Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, Playboy Playmate, singer, and sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was known for her numerous publicity stunts, her buxom figure, and her personal life. Her film career was short-lived, but she won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe Award. Mansfield gained a reputation as Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde".

Mansfield played the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on Broadway in 1955–56 and reprised the role in the 1957 film adaptation. 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). In Promises! Promises!, Mansfield became the first American actress to perform a nude scene in a starring film role.

Mansfield's professional name came from her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She married three times and had five children. On June 29, 1967, she died in a traffic collision at age 34.

Early life

Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933, at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Herbert William Palmer and Vera Jeffrey (Palmer) Palmer. She inherited more than $90,000 from her maternal grandfather, Thomas H. Palmer, and more than $36,000 from her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Mary Palmer, in 1958.

Until age six, Palmer lived in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where her father, Herbert, was an attorney practicing with future New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner. In 1936, her father died of a heart attack while driving; three-year-old Palmer was in the car at the time.

In 1939, Palmer's widowed mother married sales engineer Harry Lawrence Peers. The family moved to Dallas, Texas. As a girl, Jayne was known as Vera Jayne Peers. As a child, Palmer wanted to be a Hollywood star like Shirley Temple. At age 12, she 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.

Career

Early modeling and performing

While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Palmer 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 rejected "Miss Prime Rib" in 1957 as well.

Palmer married Paul Mansfield in 1950. In 1952, while in Dallas, Jayne and Paul Mansfield participated in small local-theater productions of The Slaves of Demon Rum and Ten Nights in a Barroom. They also appeared in Anything Goes in Camp Gordon, Georgia. After Paul left for military service, Jayne Mansfield 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 Sidney Lumet.

The Mansfields moved with their daughter, Jayne Marie, to Los Angeles in 1954. Jayne Mansfield sold popcorn at the Stanley Warner Theatre, taught dance, sold candy at a movie theater, modeling part-time at the Blue Book Model Agency, and worked as a photographer at Esther Williams's Trails Restaurant.

Early in Jayne Mansfield's career, some advertisers considered her prominent breasts undesirable or inappropriate. She lost her first professional assignment, a General Electric commercial featuring young women in bathing suits relaxing around a pool, having been cropped out of the final photographs. Photographer Gene Lester, who worked on the photoshoot, stated that Mansfield was "too sexy" for the advertisement.

In 1954, Mansfield auditioned at both Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. For the Paramount audition in April, Mansfield performed a sketch from Joan of Arc for casting director Milton Lewis. Lewis told her she was wasting her "obvious talents" and had her come back a week later to perform the piano scene from The Seven Year Itch. Mansfield failed to impress, but learned she would have to dye her hair blonde. She performed the piano scene for Warner Brothers, but, again, failed to impress.

Mansfield landed her first acting assignment in the CBS series Lux Video Theatre, 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. She was paid $300.

In 1955, the Mansfields separated, although Jayne kept Paul's last name.

Playboy appearances

In December 1953, Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy. The magazine became a success in part because of early appearances by 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. Publication of photos of Mansfield boosted the magazine's circulation and her own career. Shortly afterward, she posed for the Playboy calendar, covering her bare breasts with her hands. Playboy featured Mansfield each February from 1955 to 1958, and again in 1960. In 1964, the magazine repeated the 1955 pictorial. Playboy later reprinted photos from that pictorial issue, with titles such as December 1965s "The Playboy Portfolio of Sex Stars", and January 2000s "Centerfolds of the Century".

Film

Mansfield's first film part was a supporting role in Female Jungle, a low-budget drama completed in ten days. She was paid $150.

In February 1955, James Byron, Mansfield's manager and publicist, negotiated a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers, whose decisionmakers were intrigued by her publicity antics. The contract initially paid her $250 a week and landed her two films, one with an insignificant role and one that was unreleased for two years. Mansfield was given bit parts in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), starring Jack Webb, and Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), starring Alan Ladd. She acted in one more movie for Warner Brothers—another small but significant role opposite Edward G. Robinson in the courtroom drama Illegal (1955).

Mansfield got out of her Warner contract just in time to star on Broadway opposite Walter Matthau. Mansfield's agent, William Shiffrin, signed her to play fictional film star Rita Marlowe in the Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Orson Bean and Walter Matthau. The part was offered to Mansfield after Mamie Van Doren turned it down. Mansfield accepted the part while working on producer Louis W. Kellman's The Burglar (1957), an adaption of the novel of the same name by David Goodis, directed by Paul Wendkos, made in film noir style. She appeared alongside Dan Duryea and Martha Vickers. The film was released two years later, when Mansfield's fame was at its peak. She was successful in this straight dramatic role, though most of her subsequent film appearances were comedic or capitalized on her sex appeal. It was Kellman's first major venture, and he claimed to have "discovered" Mansfield.

On May 3, 1956, Twentieth Century Fox signed Mansfield to a six-year contract to mold her as a successor to the increasingly difficult Marilyn Monroe, their resident blonde sex symbol. Monroe had just completed Bus Stop. Mansfield was still under contract to Broadway and continued playing Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on stage until September 15.

Mansfield 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.