#jayne mansfield and the american fifties

[bitter69uk]

“The movie is a bedroom farce about a writer (Tommy Noonan) and his wife (Jayne) who are on a cruise with their friends, a famous actor (Mickey Hargitay) and his wife (Marie “The Body” McDonald). Tommy and Jayne want to have a baby, and Jayne takes various concoctions cooked up by the ship’s doctor. Tommy, who believes he is sterile, also drinks potency potions. There is a bedroom mix-up, a female impersonator who does Tallulah Bankhead imitations and two short sequences of Jayne thrashing about in bed bra-less, having disturbing dreams. It was because of these sequences that the movie was only shown in “art” theatres. Jet Fore, who was publicist for the movie, had erotic posters of Jayne printed up with a lot of words about the first time ever au naturel for a major star. Each sequence lasts about thirty seconds and bears no relation to the rest of the film which is as clean as a troop of Girl Scouts … In Promises … Promises! Jayne, wearing wedgies and skin-tight pedal pushers, straddles an open door and rubs her calf suggestively up and down against it. One expects the door to moan. It was theatre of sex at its most laughable.”

/ Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton, 1975 /

“It was at this point that Jayne made the most inexplicable, self-destructive move of her career, one that tipped her over from fading star to unemployable dirty joke. Actually, it was two moves: she agreed to star in the cheesy softcore porn film Promises … Promises! and to pose topless for Playboy … Why did Jayne agree to do nude scenes and in such a cheap film? She was not stupid or naïve when it came to show business – she had to have known no major studio would star her after this, and that family-friendly TV would be off-limits. But she had to work, even if she was a big nude fish in a small scummy pond.”

/ Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It by Eve Golden, 2021 /

Sixty-one years ago today (15 August 1963) in smut history: the notorious Jayne Mansfield nudie movie Promises … Promises! was released.

[cleopatragirlie]

❀ꗥ～ꗥ❀ 𝐉𝐚𝐲𝐧𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 ❀ꗥ～ꗥ❀

[njawaidofficial]

35 Famous People You Won't Believe Are Actually Related To Each Other

https://styleveryday.com/35-famous-people-you-wont-believe-are-actually-related-to-each-other/

35 Famous People You Won't Believe Are Actually Related To Each Other

Holy crap…

Jesse Eisenberg and Hallie Eisenberg are siblings:

You know Jesse from The Social Network, and you defffffinitely remember Hallie as the Pepsi girl in the late ’90s.

—orangejoe

Columbia Pictures / Pepsi

Kerry Washington and Colin Powell are cousins:

Yup! Olivia Pope herself is related to America’s former Secretary of State.

—Anna Rossmoor, Facebook

ABC / youtube.com

Jonah Hill’s sister is Beanie Feldstein:

Jonah Hill has two Oscar nominations under his belt (for Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street), and I have a feeling his sister (Neighbors 2 and Lady Bird) will soon catch up to him.

—primavolta

NBC / A24

Hugh Grant and Thomas Brodie-Sangster are cousins:

Actually, I love these Love Actually stars.

—anastasiapopovic

Universal Pictures

instagram.com

Kyle Massey and Chris Massey are brothers:

AKA Cory from Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven and Michael from Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101.

—keeleym2

Disney Channel / Nickelodeon

Kelly Clarkson’s mother-in-law is Reba McEntire:

Reba is the stepmother to Kelly’s husband, and together they have six Grammy Awards, including 27 total nominations.

—victorias4cb217152

ABC / Southern Living youtube.com

Blake Lively is half-siblings with Robyn Lively and Jason Lively:

Blake is known for her role on Gossip Girl, but her half-siblings are ’80s icons, with Robyn Lively starring in Teen Witch and Jason Lively portraying Rusty in National Lampoon’s European Vacation.

—Nathanael Cabral, Facebook

Lionsgate / Trans World Entertainment / Warner Bros.

And Blake Lively’s brother-in-law is Bart Johnson:

AKA Troy Bolton’s dad in High School Musical!

—jordans43125d2f3

Lionsgate / Disney Channel

Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis:

Jamie Lee Curtis is, of course, known for her roles in the Halloween series and Freaky Friday. Her Oscar-nominated parents are Hollywood royalty, with Janet Leigh starring in Psycho and Tony Curtis starring in Some Like it Hot.

—annakopsky

Disney / Paramount / United Artists

Whitney Houston and Dionne Warwick are cousins:

And they each have seven Grammy Awards to their names. Icons.

—lajaaaam

Warner Bros. / youtube.com

Sara Gilbert and Melissa Gilbert are sisters:

Even though they have the same last name, it’s kinda weird to think that Darlene from Roseanne and Laura from Little House on the Prairie are related.

—dougfancy101290

ABC / NBC

Rachel Brosnahan’s aunt is Kate Spade:

You know Rachel Brosnahan from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and you probably own something from Kate Spade (her fashion empire is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, FYI).

—Megan Gallegos, Facebook

Amazon / youtube.com

Ron Howard is Bryce Dallas Howard’s father:

The Oscar winner’s daughter stars in Jurassic World and the best episode of Black Mirror: “Nosedive.”

—k4c33bd126

ABC / Universal Pictures

Taissa Farmiga and Vera Farmiga are sisters:

The American Horror Story star is the younger sister to Oscar-nominee Vera Farmiga, who you probably recognize from Up in the Air and Bates Motel.

—jnuy

FX / Paramount Pictures

Bianca Lawson is Beyoncé’s stepsister:

Bianca Lawson has been playing a teenager on TV for decades, recently adding a new role to her resumé: stepsister to Queen Bey.

—tomasadik

MTV / youtube.com

Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty are siblings:

Both are Oscar winners, with 20 nominations between the two of them.

(Also, go watch Shirley in The Apartment right now if you’ve never seen it. You’re welcome.)

—jackj43a91e854

youtube.com / BBC

Dakota Johnson’s mom is Melanie Griffith, and her grandmother is Tippi Hedren:

You definitely know Dakota from the Fifty Shades series. Her mom, Melanie Griffith, is an Oscar nominee for Working Girl, the iconic ’80s flick. Tippi Hedren, Dakota’s grandmother, is still acting today, and you probably remember her from Hitchcock’s The Birds.

—laurenb4c686df00

Universal Pictures / 20th Century Fox / Universal Pictures

Ashlee Simpson’s mother-in-law is Diana Ross:

Ashlee is married to Evan Ross, whose mother is Diana Ross.

—aimeem4

youtube.com / Harpo Productions

And Tracee Ellis Ross is Diana Ross’s daughter:

You definitely know Tracee from Girlfriends and her Emmy-nominated work in Black-ish. Icons!

—margaretteps

instagram.com / instagram.com

Julia Roberts is Emma Roberts’s aunt:

Okay, okay, so you probably know this one already. But did you know that Julia’s brother/Emma’s dad is Oscar-nominee Eric Roberts?

—juliareznikov

Columbia Pictures / Fox

Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom is Blythe Danner:

Yup. Pepper Potts’s mom is actually Dina from Meet the Parents. Crazy! Between the two actresses, they have an Oscar, three Emmys, and a Golden Globe.

—lorim43d246285

BBC / youtube.com

Jason Sudeikis is George Wendt’s nephew:

The Saturday Night Live and Horrible Bosses star is related to Norm from Cheers.

—courtneyl42412d617

Warner Bros. Pictures / NBC

Billie Lourde’s mom is Carrie Fisher, and her grandmother is Debbie Reynolds:

You know Billie from Scream Queens, but her late mom will always be known as Princess Leia (and a fantastic writer), and her late grandmother will be remembered as Kathy from Singin’ in the Rain or Aggie Cromwell from Halloweentown.

—sorryimheather

instagram.com / instagram.com

Minnie Riperton is Maya Rudolph’s mom:

And Maya’s re-creation of her mom’s famous album cover for Perfect Angel is truly perfect.

—kendalyns

Scorbu Productions / NBC

Mariska Hargitay’s mom is Jayne Mansfield:

And both of them have a Golden Globe Award: Mariska for her work in Law & Order: SVU, and Jayne for her work in The Girl Can’t Help It.

—lorim43d246285

NBC / 20th Century Fox

Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez are brothers:

Charlie Hopper from Two and a Half Men and Coach Gordon Bombay from Mighty Ducks are brothers, and their dad is Martin Sheen!

—j40a7cdd5d

Hemdale Film Corporation / Universal Pictures

Emily Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel are sisters:

Sure, the last name gives it away, but it’s still wild to think that Temperance Brennan from Bones and Jess Day from New Girl are siblings.

—hayden44e

Fox / Fox

Snoop Dogg is cousins with Brandy and Ray J:

Talent runs in this family, with 29 Grammy nominations between the three of them (i.e. just Snoop and Brandy).

—singhaditya101010

instagram.com / Disney / Fox

Angelina Jolie is Jon Voight’s daughter:

They have six Oscar nominations between the two of them, including two wins (Jolie for Girl, Interrupted and Voight for Coming Home), and Jolie has an additional Honorary Oscar.

—lizforest1394

Universal Pictures / Buena Vista Pictures

Phil Collins is Lily Collins’s dad:

You know Phil Collins as an eight-time Grammy Award winner (and the reason you always ball your eyes out during Tarzan), but his daughter is a Golden Globe-nominated actress who you probably know from The Blind Side, Mirror Mirror, or Stuck in Love.

—nance23

CBS / Millennium Entertainment

Rob Schneider’s daughter is Elle King:

The Saturday Night Live alum is a staple in Adam Sandler films, and his daughter is a famous singer who has three Grammy nominations under her belt.

—jasonfunderberker

Buena Vista Pictures / NBC / instagram.com

Ashley Judd and Wynonna Judd are sisters:

Ashley is a two-time Golden Globe nominee, while her sister has four Grammy nominations.

—savannahroseh4d4392582

ABC / youtube.com

Anthony Perkins’s son is Oz Perkins:

You know Anthony Perkins from Psycho, and you’ll probably recognize his son as Dorky David from Legally Blonde.

—elizabethannb3

Paramount Pictures / MGM

And Halle Berry is somehow related to Sarah Palin:

And her reaction to the news is perfect: “I said, ‘Noooo!!!’ Some twisted way — somebody sent me this information that she was my distant [relative].”

—jennav4d4a1fd7f

CBS / NBC

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2rfgObJ

Each year automobile manufacturers produce tens of millions of automobiles, most of which will be bought and sold a number of times before ending up being crushed and recycled. Normally no one will notice that the vast majority of these vehicles ever existed, but once in a while an everyday automobile will end up playing a role in some great tragedy or historic event and so will live on in—so to speak—long after most of its contemporaries have been turned into scrap metal. Of course, which vehicles deserve to join that list is largely subjective, but here is my list of the top ten most historically or notorious automobiles ever to roll off an assembly line. NOTE: These are not famous Hollywood cars like the Batmobile or the Delorean from Back to the Future which, in reality, are little more than props. These are real vehicles that people could have owned—and did, often to their detriment.)

#1 Jayne Mansfield’s 1966 Buick Electra 225 What Marilyn Monroe was to the fifties, Jayne Mansfield was to the sixties. With her platinum blond ‘do and buxom figure, she even closely resembled the more famous Monroe, though she was never able to quite eclipse her better known rival. She would never have the chance to do so either when she was killed, along with her lover, Sam Brody, when the Buick Electra she was a passenger in ran into the back of a slow-moving truck in the pre-dawn hours of June 29, 1967 near Slidell, Louisiana. The crash took the roof off the car as it slid beneath the truck, killing all three passengers in the front—Mansfield among them—but miraculously leaving her three young children, sound asleep in the back seat, with only minor injuries. Reports that she was decapitated in the crash proved to be unfounded, though she did die of blunt trauma to the skull. The one positive thing from the tragedy was that to prevent cars from sliding up beneath the back of tractor-trailers in the future, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began requiring an underride guard (a strong bar made of steel tubing) on all tractor-trailers, which ultimately became known as a Mansfield bar. As for the Buick she died in, like James Dean’s Spyder, it too briefly went on display before ending up in the Tragedy in US History Museum in St. Augustine, Florida until the museum’s closing 1n 1998. What happened to it after that is anyone’s guess, though rumors abound that it was bought by a Mansfield enthusiast for a hefty sum of money.

#2 James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder Not a lot of people today may know who James Dean was, but back in the fifties he was a top name in Hollywood and a rapidly up and coming actor famous for his smoldering good looks and intense style. He was also famous for his love of racing and fast, European cars, so it wasn’t remarkable that he would end his life in one. And that’s exactly what happened when, on the afternoon of September 30, 1955, Dean and his co-driver, Rolf Wutherich, were involved in a head-on collision just a mile west of the town of Cholame, California. Colliding with a monster 1950 Ford Tudor coupe as it made a turn onto Route 41 directly into the path of Dean’s speeding roadster (thought at the time to be doing better than 85 miles per hour), Dean’s much lighter vehicle flipped into the air and landed on its wheels some forty feet away. Remarkably, both men were pulled from the smashed Spyder alive, but Dean died at the scene, abruptly bringing an end to a most promising career. As for the smashed roadster, it was shown around the country for several years afterwards as part of a driver safety display but has since disappeared. No one knows its whereabouts today, though chances are it’s probably stashed away in some wealthy collector’s secret warehouse somewhere.

#3 Princess Grace’s Porsche Rover P6 3500 In a graphic demonstration that royalty isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, on the morning of  September 13, 1982, former actress turned Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly suffered a stroke while driving down a curvy mountainous road in Monaco (a small principality on the Mediterranean coast of France) and plunged into a ravine. The crash left her unconscious and with serious internal injuries that she died from the next day. (Remarkably, her passenger and teenage daughter, Princess Stephanie, survived the harrowing crash with just a few scratches and bruises.) Not surprisingly, like the Mercedes Benz another ill-fated royal, Princess Diana, was to die in fifteen years later, (see No. 4) the wrecked Porsche was quietly “disposed of”–supposedly by being crushed into a cube and dropped to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

#4 Adolf Hitler’s 770-K Mercedes-Benz staff cars Some automobiles acquire fame—or infamy, as the case may be—by being a participant in some great historical event or grisly tragedy. In this case, however, Hitler’s staff cars were involved in neither (unless you consider World War II to be both) but are famous for being owned by arguably the most notorious figure of the twentieth century. Der Fuhrer ordered several of these massive, armored-plated behemoths to tool around the Third Reich in and, remarkably, almost all of them survive to this day. Perhaps the most famous of these is the one currently on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Canada that was captured by an American soldier during the last days of the war. Confiscated by the army, it made its way through a succession of owners until finally ending up being donated to the museum in 1970, where it remains to this day. A second car was presented to Finnish Field Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim by Hitler as a gift and to cement the Finno-German alliance. Never a big fan of the German corporal, Mannerheim promptly had the car shipped off to Sweden for “safe storage” and promptly forgot about it. The Swedes eventually seized the car for back taxes  and sold it to an American industrialist in 1948, who used it for promotional tours and raising money for various charities. A third car resides at the Technisches Museum in Sinsheim, Germany while others reside in the private collections of several wealthy millionaires around the world.

#5 President Reagan’s 1972 Ford Lincoln Continental This vehicle became almost as infamous as President Kennedy’s Lincoln when newly elected President Ronald Reagan was shot while getting into the car in front of the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981. Unlike his unfortunate predecessor, however, the bullet proved to be non-fatal—though just barely—and “the Gipper” went on to serve two terms. The car was also at another presidential assassination attempt, this one involving President Jerry Ford back in September of 1975, when a woman named Sarah Jane Moore took a few pot shots at him from across the street as he was getting into the vehicle. Moore missed, however, and spent the next thirty years in prison thinking about it. Today the car resides at the Henry Form Museum in Dearborn, Michigan next to JFK’s assassination car to serve as a poignant reminder at just how difficult protecting a sitting president can be.

#6 Bonnie & Clyde’s 1934 Ford Model 730 Deluxe Sedan Few outlaws in history have managed to capture as much attention as did two young bank robbers, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrows, during the Depression years, and few cars remain as famous as the Ford V8 they died in. Ambushed by police just outside of Bienville Parish, Louisiana on the morning of May 23, 1934, the couple were cut to pieces before they could surrender (if, in fact, they were ever given the chance) and died as fast and furious as they lived. It is said that between the two of them, they were hit by as many as 160 bullets, though this is an exaggeration. The bullet-riddled car itself became an icon of the gangster era and was put on display for decades by numerous owners before it ended up being sold to the Primm Valley Resort and Casino in Nevada for $250,000 in 1988. According to the internet, it has since been sold to the Terrible’s Casino in Nevada and is now supposedly on display at one of their casinos in Saint Joseph, Missouri.

#7 Princess Diana Spencer’s (Lady Di) Mercedes-Benz W140 In a modern fairy tale gone horribly awry, the world was shocked when it woke up on the morning of August 31, 1997 to discover that Lady Diana Spencer, the former wife of Charles, the Prince of Wales and, had she not divorced him, a potential future queen of England, had been killed in a horrific automobile accident on the streets of Paris, France early that morning. In an event that still generates much controversy today, the official story is that she died when the car she was riding in with her fiancee, Egyptian producer and billionaire Dodi Fayed and two other men, slammed into a concrete support pillar at high speed while purportedly trying to outrun the always present paparazzi. The crash killed both Fayed and the driver instantly and left a third man and Princess Di critically injured. Though apparently conscious immediately after the accident, she expired a few hours later at the hospital from massive internal injuries. Though blame for the crash was officially placed on the driver—whom tests determined to have had an extremely high blood alcohol level at the time—others blamed the paparazzi (several of whom were arrested but later released) for being a factor, though later investigation showed they were not near the vehicle at the time of the accident. Conspiracy theories that she was killed by British Special Forces at the behest of the royal family quickly spread and, though they have never been substantiated, they continue unabated today. As for the smashed Mercedes at the center of the affair, it appears to have disappeared immediately after the crash; most likely it was quietly “disposed of” in deference to the royal family and to keep it from serving as a morbid relic of the truly tragic event.

#8 Rosa Park’s Number 2857 1948 General Motors TDH-3610 City Transit Bus In one of the defining moments of the twentieth century, on the afternoon of December 1, 1955, a 42-year old African-American woman and Montgomery, Alabama resident by the name of Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger and was dutifully arrested. Little did she realize that her simple act of civil disobedience would start a firestorm that over the course of the next decade would not only end segregation throughout the south but would result in the sweeping civil rights legislation of the 1960s. The bus remained in service until it was retired in 1970 and was purchased by a gentlemen who left it parked in a field behind his home and used it to store tools. His descendants decided to sell it in 2000 and, after having it authenticated as the actual bus Mrs. Parks was on, eventually sold it via an internet auction to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan for a whopping $428,000 (about 250 times what the bus cost new in 1948)! Restored to its original condition and looking much as it did in 1955, today it is available for public inspection as one of the most historically famous vehicles of the century.

#9 President Kennedy’s 1961 Ford Lincoln convertible A participant in one of the seminal events of American history, few cars are as famous as the dark blue limousine President Kennedy was riding in when he was struck down by an assassin’s bullet on the streets of Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. In fact, few images are more iconic than that of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill clambering onto the trunk of the limo as it picks up speed in an effort to prevent Mrs. Kennedy, who had crawled onto the truck of the car, from falling off the vehicle. The car underwent a major facelift in the aftermath of the shooting—including turning it permanently from a convertible into a very hard top—and other major cosmetic changes that made it look considerably different than it did that day in Dallas. The car went on to be used by four other presidents before being retired in 1977 and today sits in display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Because it looks so different from the car they remember seeing in the video of the assassination, many people walk right past it, never realizing for even a moment how historically important the vehicle is.

#10 Franz Ferdinand’s 1911 Graf & Stift Double Phaeton I’ve chosen this vehicle as number one for one simple reason: it was the scene of arguably one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century. The sort of car built exclusively for royalty, this was in this vehicle that Austro-Hungarian leader Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were riding in when they were gunned down by assassins on the streets of Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914. Due to the political tensions in the region at the time, the deaths became highly politicized and led to rioting by ultra-nationalist residents against local Serbs. In a series of one diplomatic miscalculation after another, the incident eventually escalated into full-blown war when Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia (whom it held partially responsible for the assassination), which was reciprocated a day later by Serbia’s chief ally, Russia, declaring war on Austro-Hungary. This, in turn, induced Austria’s ally, Germany, to declare war on Russia, which triggered declarations of war by France and England against Germany, until soon pretty much everybody was at war with everybody else, the result being the First World War and 16 million deaths. While urban legends swirled around the fate of the car (it was supposedly involved in numerous fatal accidents and bad luck for subsequent owners) none of these proved to be true. Instead, the car was put on permanent display in the Museum of Military History in Vienna, Austria, along with assassin’s gun and other related items, where it remains to this day to stand as a mute reminder of how very large fires can be ignited by a very small spark.

Source: TopTenz

[bitter69uk]

"Mickey’s critics like to point out his failures. He succeeded, however, at making Jayne happy for a while. His secret was extreme passivity under the guise of total indulgence … Mickey provided the quiet, super-masculine presence and Jayne provided the excitement.” 

/ From Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties (1975), Martha Saxton’s essential biography / feminist analysis of the doomed, messy but fabulous life of Jayne Mansfield /

Born on this day 97 years ago: Mr Universe 1955 Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay (6 January 1926 – 14 September 2006). Forget Liz and Dick or Kanye and Kim: the ultimate trashy, publicity-crazed show business couple was Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay. (Seen here at the Cannes film festival circa 1964).

[bitter69uk]

“It was a successful holiday. The kids had a good time and there were lots of presents. Zoltan got special treatment of course, as well as a robot, a bat, baseballs, a kickstand for his bike and plenty of other things. Jayne was happy to have Zoltan home and happy to have been on the front page for three weeks.  She wasn’t callous about Zoltan’s injury. She was terribly upset, but it was natural for her to think of telling the press. She was accustomed to reading about herself and she knew the public would be interested. The news was made, and Jayne wasn’t going to suppress it. She had worked for years to become news and her reward was having the press cooperate with her. There were pictures of Jayne and Zoltan, Jayne, Sam and Jayne, Mickey and Jayne and Zoltan, Jayne and Zoltan on the front pages of newspapers all across the country. Jayne’s grief was transcontinental.” 

/ From Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton (1975) / 

Pictured: Christmas day 1966 at the Pink Palace, Jayne Mansfield’s final Christmas. (Her fatal car crash was in June 1967). On 27 November 1966 Mansfield and her children were visiting Jungleland USA, a zoo and theme park in the San Fernando Valley, when in a freak accident her six-year-old son Zoltan was severely mauled by a lion.  After surgery and weeks of recuperation, Zoltan was allowed home on Christmas morning to be greeted by a twenty-foot tree, a towering mound of gifts and – and perhaps inevitably – a houseful of photographers and journalists. As Mansfield’s most recent biographer Eve Golden recalls in The Girl Couldn’t Help It (2021), “A reporter asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and Zoltan – his mother’s son when it came to a good quip – told him, “A lion tamer.””

[bitter69uk]

"Mickey’s critics like to point out his failures. He succeeded, however, at making Jayne happy for a while. His secret was extreme passivity under the guise of total indulgence … Mickey provided the quiet, super-masculine presence and Jayne provided the excitement.”

/ From Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties (1975), Martha Saxton’s essential biography / feminist analysis of the doomed, messy but fabulous life of Jayne Mansfield /

Born on this day 97 years ago: Mr Universe 1955 Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay (6 January 1926 – 14 September 2006). Forget Liz and Dick or Kanye and Kim: the ultimate trashy, publicity-crazed show business couple was Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay (seen here photographed 17 May 1964).

[cleopatragirlie]

❀ꗥ～ꗥ❀ 𝐉𝐚𝐲𝐧𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 ❀ꗥ～ꗥ❀

[bitter69uk]

“It was a successful holiday. The kids had a good time and there were lots of presents. Zoltan got special treatment of course, as well as a robot, a bat, baseballs, a kickstand for his bike and plenty of other things. Jayne was happy to have Zoltan home and happy to have been on the front page for three weeks. She wasn’t callous about Zoltan’s injury. She was terribly upset, but it was natural for her to think of telling the press. She was accustomed to reading about herself and she knew the public would be interested. The news was made, and Jayne wasn’t going to suppress it. She had worked for years to become news and her reward was having the press cooperate with her. There were pictures of Jayne and Zoltan, Jayne, Sam and Jayne, Mickey and Jayne and Zoltan, Jayne and Zoltan on the front pages of newspapers all across the country. Jayne’s grief was transcontinental.”

/ From Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton (1975) /

Pictured: Christmas day 1966 at the Pink Palace, Jayne Mansfield’s final Christmas. (Her fatal car crash was in June 1967). On 27 November 1966 Mansfield and her children were visiting Jungleland USA, a zoo and theme park in the San Fernando Valley, when in a freak accident her six-year-old son Zoltan was severely mauled by a lion. After surgery and weeks of recuperation, Zoltan was allowed home on Christmas morning to be greeted by a twenty-foot tree, a towering mound of gifts and – and perhaps inevitably – a houseful of photographers and journalists. As Mansfield’s most recent biographer Eve Golden recalls in The Girl Couldn’t Help It (2021), “A reporter asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and Zoltan – his mother’s son when it came to a good quip – told him, “A lion tamer.””

[bitter69uk]

“Not surprisingly, Mickey played Hercules, well-oiled and wearing what seemed to be a very short skating skirt adorned with leather suspenders. Unlike any other male in the movie, Mickey is tanned and greased and so muscle-bound that he can’t walk with his arms at his sides but looks like some kind of great, jerky mechanical bear. The plot, very sketchily, has Mickey’s first wife murdered. He sets out to seek revenge, meets a black-haired tribal queen and falls in love in nine minutes. The black-haired queen is played by Jayne, wearing a black wig and a padded bra. It was some kind of gravitational miracle that she didn’t fall over with all that frontage on her. At any rate, she and Hercules have to overcome a lot of obstacles to their love, including the murderous impulses of the red-haired Amazon queen who captures Hercules. Jayne plays the Amazon queen in a different wig but the same bra. The movie is dubbed in a variety of accents so that Mickey delivers Shakespearean English, Jayne West Coast American and the others sound indigenous to locales between Los Angeles and London … Jayne’s dual roles were an object lesson in male fantasy. She gets to play the demanding, emasculating woman men fear and the demure, passive woman they want.”

/ From Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton, 1975 /

Released in Italian cinemas 63 years ago today (19 August 1960): “sword-and-sandals” peplum film The Loves of Hercules (aka Hercules vs the Hydra) starring fabulous fame-crazed husband and wife duo Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield, made in Cinemascope at the height of the “Hollywood on the Tiber” era. In the UK at least, this movie is seemingly impossible to see. Over the years some scratchy, faded versions have surfaced on YouTube – but always dubbed exclusively in Italian! Where oh where is the 4K restoration English language director’s cut Blu-ray?

[bitter69uk]

“That summer Jayne went to Germany where she made a movie called Heimweh nach St Pauli, or Homesick for St Pauli with a German rock star named Freddy Quinn, an Elvis Presley imitator. It is a musical in which Jayne sang a couple of songs in German with glockenspiels and accordion in the background. In this country the film was released only in a couple of theatres in Yorktown [sic: she means Yorkville], the German section of New York City. While Jayne was in Munich, she wrote to her friends that she was very upset, confused and unsure of herself. One thing that was one her mind was that she was pregnant.”

/ Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton, 1975 /

“At the end of May Jayne, Mickey Jr and Zoltan flew to Hamburg where Jayne made her first and only German film, Heimweh nach St Pauli (Homesick for St Pauli) … St Pauli was directed by Werner Jacobs, whose long career included German versions of Heidi and The Merry Widow; it was based on a play by Gustav Kampendonk, who also wrote the script. Both men specialized in lightweight, whipped-cream movies and Heimweh nach St Pauli was no exception. The production company, Rapid Film, was not as squeaky-clean, with titles such as Swinging Wives, The Resort Girls and Carnal Campus to its credit, but Jacobs and Kampendonk rose above their producers’ rowdiness and made a film anyone could take their grandmother to see … St Pauli – which was shot very quickly for a big-budget musical – is a silly, enjoyable film with songs and dances crammed in approximately every five minutes …”

/ Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It by Eve Golden, 2021 /

(Barely) released on this day (29 August 1963) sixty-one years ago: sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield’s little-seen German film Heimweh nach St Pauli (pictured). Thankfully her ultra-kitsch musical numbers (“Snicksnack Snucklechen” and “Wo ist Der Mann?”) are viewable on YouTube.

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“That summer Jayne went to Germany where she made a movie called Heimweh nach St Pauli, or Homesick for St Pauli with a German rock star named Freddy Quinn, an Elvis Presley imitator. It is a musical in which Jayne sang a couple of songs in German with glockenspiels and accordion in the background. In this country the film was released only in a couple of theatres in Yorktown, the German section of New York City. While Jayne was in Munich, she wrote to her friends that she was very upset, confused and unsure of herself. One thing that was one her mind was that she was pregnant.”

/ Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton, 1975 /

“At the end of May Jayne, Mickey Jr and Zoltan flew to Hamburg where Jayne made her first and only German film, Heimweh nach St Pauli (Homesick for St Pauli) … St Pauli was directed by Werner Jacobs, whose long career included German versions of Heidi and The Merry Widow; it was based on a play by Gustav Kampendonk, who also wrote the script. Both men specialized in lightweight, whipped-cream movies and Heimweh nach St Pauli was no exception. The production company, Rapid Film, was not as squeaky-clean, with titles such as Swinging Wives, The Resort Girls and Carnal Campus to its credit, but Jacobs and Kampendonk rose above their producers’ rowdiness and made a film anyone could take their grandmother to see … St Pauli – which was shot very quickly for a big-budget musical – is a silly, enjoyable film with songs and dances crammed in approximately every five minutes …”

/ Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It by Eve Golden, 2021 /

(Barely) released on this day (29 August 1963) sixty years ago: sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield’s little-seen German film Heimweh nach St Pauli. Thankfully her ultra-kitsch musical numbers (“Snicksnack Snucklechen” and “Wo ist Der Mann?”) are viewable on YouTube.

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"Mickey’s critics like to point out his failures. He succeeded, however, at making Jayne happy for a while. His secret was extreme passivity under the guise of total indulgence … Mickey provided the quiet, super-masculine presence and Jayne provided the excitement.” 

/ From Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties (1975), Martha Saxton’s essential biography / feminist analysis of the doomed, messy but fabulous life of Jayne Mansfield /

Born on this day 96 years ago: Mr Universe 1955 Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay (6 January 1926 – 14 September 2006). Forget Liz and Dick or Kanye and Kim: the ultimate trashy, publicity-crazed show business couple was Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay.

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“Over the years publicity had an effect on Jayne’s perceptions. She ceased to recognize a difference between public and private. Her love affairs and her children were news … She had become the person she and the newsmen had created. She depended upon seeing herself as a way of confirming who she was …  She had come to a point where she simply didn’t know onstage from off … towards the end of her life Jayne was on a TV talk show with Mickey (ex-husband Mickey Hargitay) in the Midwest. Mickey was gaunt having suffered from ulcers and given up bodybuilding. Jayne looked at him and said she was sorry for all the trouble she’d given him and that she wished she had been nicer. Jayne had forgotten that she was on camera or, rather, it made no difference to her.” 

Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties (1975) by Martha Saxton will always be a sacred text for me. Saxton is exceptionally insightful about the tumultuous, on-off relationship between Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay, my all-time favourite show business couple. I love this moody shot of them, where the public veneer has fleetingly dropped. 

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On this day 62 years ago (13 January 1958), quintessential show business couple Jayne Mansfield and Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay married. Their tumultuous on-and-off relationship would play out within the flashbulbs of international paparazzi. They would have three children together, perform together on film and onstage in Las Vegas, ultimately divorcing in 1964. (Mansfield would die in 1967). The venue was Wayfarers’ Cathedral, a glass church situated on a cliff in Palos Verdes south of Los Angeles. 100 guests attended (an estimated 50 were journalists). The wedding invitations were pink. The event was a major publicity sensation of its time. In her definitive biography Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties (1975), author Martha Saxton provides this scene report: ““I do want everything to be dignified,” Jayne said. “We’re very serious about this marriage. We don’t want a lot of publicity” … Jayne emerged from her limousine late. She was wearing a pale pink lace dress designed for a smaller woman. The gown was skin-tight to the knee then flared in two tiers of flounces … Jayne said, “I wanted to make Jayne Marie [her 8-year-old daughter] my flower girl, but I didn’t think it would be right for a second marriage.” Jayne hobbled down the aisle while Donald Maloof sang “Because.” At the altar, she met Mickey done up in an Italian silk mohair tuxedo with swirls of purple and black. Someone had taken away his white socks and given him black ones to go with his patent leather pumps.” 

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Ultra Twist! Jayne Mansfield (1933 – 1967) doing the twist with third and final husband, exploitation filmmaker Matt Cimber (their brief, volatile marriage lasted from 1964 to 1966. They had one child together, a son called Antonio). Cimber directed Jayne in her last film Single Room Furnished (1968) and then ventured into the realms of soft core pornography and blaxploitation. His last films of note were Butterfly (1982) and Fake-Out (1982), starring kitsch icon and Jayne’s natural successor – Pia Zadora!