Fads come and go. Flavors of the month come and go. As do hairdos and hemlines and bust sizes. But the infamous, legendary Jayne Mansfield still fascinates. After all, she didn’t ask to be born with big boobs. They just appeared. Let’s just say that the thought might have crossed her mind…Why not make the most of them?
Who was the real Jayne Mansfield? Even she wasn’t quite sure according to Eve Golden. What she was sure of was her searing ambition and total lack of self-doubt. Two big things that she had going for her. Aside from her obvious, well-publicized measurements: 40 – 21 – 35.
In this eye-opening, intriguing and oft-times laugh-out-loud biography of the busty blonde bombshell, Eve Golden has managed to bring to three dimensional life the facts and fantasies surrounding the ubiquitous sex symbol of the 50’s and 60’s.
The narrative speeds along as fast as Mansfield’s life attempts to catch up with her goals.
Lots of amazing photographs peppered with Golden’s subtle, sly humorous asides. Quoting friends and foes alike Eve Golden sure knows her movie-land history.
Born a brunette April 19, 1933 Vera Jayne Palmer was a mere thirty four years old when she tragically died June 29, 1967 of instantaneous brain trauma caused by a horrific automobile accident as Jayne Mansfield – the breathy, baby-talking, gaudy and bold super star celebrity she had become.
A Broadway sensation in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
A mediocre film actress at 20th Century Fox. They didn’t quite know what to do with her assets as opposed to the “Playboy” publisher who did.
A nightclub performer with her second husband Hungarian hunk Mickey Hargitay “Mr. Universe 1955” whom she met and abducted from the Mae West Review at New York’s Latin Quarter and had three children along with her first child Jayne Marie with Mr. Mansfield. She loved them all. She loved it all. Motherhood, men and her wild career. Married and divorced three times. Five children. The most famous, following in her mother’s footsteps, Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order fame.
Jayne’s public persona was ripe for double entendre jokes, puns and playfulness. Publicity could have been her middle name. She seemed to be everywhere.
A girl who couldn’t say no, who never refused the press for interviews and photographs or let the truth stand in the way of a good story continually stoking the flames and feeding her fans a steady diet of gossip with self-deprecating good humor and revealing photos. She played the piano and violin. Spoke five languages. And had a high 163 IQ.
A complicated eccentric who was genuinely interested in people as well as loving her Holmby Hills Pink Palace on Sunset with her heart shaped pink swimming pool and pink bathtub who never met a pink ribbon she wouldn’t cut or a supermarket opening she would turn down to keep her spendthrift lifestyle afloat. She filled her days and nights to overflowing levels with an endless supply of energy, drive, wit, men, wardrobe malfunctions, children and a menagerie of animals. Including a poodle dyed pink.
It would be impossible to make all this stuff up. Eve Gordon has turned in a perfect summer read. Light and frothy. Titillating. And all true.
Jayne Mansfield eventually gave up her dream of being a serious actress when she was paid big bucks as the model for a sexy starlet hot water bottle. Twenty two inches of pink vinyl – all in perfect anatomical proportion.
Highly entertaining. As the expression goes – “Double your pleasure, double your fun” and get a copy of Jayne Mansfield – the girl couldn’t help it!
Published 6/29/2021 – The University Press of Kentucky 502 pages 72 B/W photos Hardcover $34.95
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