If the scale of a good story is implausibility, Jayne Mansfield (Pennsylvania, 1933-Louisiana, 1967) breaks all records. In a story like this, it is least important to demand truthfulness if in return they give you Satanism, beheadings, enchanted tigers, curses, pink furnishings and forbidden romances. Much of what has been written or said about Jayne Mansfield is probably false, uncertain, or contradictory: the ingredients necessary for the perfect legend. This is recognized by ICON P. David Ebersole, director with Todd Hughes of the magnificent documentary Mansfield 66/67(2017): "It really has a great story, especially if you believe all the rumors!" "When I was young," adds Hughes, "my mother told me about a movie star who had had an affair with the leader of the Church of Satan. It stuck with me, hence the documentary. ”
Jayne Mansfield was born on April 19, 1933 in Pennsylvania. Her real name was already very cinematic: Vera Jayne Palmer. A splendid student, not even an early pregnancy (at age 17, of Paul Mansfield, her first husband to whom she would be married from 1950 to 1958) made her interrupt her education. After studying psychology, chemistry, acting, learning five languages (or so she claimed), and devoting herself thoroughly to the piano and violin, Jayne decided the time had come to be a star. He had a stunning physique and here, in something as strict as the numbers, the inaccuracies begin: while his powerful bust ranged from 101 to 116 centimeters, his waist in some cases measured 45 and in others 60 centimeters. The actress was clear that her triumph in Hollywood was a simple matter of eye contact. Her goal was to blend into the role of the dumb blonde first and end up doing Hamlet later. What could go wrong? In the privileged head of the actress (163 IQ, according to her), nothing. History would show that absolutely everything.
"It is true that Jayne used Marilyn in her favor, but the one she really envied was Elizabeth Taylor, because she obtained fame, respect and family, everything Jayne aspired to"
Todd Hughes, director of the documentary 'Mansfield 66/67'
On Christmas Eve, 1954, the future legend contacted one of the best and fiercest publicists of the time, Jim Byron. Her presentation left no room for misunderstanding: "I have the biggest breasts in Hollywood, I want you to become a movie star." The devious Byron devised a most crude strategy that, however, gave unbeatable results. During the presentation of the movie Underwater! (1955), starring Jane Russell - the only brunette who dared to question the reign of blondes - and that developed, according to the film's title, in a pool, Jayne appeared. By the way, she did not appear in the film or glimpse.
But there was planted in a swimsuit some size smaller than recommended. The result was that, by jumping into the pool, the bikini top couldn't take the pressure and she emerged from the water topless in front of an enchanted swarm of journalists, print media and industry senior staff. Russell and Debbie Reynolds, who was also there, no one remembered. A star was born. Who also boasted of ideology. "I like being a pin-up, " she used to repeat. "There is nothing wrong with that."
From there a brief but meteoric career began in which the sex symbol would accumulate successes such as The Girl Can't Help It (1956) or A Woman of Care (1957) and awards such as a Golden Globe, a Theater World or a Golden Laurel. . Gone were other minor accolades such as Hot Dog Ambassador, Miss Negligee, Miss Nylon Sweater, Miss Freeway, Miss Electric Switch, Miss Geiger Counter, Miss 100% Pure Maple Syrup. (Miss Pure Maple Syrup), Miss 4th of July, Miss Fire Prevention, or Miss Tomato. The only one who rejected was the Miss Roquefort Cheese (Miss roquefort cheese). It sounded bad to him.
For years, she was simply one of the best-known actresses in the United States. It was featured on The Ed Sullivan Show and featured prestigious awards galas. At the 1960 Golden Globes ceremony, a slightly subtle Mickey Rooney couldn't help but make the joke easy. Fixing his gaze on Mansfield's lead, he said, "Who wants to be tall?" The generous cleavage reached just at eye level. The actress went on to record a single with Jimi Hendrix (here you can listen to the suggestive Suey ) and, most surprising and delusional of all: to her credit she has an album titled Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me , a rarity that right now is around $ 100 in which Mansfield is dedicated to declaiming Shakespeare about the chords of the Russian composer.
Jayne was like Coca-Cola, check shirts or jeans: the essence of the American. It was the direct and blunt version of Marilyn. While the latter suggested or played clueless, Mansfield demanded; While Marilyn waddled with sinuous perfection, Jayne did so disjointing at each hip hit; As Marilyn whispered, Jayne made those characteristic and inimitable little screams of hers. Everything that Marilyn had of intense, Jayne had of autoparodic, extravagant and decadent. If Marilyn blew up that innocent sex bomb image, Jayne laughed at the prototype leading to the cartoon. In short, while Marilyn symbolized a fantasy, Jayne embodied a cartoon.
Everything that Marilyn had of intense, Jayne had of autoparodic, extravagant and decadent. If Marilyn blew up that innocent sex bomb image, Jayne laughed at the prototype leading to the cartoon. In short, while Marilyn symbolized a fantasy, Jayne embodied a cartoon
This rivalry was not created a posteriori with the opportunistic advantage that time gives. No. Jayne was launched, created and thought of as the Marilyn series B. Fox came to promote her as "the new Marilyn", endorsing her with the roles that she rejected and Hugh Hefner himself (founder of Playboy magazine ) said of her that he was "the best Marilyn Monroe clone of all I had ever known." And what is even more perverse, Mansfield was designed, ultimately, as the reminder that Marilyn was easily replaceable.
The fierce fight with Marilyn went beyond parties, events, and filming sets . Lawrence J. Quirk tells in her book The Kennedys in Hollywood that Jayne Mansfield was considerably disgusted by Marilyn Monroe's talent for marrying 'big shots' like Joe DiMaggio or Arthur Miller while she only managed to attract 'small-fry' [fry]. It was out of competition or to get into circles of power, the truth is that John F. Kennedy and Jayne had some sexual encounter. It seems that the actress, who discreetly had little, commented on how little virtuous the president was in love affairs.
“And once it's over, it's over; it's as if you no longer exist, ”he used to tell, according to the book. Of all those encounters, perhaps the strangest was the one that occurred when Jayne was visibly pregnant with her fourth child. Jayne, once again testing her verbal incontinence, said that she had practiced oral sex on Jack (that's what her friends called the president) while he stroked his belly. Quirk also tells that more than once he asked Marilyn about Mansfield. He claims he hated her. He considered her a rude and vulgar impersonator who degraded an image that had taken a long time to build. Ebersole is clear: “The truth is that Marilyn was obsessed with her. Jayne was a real threat: she was fun, beautiful, and professional. ” Hughes adds a third in contention: "It is true that Jayne used Marilyn to her advantage, but the one she really envied was Elizabeth Taylor, because she obtained fame, respect and family, everything Jayne aspired to."
And, indeed, the rivalry was not limited only to its original mold. Jayne was what has lately come to be called an "attention whore" [literally, prostitute of attention]. He needed to be the center of constant attention. With Sofia Loren he starred in a famous photo that, to this day and as Loren herself has recognized, they continue to ask her to autograph (in the face of the Italian's refusal, which seems disrespectful). The photo has its story: in 1957, Loren just signed a contract with Paramount. To celebrate its American debut, the company hosted a lavish presentation party. And, of course, Jayne appeared with that dress, that cleavage and those breasts. From the famous snapshot, Loren explained that what she felt was basically dread, terror that the dress would explode and "her nipples fell on my plate." According to the Hollywood Reporter , despite the fact that Mansfield denied any type of premeditation and treachery, Robert Wagner remembers her in his car, before entering the evening, putting blusher on her nipples.
Mansfield's fame was short-lived. After her initial successes and her divorce from Paul Mansfield, her marriage to Miklós Hargitay would come (with whom she would have three children, one of them being Mariska Hargitay, known for the series Law and Order ). Hargitay (Mister Universe in 1955) and Mansfield constituted, once again, the parody of the perfect couple. So muscular, so pneumatic, so exaggerated. Suffice it to say that for the movie The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980), the couple was played by Loni Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although Mansfield expressed his wish for a smooth wedding, the truth is that ninety percent of the guests were journalists. The result was a madness in which about eight thousand curious people gathered. After the link, in 1958, Jayne decided to temporarily retire and dedicate herself to having children (she always said that she wanted to have 500 children). Fox fired her.
“I never considered what she did in her day to be feminist, but I was still a working mother who controlled her own image including her sexuality. So she was a precursor to this movement until the arrival of the second wave of feminism with figures like Madonna ”
Father David Ebersole
In reality, the studios would never fully forgive him the insult. There begins the decline of the myth. If we add to that the revolution of feminism that saw in Jayne all the clichés of an outdated and toxic femininity and the evident fatigue of the public by the triad of sexy blondes (Monroe, Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren) that led to the arrival of A new pattern of languid, sophisticated and much less explicit beauties like Sharon Tate or Faye Dunaway, the sunset of our protagonist was sung. Looking back, perhaps Mansfield displayed an anachronistic feminism, yes, but in advance. “I never considered what she did in her day to be feminist, but I was still a working mother who controlled her own image including her sexuality. So she was a precursor of this movement until the arrival of the second wave of feminism with figures like Madonna ”, says P. David Ebersole.
Still, Mansfield resisted tooth and nail by making good that motto that he liked so much and that seemed to have stolen Mae West: "If you're going to do something bad, do it big, because the punishment will be the same." Thus, he starred in such commented episodes as going to cheer on the soldiers and ending up having to flee from the hormone troops, or star in the first nude in Hollywood with the movie Promises, promises (1963).
The coup de grace would come with Sam Brody, his last partner, whom almost everyone considers the true culprit of Mansfield's fall from grace. Brody pushed her into alcohol and LSD. To chaos. For many, it destroyed it. It was the final thrust in the image of the actress.
With a totally uncontrolled life, it is no wonder that Jayne literally ended up in the clutches of evil. He got in contact with Anton LaVey. LaVey, a former musician and photographer for the San Francisco Police Department, soon discovered that he had a knack for the paranormal. We are talking about a time when the occult and the esoteric were in fashion. A sympathetic Satanism, Haunted or the movies of William Castle. Harmless. The premiere of The Devil's Seed - which LaVey is said to have been an advisor to - in 1968 and the murders of the Manson family a year later would change the panorama and the perception of according to what dark matters.
Before that, in 1966, a LaVey who already had a large group of followers in his "magic circle" founded the Church of Satan, proclaimed himself Black Pope and declared that year as the Anno Satana (first year of the era of Satan ). Mansfield, either attracted like so many at that time by the songs of that new religion (let us not forget that she had previously flirted with Methodism, Catholicism and Judaism) or trying to seek publicity, approached LaVey. To call that a miscalculation is an understatement. Photographs were released in which the beautiful Jayne and the beast LaVey appear to be performing a demonic ritual. The press asked, "Is the sex goddess a slave to Satan?"
There begins a story not to sleep of well-documented chained curses in the documentary Mansfield 66/67 that, supposedly, caused - of course! - Brody. On one of the visits to LaVey's funeral home, according to Ebersole and Hughes, Brody could think of nothing better than to light skull candles and mock LaVey's beliefs. The black pope was furious and cursed Brody. A curse that, if we stick to the legend, was another well-known miscalculation, since it seems that not only Brody was the cursed one… While this car's accidents happened, other strange episodes occurred, like the one in which a lion Domesticated inexplicably attacked one of Mansfield's sons, who would miraculously recover.
As the relationship between Jayne and LaVey narrows, the actress seems to be running out of possibilities in Hollywood. In 1967, according to the documentary, Brody and Jayne came to ask for the curse to be lifted, like someone who is going to cancel a commission. One of two: either the forces of evil did not cancel the request or LaVey did not see fit to present the repentant prayer to the competent authorities. On June 29, 1967, Mansfield, Brody, and their driver died in a car accident. His car was rammed into a trailer truck. LaVey miscalculated, but not so badly: the three children (of the five that he had) who traveled in the car were unharmed. Mansfield was immediately said to have been beheaded. It was a lie. What actually happened was that her wig flew off. But not to detract from the truculence of the story, LaVey would later say that when he received the call notifying him of the death of the star, he was cutting out a magazine in which he appeared depositing some flowers on Marilyn's grave. When she turned the cutout around, she found to her horror that she had just cut off the head of a photo of her beloved Jayne.
"What really killed Jayne Mansfield was a tragic and random car accident," says P. David Ebersole. "But was there a curse on her? Did she get what she deserved for being such a scandalous woman? That is a question that each one must answer to himself. For some, his premature death was perhaps their biggest publicity stunt. "
But of course there is still more. What would become of a legend without your haunted house? Jayne had it. A gigantic palace, one of the largest in Hollywood, the Pink Palace, all in pink, her favorite color. Located on Sunset Boulevard, with forty rooms in total, mirrors everywhere, and details as kitsch as a heart-shaped pool with the background reading “I love you Jaynie” (I love you, Jaynie), the house was demolished in 2002, not without first having left for posterity a string of ghostly gossip. According to the entertainment website Hollywood.com, Ringo Starr occupied it for a time and tried in vain to end the pink color of its walls that emerged again and again. Another of the owners heard voices urging her to put on the actress's dresses and dye her hair blonde. The last owner of the house, a fatal fan of Mansfield, assured that it would appear to him from time to time, coming to smell his characteristic perfume of roses.
Mansfield strictly adhered to his motto: "If you are going to be a star, you should live as such." And what's more: show it to the public. A statement of principle that actually appears to be the foundation stone for the entire recent entertainment industry. Others say that without Mansfield, the Kardashians would not exist. “She was way ahead of her time, and that's what got her into so much trouble. They always slap you when you are the first, but then, if there is justice, they acclaim you for being a pioneer. Jayne never received the recognition she deserved, "says Hughes.
But what would have happened to Jayne if that fateful truck had not crossed her path? According to Hughes: "He would have been the perfect wild character that populates the John Waters movies" (who, by the way, has always said that Divine was the perfect cross between Mansfield and Godzilla). P. David Ebersole prefers to imagine her as one of the female characters in Blue Velvet or playing the mother of Anna Nicole Smith in Naked gun. "He had a sense of humor, he could have done anything." Of course, during his short life he did it.
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