Jayne Mansfield

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April 19, 1933

June 29, 1967 (aged 34) U.S. Highway 90 near Slidell, Louisiana, United States
Interred at Fairview Cemetery, Plainfield (Outside of Pen Argyl), Pennsylvania, USA.

Vera Jayne Palmer

Matt Cimber (24 September 1964 - July 1966) (divorced) 1 child

Mickey Hargitay (13 January 1958 - 26 August 1964) (divorced) 3 children

Paul Mansfield (10 May 1950 - 8 January 1958) (divorced) 1 child

Actress

1968 Single Room Furnished

1967 A Guide for the Married Man

1966 The Las Vegas Hillbillys

1966 The Fat Spy

1964 L'amore primitivo

1964 Einer Frisst den anderen

1964 Panic Button

1964 Burke's Law (TV series)

1963 Promises! Promises!

1963 Heimweh nach St. Pauli

1959-1963 The Red Skelton Show (TV series)

1962 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV series)

1962 It Happened in Athens

1962 Follow the Sun (TV series)

1961 The George Raft Story

1961 Monte Carlo (TV movie)

1961 Kraft Mystery Theater (TV series)

1960 Gli amori di Ercole

1960 The Challenge

1960 Too Hot to Handle

1959 After Hours (TV series)

1958 The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw

1957 Kiss Them for Me

1957 Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium (TV series)

1957 Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

1957 The Burglar

1957 The Wayward Bus

1957 Shower of Stars (TV series)

1956 The Girl Can't Help It

1956 Sunday Spectacular: The Bachelor (TV movie)

1955 Hell on Frisco Bay (uncredited)

1955 Illegal

1955 Pete Kelly's Blues

1955 Female Jungle

Appearances

2004 Biography (TV series documentary)

1968 The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (documentary)

1967 Mondo Hollywood (documentary)

1967 Dateline: Hollywood (TV series)

1967 Spree (documentary)

1967 Candid Camera (TV series)

1967 The Pat Boone Show (TV series)

1966 A Bob Hope Comedy Special (TV movie)

1966 The Bob Hope Show (TV series)

1966 The Milton Berle Show (TV series)

1966 The Merv Griffin Show (TV series)

1956-1966 What's My Line? (TV series)

1965-1966 The Match Game (TV series)

1966 Poem Posters (short)

1965 Girl Talk (TV series)

1964-1965 Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine (TV series)

1964 Password (TV series)

1964 Get the Message (TV series)

1964 Cinépanorama (TV series documentary)

1956-1963 The Jack Benny Program (TV series)

1963 TV-uutiset ja sää (TV series)

1963 Miss Skandinavia 1964 (TV special)

1962-1963 Pantomime Quiz (TV series)

1962 The Tonight Show (TV series)

1962 Lykke og krone (documentary)

1962 Tonight Starring Jack Paar (TV series)

1960 This Is Your Life (TV series)

1956-1960 Person to Person (TV series documentary)

1960 The Arthur Murray Special for Bob Hope (TV movie)

1959-1960 The Steve Allen Show (TV series)

1959 Juke Box Jury (TV series)

1959 Spectacular (TV series)

1958 Screen Snapshots: Salute to Hollywood (documentary short)

1957 Hollywood Glamour on Ice (short)

1957 The Ed Sullivan Show (TV series)

1957 Screen Snapshots: The Walter Winchell Party (documentary short)

1957 Tonight! America After Dark (TV series)

1956 Down You Go (TV series)

1956 Atlantic City Holiday (TV movie)

1956 Today (TV series)

1956 Reflets de Cannes (TV series documentary)

1956 Hollywood Preview (TV series)

Jayne Mansfield Busts up Las Vegas (1962)

Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me (1964)

I Wanna Be Loved By You (2000)

Dyed Blondes (2002)

Too Hot to Handle (2003)

Golden Globes

1957 Won Golden Globe Most Promising Newcomer - Female Together with Carroll Baker and Natalie Wood.

Laurel Awards

1959 Nominated Golden Laurel Top Female Musical Performance for: The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) 5th place.

Walk of Fame

Won Star on the Walk of Fame Motion Picture At 6328 Hollywood Blvd.

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Jayne Mansfield was a pneumatic "blonde bombshell" whose few substantial film roles tended to use her as a living cartoon. Below Marilyn Monroe and Kim Novak but above Sheree North and Mamie Van Doren in the 1950s pinup pecking order, Mansfield was a limited but likable screen performer, lucky enough to feature in one bona fide movie classic, Frank Tashlin's rock 'n' roll-packed exercise in visual va-va-voom, The Girl Can't Help It (1956). Here, she sends up her own celebrity as a gangster's girl promoted as a singing star by press agent Tom Ewell. She wobbles down the street to Little Richard's title song, driving men into Tex Avery Wolf-like frenzies of lust with her mere presence, and gamely poses for a series of juvenile sight gags (holding a pair of milk bottles to her breasts) that exploit her image as an American sex fantasy.

Mansfield's first film roles were as dumb blonde underworld hangers-on or murder victims (Illegal, 1955) but she was relaunched as a comedy star after her Broadway success in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, which Tashlin filmed in 1957. Wonderful as Mansfield was in Tashlin's duo, there wasn't much more she could actually do in Hollywood movies. Soon after being uncomfortably pursued by Cary Grant in the archly titled Kiss Them for Me (1957), she left for Europe, appearing as a striptease queen in Too Hot to Handle (1960) before making It Happened in Athens (1962) and Heimweh nach St. Pauli (1963) (Homesick for St. Pauli). Back home, she appeared discreetly nude in Promises! Promises! (1963), and was one of the "Technical Advisors" in A Guide for the Married Man (1967). Mansfield played a prostitute in the tawdry drama Single Room Furnished (1968), which wasn't completed until after her tragic death in a car crash.

Stars were made to suffer, and I am a star.

If you're going to do something wrong, do it big, because the punishment is the same either way.

Carrying a baby is the most rewarding experience a woman can enjoy.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be the girl next door. I came to be a movie star.

Playboy Playmate of the Month February 1955.

Turned down the role of Ginger Grant in "Gilligan's Island" (1964).

Spoke five languages.

Was a classically trained pianist and violinist.

Was arrested for indecent exposure during her nightclub act in Burlington, Vermont in 1963.

During the late 1950s, the front bumpers of some American cars came with extensions that resembled the bullet-bra conical brassieres of the period. Soon after their introduction, these extensions were nicknamed Jayne Mansfields.

She had a serious drinking problem most of her adult life.

Was the first American actress to appear nude in a mainstream American film (Promises! Promises! (1963)).

Her estate was valued at approximately $2,000,000 at the time of her death, a significant sum by 1967 standards.

Salary

A Guide for the Married Man (1967) $10,000

Promises! Promises! (1963) $150,000 + % of profits

Gli amori di Ercole (1960) $75,000

The Burglar (1957) $5,000

The Girl Can't Help It (1956) $2,500.00 per week