Vera Jayne Palmer, better known by her stage name Jayne Mansfield, was an American actress, singer, nightclub performer, and Playboy Playmate. She died on June 29, 1967. Mansfield was a sex icon of the 1950s and the early 1960s while working for 20th Century Fox. She was well-known for her publicised personal life and publicity tricks. Despite having a brief film career, she had a number of box office hits and won the Theatre World Award and the Golden Globe Award.
Early Life
Vera Jayne Palmer became Jayne Mansfield on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Herbert William Palmer, of English and German ancestry, and Vera Jeffrey (née Palmer), of English and Cornish ancestry, had only one child. She received more than $90,000 (equal to $850,000 in 2021 dollars) from her maternal grandfather Thomas and more than $36,000 (equal to $340,000 in 2021 dollars) from her maternal grandmother Beatrice Mary Palmer in 1958.
Vera Jayne Palmer was born Vera Jayne Peers in 1936 and grew up in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. As a child she wanted to be a Hollywood star like Shirley Temple. She studied acting under Baruch Lumet, the father of director Sidney Lumet and founder of the Dallas Institute of Performing Arts. Jayne married Paul Mansfield in 1950 and they had a daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield, six months later.
Jayne Mansfield Death
A semi-truck collided with the back of a car carrying Jane Mansfield and three of her children, including actress Mariska Hargitay, on a dark Louisiana highway at around two in the morning on June 29, 1967. The three adults in the front seat died instantly as a result of the collision, which tore off the top of Mansfield’s car. Amazingly, the kids who were dozing in the back seat made it.
The shocking incident quickly sparked rumours about decapitations and evil curses that are still being spread today. The reality of Jayne Mansfield’s death, however, is far more horrifying and tragic than anything the rumour mill could conjure up.
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Who Was Jayne Mansfield?
Jayne Mansfield became well-known in the 1950s as a cartoonishly sexy replacement for Marilyn Monroe. Mansfield, who was only 21 years old when she arrived in Hollywood and was already a wife and mother, was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933.
Mansfield starred in movies like 1956’s The Girl Can’t Help It and 1960’s Too Hot to Handle. Though the actress played up her curves and marketed herself as a naughtier version of Monroe off-screen, she was best known for her personality there.
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Career
Mansfield won several beauty contests, including Miss Photoflash, Miss Magnesium Lamp, and Miss Fire Prevention Week. She rejected the title Miss Roquefort Cheese because it “just didn’t sound right”. Early in her career, some advertisers considered her prominent breasts undesirable, which led to her losing her first professional assignment. Jayne Mansfield was the February Playmate of the Month from 1955 to 1958, and again in 1960. Mansfield’s first film part was a supporting role in Female Jungle, a low-budget drama completed in ten days.
She acted in one more movie for Warner Brothers, opposite Edward G. Robinson in the courtroom drama Illegal (1955). Mansfield played Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955). Mansfield’s first film role was The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Wayward Bus. She attempted to break away from her “blonde bombshell” image and establish herself as a serious actress. Mansfield signed a six-year contract with 20th Century-Fox in 1956.
Other Ventures
Between 1951 and 1953 she acted in The Slaves of Demon Rum, Ten Nights in a Barroom, Macbeth, and Anything Goes. She starred as Rita Marlowe (a wild, blonde Hollywood starlet à la Monroe) in the musical Death of a Salesman. Jayne Mansfield began her striptease career at the Tropicana Las Vegas nightclub in 1958. She received a salary of $35,000 a week ($321,000 in 2021 dollars) – the highest in her career. Her last nightclub act French Dressing was at the Latin Quarter in New York in 1966.
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Jayne Mansfield appeared in Too Hot to Handle (1960) and The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966). Mansfield played the roles of burlesque entertainer Midnight Franklin and show girl Tawni Downs. By 1960, she made personal appearances for everything from supermarket promotions to drug store openings at $92,000 per appearance.
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