Humphrey Bogart already said it in the movie Hours of Anguish (Knock on Any Door, 1949): "She lives fast, she dies young and leaves a pretty corpse." This phrase -wrongly attributed to James Dean- is the perfect synthesis of the life of Jayne Mansfield, a girl who dreamed of being the biggest star in Hollywood, but she died too soon to achieve it.
A quick review of the statuesque blonde's filmography reveals that her first film appearance was in 1955 (at age 22), and her last film was released in 1967, the same year she died. Little more than a decade in the entertainment world, which was not enough to forge a name for himself in the film industry, but it was enough to project his image to a mediatic Olympus of scandals, black magic and excesses, which enveloped his figure in a halo. of mystery that still keeps it valid today.
Vera Jayne Palmer was born in Pennsylvania on April 19, 1933, and she first met her death when she was not yet three years old. Her father (a prestigious lawyer) suffered a heart attack and died while driving the car in which the baby and her mother were also traveling, who miraculously survived. This would be a sign of destiny, which she Jayne would understand many years later.
By 1936 her mother had become a couple again and the family moved to Dallas, a quiet place that they believed was ideal for little Jayne. But she didn't think the same. That small-town reality was not what she wanted for her life. Over the years, the dream of the girl became the certainty of the teenager. While she was taking theater classes, every time she went to the movies or she saw a movie poster she reaffirmed that her place was there, on the big screen.
I'm Jane Mansfield, I want to be a movie star
In 1949, when she had just turned 16, Jayne Palmer met and married Paul Mansfield, a boy five years her senior. A year later her first daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield, was born. That sudden family pattern reassured her mother, who had never fully agreed with the teenager's desire for fame. But for Jayne there was no reality to wake her from her dream, even if in order to achieve her goal she had to move away from her mother and move her new family to California.
One morning in September, when the phone rang in an office at Paramount Studios, the person she answered heard a friendly and determined voice say, "Good morning, my name is Jayne Mansfield and I want to be a movie star." Against all odds, a week later she was summoned for her first casting. The character in that first test was Joan of Arc, and although Mansfield applied everything he learned in her theater classes, her voluptuousness did not correspond to the image of the martyr.
The frustration reverberated throughout the family. For the girl from Pennsylvania there was nothing more important than the movies, not even her husband. So when he couldn't deal with the obsessive dream of her woman anymore, he decided to leave her and return to the quiet life of Texas, which he had never really wanted out of her. Jayne was left alone with her daughter. Despite the sadness and frustration, she decided to keep her married name because, in her own words, it was "much more cinematic."
A siren in Hollywood
Aware that her physical attributes were the target of the eyes of every man who came across her, and despite the fact that they had spoiled her first casting, Jayne Mansfield decided to double her bet; or rather, bet everything on them.
That was how, on Christmas Eve 1954, she had a meeting with star promoter Jim Byron, where, throwing her shoulders back and smoothing her straight brown hair, she told him: "I have the biggest breasts in Hollywood, I want you to make me into a movie star. The man wasted no time and suggested that they make a tour of the newspapers in the area, to toast with the journalists who were working at Christmas. They did so, and overnight, the image of Jayne Mansfield went from anonymity to being a recurring presence in the media, through productions of photos where she seduced and allowed herself to be seduced.
The next step in the media exposure of the aspiring diva was during the presentation of the film The Caribbean Mermaid (Underwater!, 1955), starring Jane Russell. At the time, Russell was famous as the brunette who had challenged Marilyn Monroe's throne in the hit Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; in other words, the perfect target for Jayne.
In accordance with the aquatic title, the press presentation of La Mermaid of the Caribbean was going to take place at the edge of the pool of a luxurious hotel. Thanks to Byron's connections, Mansfield got a press pass and showed up on cue in a red bikini two sizes too small. With a mischievous smile and knowing the result, she jumped into the water in front of everyone. Of course, the bra did not resist and she emerged topless, covering as best she could the 100 centimeters of bust that she boasted. That afternoon no one remembered anymore why she was there, or what the name of the movie or the protagonist was.
From Playboy Bunny to Best Copy of Marilyn Monroe
Thanks to these unorthodox but effective resources, her first film roles began to appear in the life of the actress. However, that stereotype that Jayne Mansfield initially received as a blessing, because she had opened the doors of Hollywood to her, soon became her condemnation. Although she had a solid training as an actress, the only thing that mattered to the studio executives was that she repeated her sexy blonde and half-dumb character over and over again. At the same time, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't dethrone Marilyn Monroe, who had known how to manage the balance between her image and her acting skills much better.
Jayne was always relegated to second place, a cheap copy of the original. 20th Century Fox even came out to promote her as "the new Marilyn", going so far as to give her the roles that Monroe refused to perform. But even that wasn't enough for people to choose the surrogate over the real thing.
At that time, her personal life was equally vertiginous, and she was on parallel tracks to her professional one. In 1958, during a show that Mae West gave on Broadway, the actress met Mister Universe, Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay, who was part of the show. It was never clear whether he was dazzled by her smile, her muscles, or that he was a male version of herself. But the truth is that after a few months they were married. During their six years of marriage they had three children: Miklós Jr (1958), Zoltan (1960) and Mariska (1964).
The couple gave themselves fully to the media show, in notes that showed their bodies more than their opinions. Thus they became a feast for the sensationalist newspapers and magazines of the time. Jayne had been born a star out of scandal, and she periodically needed to fan the flame of controversy to stay current. That's why Hugh Heffner summoned her for Playboy, it was her ecstasy for her.
Year after year, during the second half of the 1950s, Mansfield became a regular presence in Playboy. Her creator, Hugh Heffner, used to say that she was "the best Marilyn Monroe clone" he had ever met. The relationship between the two was very affectionate, despite the fact that for a production that Playboy launched in 1963 with her as the protagonist (shortly before the premiere of Promises! Promises!), Heff ended up imprisoned for the level of "obscenity" of the photos published. Everything was solved with the payment of a fine, but the film was banned in some countries. In her tabloid raid, Jayne had gone too far for conservative society at the time. And this she made him feel in the worst way.
Satan's worshiper
It was early 1964, Jayne Mansfield's career was at a standstill, and her marriage was over. Again seeking to emulate her unattainable Monroe, she decided that her next partner had to be a "convenient relationship." She thus met and married screenwriter, director and producer Matt Climber (actually Matteo Ottaviano). In her fantasy, Jayne believed that he could do what Arthur Miller did for Marilyn Monroe, but she quickly realized that the two men were not the same nor did they have the same power. Although metaphorically, again Mansfield collected Marilyn's leftovers.
By the time their son, Antonio "Tony" Cimber, was born in 1965, the couple's numbers did not close anywhere and the marriage was shipwrecked. While fighting to obtain custody of the baby, the actress began an affair with her attorney, Sam Brody. He was married to a disabled woman and had two children. Appearing before the media as the third in discord of such a peculiar family structure was a lethal blow to the image of the artist, and it was not the only one.
In another desperate attempt for another publicity jolt that would return her to her glory, Mansfield became very close to Anton LaVey, creator of The Church of Satan in the 1960s and known as the "Black Pope." Pictures of her as part of her cult got her repercussions, of course, but against her, with her being labeled a devil worshiper. She even talked about an affair with the Satanist, which led to a confrontation between LaVey and Brody, but this was just an invention of the magazines at the time.
Already without offers in the cinema, with problems due to alcohol abuse, and more obsessed than ever to maintain the lifestyle and the image of diva that she thought she deserved, Jayne began to make presences in nightclubs, singing, with little clothes. , and seducing those present.
At the request of her friend Mamie Van Doren, on June 29, 1967, Jayne Mansfield showed up at a Mississippi restaurant. At the end of her show, the car in which she was traveling with three of her children, a local employee named Ronnie Harrison, and Sam Brody, collided on a curve with a fumigation truck. The boys survived because they were sleeping in the back seat, but Ronnie, Sam and Jayne died instantly.
Jayne Mansfield was 34 years old, and she still carried the unfulfilled dream that accompanied her throughout her short life: to become the biggest star in Hollywood.
