie Wood with her performance as a "wistful derelict". It was "generally conceded to have been her best acting", according to The New York Times, in a fitful career hampered by her flamboyant image, distinctive voice ("a soft-voiced coo punctuated with squeals"), voluptuous figure and limited acting range. Tashlin cast Mansfield in the film version of the Broadway show Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, released in 1957, reprising her role of Rita Marlowe alongside costars Tony Randall and Joan Blondell. Fox launched its new blonde bombshell with a North American tour and a 40-day, 16-country tour of Europe. She attended the premiere of the film (released as Oh! For a Man in the UK) in London, and met Queen Elizabeth II.
When Mansfield returned to Hollywood in mid-1960, 20th Century Fox cast her in It Happened in Athens (1962) with Trax Colton, a handsome newcomer Fox was trying to mold into a heartthrob. She received first billing above the title but appeared in only a supporting role. The Olympic Games-based film was shot in Greece in the fall of 1960 but was not released until June 1962. It was a box-office failure, and 20th Century Fox dropped Mansfield's contract. In 1961, Mansfield signed on for a minor role but above-the-title billing in The George Raft Story, released the following year. Starring Ray Danton as Raft, the film showcased Mansfield in a small part as a glamorous film star. Soon after the film's release, she returned to European films, appearing in low-budget foreign films such as Heimweh nach St. Pauli (1963, Germany), L'Amore Primitivo (1964, Italy), Panic Button (1964, Italy) and Einer frisst den anderen (1964, Germany).
As late as the mid-1980s, Mansfield remained one of the biggest television draws. In 1980, The Jayne Mansfield Story aired on CBS starring Loni Anderson in the title role and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mickey Hargitay. It was nominated for three Emmy Awards. A+E Networks TV series Biography featured her in an episode titled Jayne Mansfield: Blonde Ambition. The TV series won an Emmy Award in the outstanding non-fiction TV series category in 2001. A&E again featured her life in another TV serial, Dangerous Curves, in 1999. In 1988, her story and archival footage was a part of the TV documentary Hollywood Sex Symbols.
In 1958, an orchestra was recorded for the 31st Academy Awards ceremony with Jack Benny on first violin, Mansfield on violin, Dick Powell on trumpet, Robert Mitchum on woodwind, Fred Astaire on drums and Jerry Lewis as conductor; however, the performance was canceled. She sang "Too Marvelous for Words" for The Jack Benny Program ("Jack Takes Boat to Hawaii"; Episode 9, Season 14; November 26, 1963). Her club performances regularly featured songs like Call Me, A Little Brains, A Little Talent ("This Queen has her aces in all the right places"), Plain Jane, Quando-Quando, Bésame Mucho, and the song made famous by Marilyn Monroe – Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.
It has been claimed that her bosom was a major force behind the development of 1950s brassieres, including the whirlpool bra, cuties, the shutter bra, the action bra, latex pads, cleavage-revealing designs, and uplifted outlines. R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby have claimed that it was Mansfield, along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, who made the bikini popular. Drawing on the Freudian concept of fetishism, British science-fiction writer and socio-cultural commentator J. G. Ballard commented that Mae West's, Mansfield's, and Monroe's breasts "loomed across the horizon of popular consciousness". According to Dave Kehr, as the 1960s approached, the anatomy that had made her a star turned her into a joke. In this decade, the female body ideal shifted to appreciate the slim waif-like features popularized by supermodel Twiggy, actress Audrey Hepburn, and others, demarcating the demise of the busty blonde bombshells.
Reports that Mansfield was decapitated are untrue, although she suffered severe head trauma. This urban legend started with the appearance in police photographs of the crashed car with its top virtually sheared off, and what resembled a blonde-haired head tangled in the car's smashed windshield. However, Mansfield's death certificate, which states her immediate cause of death to be "crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain," rules this out. The identity of the head-like shape has not been definitively determined, but it is debated to have been either a wig that Mansfield was wearing or carrying, the top portion of her real hair and scalp, or "something else entirely." After her death, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended requiring an underride guard (a strong bar made of steel tubing) on all tractor-trailers; the trucking industry was slow to adopt this change. In America, the underride guard is sometimes known as a "Mansfield bar."
Education
Jayne Mansfield attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she studied drama before pursuing a career in acting.
While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Mansfield won several beauty contests, including Miss Photoflash, Miss Magnesium Lamp, and Miss Fire Prevention Week. By her own account, the only title she refused was Miss Roquefort Cheese, because she believed it "just didn't sound right". Mansfield later rejected "Miss Prime Rib" in 1957 as well. In 1952, while in Dallas, she and Paul Mansfield participated in small local-theater productions of The Slaves of Demon Rum and Ten Nights in a Barroom, and Anything Goes in Camp Gordon, Georgia. After he left for military service, she made her first significant stage appearance in a production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman on October 22, 1953, with the players of the Knox Street Theater, headed by Lumet. While at UCLA, she entered the Miss California contest (hiding her marital status), and won the local round before withdrawing.
Mansfield played her first leading role on television in 1956 on NBC's The Bachelor. In her first appearance on British television in 1957, she recited from Shakespeare (including a line from Hamlet) and played piano and violin. Her notable performances in television dramas included episodes of Burke's Law, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Red Skelton Hour (three episodes), Kraft Mystery Theater and Follow the Sun. Mansfield's performance in her first series Follow the Sun ("The Dumbest Blonde"; Season 1, Episode 21; February 4, 1962; produced by 20th Century Fox Television) was hailed as the advent of "a new and dramatic Jayne Mansfield". She appeared on a number of game shows including "Talk it up," Down You Go (as a regular panelist), The Match Game (one rare episode has her as a team captain), and What's My Line? (as a special mystery guest).
