Jayne Mansfield Interview: American Actress in Film, Theatre, and Television
Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 -- June 29, 1967) was an American actress in film, theatre, and television, a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates. More Jayne Mansfield:
She was a major Hollywood sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s. Mansfield was 20th Century Fox's alternative Marilyn Monroe and came to be known as the Working Man's Monroe. She was also known for her well-publicized personal life and publicity stunts.
Mansfield became a major Broadway star in 1955, a major Hollywood star in 1956, and a leading celebrity in 1957. She was one of Hollywood's original blonde bombshells, and although many people have never seen her movies, Mansfield remains one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture. With the decrease of the demand for big-breasted blonde bombshells and the increase in the negative backlash against her over-publicity, she became a box-office has-been by the end of the 1960s. Her career declined first to low-budget foreign movies and major Las Vegas nightclub dates; then to television guest appearances; next to touring plays and minor Las Vegas nightclub dates; and finally ended in small nightclub dates.
While Mansfield's film career was short-lived, she had several box office successes and won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe. She enjoyed success in the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in both the 1955--1956 Broadway version, and, in the 1957 Hollywood film version of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She showcased her comedic skills in The Girl Can't Help It (1956), her dramatic assets in The Wayward Bus (1957), and her sizzling presence in Too Hot to Handle (1960). She also sang for studio recordings, including the album Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me and the singles Suey and As the Clouds Drift by (with Jimi Hendrix). Mansfield's notable television work included television dramas Follow the Sun (1962) and Burke's Law (1964), game shows The Match Game (1964) and What's My Line? (1956--1966), variety shows The Jack Benny Program (1963) and The Bob Hope Show (1957--1963), the The Ed Sullivan Show (1957) a large number of talk shows.
By the early 1960s, Mansfield's box office popularity had declined and Hollywood studios lost interest in her. Some of the last attempts that Hollywood took to publicize her were in The George Raft Story (1961) and It Happened in Athens (1962). But, towards the end of her career, Mansfield remained a popular celebrity, continuing to attract large crowds outside the United States and in lucrative and successful nightclub acts (including The Tropicana Holiday and The House of Love in Las Vegas), and summer-theater work. Her film career continued with cheap independent films and European melodramas and comedies, with some of her later films being filmed in United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and Greece. In the sexploitation film Promises! Promises! (1963), she became the first major American actress to have a nude starring role in a Hollywood motion picture.
Mansfield was married three times, first to her public relations professional Paul Mansfield (married 1950--1958), second to actor--bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay (married 1958--1963), and third to film director Matt Cimber (married 1964--1966). She had five children: Jayne Marie Mansfield (born 1950), Miklós Jeffrey Palmer Hargitay (born 1958), Zoltán Anthony Hargitay (born 1960), actress Mariska Magdolna Hargitay (born 1964) and Antonio Tony Cimber (born 1965). In 1967 Mansfield died in an automobile accident at the age of 34.
Teachers, Editors, Businessmen, Publishers, Politicians, Governors, Theologians (1950s Interviews)
Interviewees:
Styles Bridges, American teacher, editor, and Republican Party politician from Concord, New Hampshire. He served one term as the 63rd Governor of New Hampshire before a twenty-four year career in the United States Senate.
Wallace F. Bennett, American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Utah from 1951 to 1974. He was the father of Bob Bennett, who later held his seat in the Senate (1993--2011).
William Benton, U.S. senator from Connecticut (1949--1953) and publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1943--1973).
John Shearin, editor of Catholic World
William Rosenblum, rabbi of Temple Israel of the City of New York
Robert J. McCracken, pastor, Riverside Church, Scottish-born professor of systematic theology
Charles Howard Graf, priest, St. John's Church
Alexander Grantham, British colonial administrator who governed Hong Kong and Fiji
Gladwyn Jebb, prominent British civil servant, diplomat and politician as well as the Acting Secretary-General of the United Nations
Benton was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was educated at Shattuck Military Academy, Faribault, Minnesota, and Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota until 1918, at which point he matriculated at Yale University, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity.
He graduated in 1921 and began work for advertising agencies in New York City and Chicago until 1929, after which he co-founded Benton & Bowles with Chester Bowles in New York. He moved to Norwalk, Connecticut in 1932, and served as the part-time vice president of the University of Chicago from 1937 to 1945. In 1944, he had entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Walt Disney to make six to twelve educational films annually.
He was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and held the position from 31 August 1945 to 30 September 1947, during which time he was active in organizing the United Nations. He was appointed to the United States Senate on 17 December 1949 by his old partner Chester Bowles (who had been elected Governor in 1948), and subsequently elected in the general election on 7 November 1950 as a Democrat to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Raymond E. Baldwin in December 1949 for the remainder of the term ending 3 January 1953.
In the November 1950 election, he defeated Republican party candidate Prescott Sheldon Bush, father of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather of U.S. President George W. Bush. In 1951 he introduced a resolution to expel Joseph McCarthy from the Senate. On television, when asked if he would take any action against Benton's reelection bid, McCarthy replied, I think it will be unnecessary. Little Willie Benton, Connecticut's mental midget keeps on... it will be unnecessary for me or anyone else to do any campaigning against him. He's doing his campaigning against himself. Benton lost in the general election for the full term in 1952 to William A. Purtell. Benton's comeback bid failed in 1958 when, running against Bowles and Thomas Dodd he failed to win the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. He was later appointed United States Ambassador to UNESCO in Paris and served from 1963 to 1968.