Jayne Mansfield

One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vera J. (nee Palmer; later Peers) and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where she spent a portion of her childhood. Her parents were both born with the same surname, and her ancestry was seven eighths English and Cornish and one eighth German. She was reportedly a talented pianist and played the violin when she was young. Tragedy struck when Jayne was three, when her father suddenly died of a heart attack. Three years later, her mother remarried and she and her mother moved to Dallas, Texas, buying a small home where she had violin concerts in the driveway of their home. Her IQ was reportedly 163, and she attended the University of Dallas and participated in little-theater productions.

In 1949, at the age of 16, she married a man five years her senior named Paul Mansfield.

In November 1950, when Jayne was seventeen, their daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield was born. The union ended in divorce but she kept the surname Mansfield as a good surname for an actress. After some productions there and elsewhere, Jayne decided to go to Hollywood.

She made somewhat embarrassing guest appearances like on the popular game show What's My Line? (1950), she appeared on the show four times in 1956, 1957, 1964, and 1966 and many other 1950s and 1960s game shows.

She was Miss Photoflash 1952, the first in a series of beauty awards she would win.

Signed by 20th Century-Fox in 1954, Mansfield was meant to be a rival (or, in the vernacular of gossip magazines of the time, a "threat") to up-and-coming Fox starlet Marilyn Monroe, but Mansfield never achieved the same level of popularity or success as Marilyn, and was widely regarded as a pale imitation of blonde bombshell Monroe.

Her first film was a bit role as a cigarette girl in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955).

Although the roles in the beginning were not much, she was successful in gaining those roles because of her ample physical attributes which placed her in two other films that year, Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) and Illegal (1955).

California license plate on her 1956 Lincoln Premiere convertible: NBB 851.

Her breakout role came the next year with a featured part in The Burglar (1957).

By the time she portrayed Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) and Playgirl After Dark (1960), Jayne was now known as the poor man's Marilyn Monroe. She did not get the plum roles that Marilyn got in her productions. Instead, her films were more of a showcase for her body more than anything else. She did have a real talent for acting, but the movie executives insisted she stay in her dumb blonde stereotype roles.

Gave birth to her second child at age 25, a son, Mickey Hargitay Jr. on December 21st, 1958. Child's father is her 2nd ex-husband, Mickey Hargitay.

By the 1960s, her career had options that grew lower.

Made Mr. Blackwell's Worst-Dressed List in 1961 with Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Shirley MacLaine. She also made the List in 1964.

By 1962, she was dropped from 20th Century Fox and the rest of her career had smaller options like being in B movies and low budget movies or performing at food stores or small nightclubs.

Initally divorced Mickey Hargitay on May 1, 1963; she divorced him again in Juarez, Mexico. On August 26, 1964, the California Superior Court recognized the Mexican divorce pronouncement.

Turned down the role of Ginger Grant on Gilligan's Island (1964), which went to Tina Louise.

Gave birth to her fifth child at age 32, a son, Tony Cimber, on October 18th, 1965. Child's father is her 3rd husband Matt Cimber.

Her final film, Single Room Furnished (1966), was released the following year.

While traveling from a nightclub in Biloxi, Mississippi and 30 miles from New Orleans to where she was to be on television the following day, she was killed instantly on Highway 90 in Slidell, Louisiana in a car crash in the early hours of June 29, 1967, when the car in which she was riding slammed into the back of a semi-tractor trailer truck that had stopped due to a truck in front of the tractor trailer that was spraying for bugs. Her car went under the truck at nearly 80 miles per hour. Her boyfriend Samuel Brody and their driver Ronnie Harrison, were also killed. The damage to the car was so bad that the engine was twisted sideways. She was not, however, decapitated, as had long been misreported. She was 34 years old.

Mansfield's funeral was on July 3, 1967 and hundreds of people lined the main street of Pen Argyl for Mansfield's funeral, a small private ceremony at Fairview Cemetery in Plainfield (outside Pen Argyl), Pennsylvania (where her father was also buried), attended by her family. The only ex-husband to attend was Mickey Hargitay.

In 1971, Beverly Brody sued the Mansfield estate for $325,000 ($2,011,000 in 2018 dollars) worth of presents and jewelry given to Mansfield by Sam Brody; the suit was settled out of court.

Los Angeles heavy metal band L.A. Guns had a top-40 hit in the early 1990s with a song called "The Ballad of Jayne", which was based on her.

The late model Buick that Jayne was killed in was locked in a garage for decades, in the same shape it was in after the crash. The owner, who was a huge fan, displayed it at various shows over the years, and it was sometimes billed as Jayne Mansfield's death car. The car was sold at auction in 1999 for $8000. Reportedly, the car still has the blood stains on the seats.

In 2000, Mansfield's 97 year old mother, Mrs. Vera Peers, was interred alongside Mansfield. After Mansfield's death, Mansfield's mother, as well as her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay, William Pigue (legal guardian for her daughter, Jayne Marie), Charles Goldring (Mansfield's business manager), and Bernard B.

She was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in March 2008 in Austin, Texas. Her daughter Mariska Hargitay accepted the award.

Cohen and Jerome Webber (both administrators of the estate) all filed unsuccessful suits to gain control of her estate, which was initially estimated at $600,000 ($3,712,000 in 2018 dollars), including the Pink Palace (estimated at $100,000 ($619,000 in 2018 dollars)), a sports car sold for $7,000 ($43,000 in 2018 dollars), her jewelry, and Sam Brody's $185,000 estate left to her in his last will ($1,145,000 in 2018 dollars).