| Jayne Mansfield | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name: | Vera Jayne Palmer |
| Born: | April 19, 1933 |
| Birth Hometown: | Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania |
| Died: | June 29, 1967 |
| Place of death: | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Occupation: | Actress Singer Playboy Playmate Nightclub entertainer Model |
| Years active: | 1954-1967 |
Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Mansfield was known for her well-publicized personal life and publicity stunts. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Mansfield enjoyed success in the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in the Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955–1956), which she reprised in the film adaptation of the same name (1957). Her other film roles include the musical comedy The Girl Can't Help It (1956), the drama The Wayward Bus (1957), the neo-noir Too Hot to Handle (1960), and the sex comedy Promises! Promises! (1963); the latter established Mansfield as the first major American actress to perform in a nude scene in a post-silent era film.
Mansfield took her professional name from her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She married three times, all of which ended in divorce, and had five children. She was allegedly intimately involved with numerous men, including Robert and John F. Kennedy, her attorney Samuel S. Brody, and Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli. On June 29, 1967, she died in an automobile accident in Eastern New Orleans at the age of 34.
Early life[]
Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Herbert William Palmer (1904–1936), of English and German ancestry, and Vera Jeffrey (née Palmer) Palmer (1903–2000), of English and Cornish descent. She inherited more than $90,000 from her maternal grandfather, Thomas , and more than $36,000 from her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Mary Palmer, in 1958 .
She spent her early childhood in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where her father was an attorney practicing with future New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner. In 1936, her father died of a heart attack. In 1939 her mother married sales engineer Harry Lawrence Peers, and the family moved to Dallas, Texas, where she was known as Vera Jayne Peers. As a child she wanted to be a Hollywood star like Shirley Temple. At age 12, she took ballroom dance lessons. She graduated from Highland Park High School in 1950. While in high school, Palmer took violin, piano, and viola lessons. She also studied Spanish and German. She consistently received grades in the high Bs in all subjects.
At age 17, she married Paul Mansfield on May 6, 1950. Their daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield, was born six months later on November 8, 1950. Jayne and her husband enrolled in Southern Methodist University to study acting. In 1951, Jayne moved to Los Angeles and attended a summer semester at UCLA. She entered the Miss California contest but was forced to resign after Paul found out. She then moved to Austin, Texas, with her husband, and studied dramatics at the University of Texas at Austin. There she worked as a nude art model, sold books door-to-door, and worked as a receptionist at a dance studio. She also joined the Curtain Club, a campus theatrical society that included among its members lyricist Tom Jones, composer Harvey Schmidt, and actors Rip Torn and Pat Hingle. She then spent a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia (a US Army training facility) when Paul Mansfield served in the United States Army Reserve in the Korean War.
In 1953, she moved back to Dallas, and for several months was a student of actor Baruch Lumet, father of director Sidney Lumet and founder of the Dallas Institute of Performing Arts. Lumet gave her private lessons and called Mansfield and Rip Torn his "kids". Lumet would eventually help Jayne get her first screen test at Paramount in April 1954. Paul, Jayne, and Jayne Marie moved to Los Angeles in 1954. Jayne worked at a variety of odd jobs including: selling popcorn at the Stanley Warner Theatre, teaching dance, selling candy at a movie theater, modeling part-time at the Blue Book Model Agency, and working as a photographer at Esther Williams' Trails Restaurant.
Career[]
While attending The University of Texas at Austin, Mansfield won several beauty contests, including Miss Photoflash, Miss Magnesium Lamp, and Miss Fire Prevention Week. By her own account, the only title she refused was Miss Roquefort Cheese, because she believed it "just didn't sound right". Jayne later also rejected "Miss Prime Rib" in 1957. In 1952, while in Dallas, she and Paul Mansfield participated in small local-theater productions of The Slaves of Demon Rum and Ten Nights in a Barroom, and Anything Goes in Camp Gordon, Georgia. After he left for military service, she made her first significant stage appearance in a production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman on October 22, 1953, with the players of the Knox Street Theater, headed by Lumet. While at UCLA, she entered the Miss California contest (hiding her marital status), and won the local round before withdrawing.
Early in her career, some advertisers considered her prominent breasts undesirable, which led to her losing her first professional assignment – a commercial for General Electric that depicted young women in bathing suits relaxing around a pool. Emmeline Snively, head of the Blue Book Model Agency, had sent her to photographer Gene Lester, which led to her short-lived assignment in the General Electric commercial. In 1954, she auditioned at both Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. At Paramount, Jayne performed a sketch she had worked out with Lumet from Joan of Arc for casting director Milton Lewis. Lewis informed her that she was wasting her "obvious talents" and had her come back a week later to perform the piano scene from The Seven Year Itch. Jayne failed to impress but learned she would have to go blonde. She then performed the piano scene for Warner Brothers, but, again, failed to impress. She landed her first acting assignment in Lux Video Theatre, a series on CBS in the episode "An Angel Went AWOL", aired on October 21, 1954. In it, she sat at a piano and delivered a few lines of dialogue for $300.
In December 1953, Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy. The magazine became a success, in part, because of early appearances from Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, and Anita Ekberg. In February 1955, Mansfield was the Playboy Playmate of the Month, and appeared in the magazine several times. Her February appearance increased the magazine's circulation and helped boost Mansfield's career. Shortly afterward, she posed for the Playboy calendar, covering her breasts with her hands. Playboy featured Mansfield each February from 1955 to 1958, and again in 1960.
In August 1956, Paul Mansfield sought custody of his daughter, alleging that Jayne was an unfit mother because she appeared nude in Playboy. In 1964, the magazine repeated the 1955 pictorial. Playboy reprinted photos from that pictorial issue, with titles such as December 1965's "The Playboy Portfolio of Sex Stars", and January 2000s "Centerfolds of the Century".
Mansfield's first film part was a supporting role in Female Jungle, a low-budget drama completed in ten days. Her part was filmed over a few days, and she was paid $150 . It was released unofficially in early 1955. In February 1955, James Byron, her manager and publicist, negotiated a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers, who were intrigued by her publicity antics. The contract initially paid her $250 a week and landed her two films – one with an insignificant role and another unreleased for two years. She filed for separation from Paul Mansfield that January. Mansfield was given bit parts in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), starring Jack Webb, and Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), starring Alan Ladd. She acted in one more movie for Warner Brothers – another small but significant role opposite Edward G. Robinson in the courtroom drama Illegal (1955).
Mansfield's agent, William Shiffrin, signed her to play fictional film star Rita Marlowe in the Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Orson Bean and Walter Matthau. She accepted the part while working in producer Louis W. Kellman's The Burglar (1957), director Paul Wendkos's film adaptation of David Goodis' novel, made in film noir style. Mansfield appeared alongside Dan Duryea and Martha Vickers. It was released two years later, when Mansfield's fame was at its peak. She was successful in this straight dramatic role, though most of her subsequent film appearances were comedic or capitalized on her sex appeal. It was Kellman's first major venture, and he claimed to have "discovered" Mansfield. She was announced for Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in mid-July 1955 and was dropped by Warner Brothers on July 31. Twentieth Century-Fox signed Mansfield to a six-year contract on May 3, 1956, in its New York office to mold her as a successor to the increasingly difficult Marilyn Monroe, their resident blonde sex symbol, who had just completed the very difficult Bus Stop. Mansfield was still under contract to Broadway and continued playing Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on stage until September 15, 1956. She undertook her first starring film role as Jerri Jordan in Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956). Originally titled Do-Re-Mi, it featured a high-profile cast of contemporary rock and roll and R&B artists including Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino, The Platters and Little Richard. Released in December 1956, The Girl Can't Help It became one of the year's biggest successes, both critically and financially, earning more than Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had three years before. Soon afterward, Fox started promoting Mansfield as "Marilyn Monroe king-sized", attempting to coerce Monroe to return to the studio and complete her contract.Mansfield next played a dramatic role in The Wayward Bus (1957), an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel of the same name. With this film, she attempted to move away from her "blonde bombshell" image and establish herself as a serious actress. The film enjoyed moderate box-office success, and Mansfield won a Golden Globe in 1957 for New Star of the Year, beating Carroll Baker and Natalie Wood for her performance as a "wistful derelict". It was "generally conceded to have been her best acting", according to The New York Times, in a fitful career hampered by her flamboyant image, distinctive voice ("a soft-voiced coo punctuated with squeals"), voluptuous figure and limited acting range. Tashlin cast Mansfield in the film version of the Broadway show Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, released in 1957, reprising her role of Rita Marlowe alongside costars Tony Randall and Joan Blondell. Fox launched its new blonde bombshell with a North American tour and a 40-day, 16-country tour of Europe. She attended the premiere of the film (released as Oh! For a Man in the UK) in London, and met Queen Elizabeth II.
Mansfield's fourth starring role in a Hollywood film was in Kiss Them for Me (also 1957), for which she received prominent billing alongside Cary Grant. However, in the film itself she is little more than comic relief; Grant's character relates to a redhead played by fashion model Suzy Parker. The film, described as "vapid" and "ill-advised", was a critical and box-office flop, and marked one of the last attempts by 20th Century-Fox to publicize Mansfield. The continuing publicity surrounding Mansfield's physical appearance failed to sustain her career. Fox gave her a leading role opposite Kenneth More in The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958), a western comedy filmed on location in Spain. In the film, Mansfield's three songs were dubbed by singer Connie Francis. Fox released the film in the United States in 1959, and it was Mansfield's last mainstream film success. Columbia Pictures offered her a part opposite James Stewart and Jack Lemmon in the romantic comedy Bell, Book and Candle (1958), but she turned it down because she was pregnant. Fox then attempted to cast Mansfield opposite Paul Newman in Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), his ill-fated first attempt at comedy.
With a decreased demand for big-breasted, blonde bombshells and an increasing negative backlash against her excessive publicity, Mansfield became a box-office has-been by the early 1960s, yet she remained a celebrity, still able to attract large crowds outside the United States by way of lucrative and successful nightclub acts.
Mansfield gained no major star role in film roles after 1959. She was unable to fulfill a third of her contract with Fox due to her reported "repeated pregnancies". Fox stopped viewing her as a major Hollywood star and started loaning her and her likeness out to foreign productions in England and Italy, respectively, until the end of her contract in 1962. Many of her English/Italian films are regarded obscure and some considered lost.
In 1959, Fox cast her in two independent gangster films shot in the United Kingdom: The Challenge and Too Hot to Handle, both released the following year. Both films were low-budget, and their American releases were delayed. Too Hot to Handle was not released in the United States until 1961 as Playgirl After Dark. The Challenge was released in 1963 as It Takes a Thief. In the United States, censors objected to a scene in Too Hot to Handle in which Mansfield, wearing silver netting with sequins painted over her nipples, appears nearly nude.
When Mansfield returned to Hollywood in mid-1960, 20th Century Fox cast her in It Happened in Athens (1962) with Trax Colton, a handsome newcomer Fox was trying to mold into a heartthrob. She received first billing above the title but appeared in only a supporting role. The Olympic Games-based film was shot in Greece in the fall of 1960 but was not released until June 1962. It was a box-office failure, and 20th Century Fox dropped Mansfield's contract. In 1961, Mansfield signed on for a minor role but above-the-title billing in The George Raft Story, released the following year. Starring Ray Danton as Raft, the film showcased Mansfield in a small part as a glamorous film star. Soon after the film's release, she returned to European films, appearing in low-budget foreign films such as Heimweh nach St. Pauli (1963, Germany), L'Amore Primitivo (1964, Italy), Panic Button (1964, Italy) and Einer frisst den anderen (1964, Germany).
Tommy Noonan persuaded Mansfield to become the first mainstream American actress to appear nude in a starring role, in the film Promises! Promises! (1963). Playboy published nude photographs of Mansfield on the set in its June 1963 issue, resulting in obscenity charges against Hugh Hefner in a Chicago court. Promises! Promises! was banned in Cleveland, Ohio, but enjoyed box-office success elsewhere. As a result of the film's success, Mansfield landed on the Top 10 list of box-office attractions for that year. Soon after her success in Promises! Promises!, Mansfield was chosen from many other actresses to replace the recently deceased Marilyn Monroe in Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), a romantic comedy also starring Dean Martin. She turned down the role because of her pregnancy with daughter Mariska Hargitay, and was replaced by Kim Novak. That same year, Mansfield appeared in a pinup book called Jayne Mansfield for President: the White House or Bust,which was promoted on billboards; David Attie, a commercial and fine art photographer, took the photographs.
In 1966, Mansfield was cast in Single Room Furnished, directed by then-husband Matt Cimber. The film required Mansfield to portray three different characters, and was her first starring, dramatic role in several years. It was released briefly in 1966, but did not enjoy a full release until 1968, almost a year after her death. After Single Room Furnished wrapped, Mansfield was cast opposite Mamie Van Doren and Ferlin Husky in The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966), a low-budget comedy from Woolner Brothers. It was her first country and western film, and she promoted it through a 29-day tour of major U.S. cities, accompanied by Husky, Don Bowman and other country musicians. Before filming began, Mansfield said she would not "share any screen time with the drive-in's answer to Marilyn Monroe", meaning Van Doren. Though their characters did share one scene, Mansfield and Van Doren filmed their parts at different times to be edited together later.
Mansfield's wardrobe relied on the shapeless styles of the 1960s to hide her weight gain after the birth of her fifth child. Despite career setbacks, she remained a highly visible celebrity during the early 1960s through her publicity antics and stage performances. In early 1967, Mansfield filmed her last role, a cameo in A Guide for the Married Man, a comedy starring Walter Matthau, Robert Morse and Inger Stevens. The opening credits listed Mansfield as one of the technical advisers, along with other star names.
Mansfield played her first leading role on television in 1956 on NBC's The Bachelor. In her first appearance on British television in 1957, she recited from Shakespeare (including a line from Hamlet) and played piano and violin. Her notable performances in television dramas included episodes of Burke's Law, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Red Skelton Hour (three episodes), Kraft Mystery Theater and Follow the Sun. Mansfield's performance in her first series Follow the Sun ("The Dumbest Blonde"; Season 1, Episode 21; February 4, 1962; produced by 20th Century Fox Television) was hailed as the advent of "a new and dramatic Jayne Mansfield". She appeared on a number of game shows including "Talk it up," Down You Go (as a regular panelist), The Match Game (one rare episode has her as a team captain), and What's My Line? (as a special mystery guest).
She performed in a number of variety shows including The Jack Benny Program (on which she played violin), The Steve Allen Show and The Jackie Gleason Show (during the mid-1960s, when the show was the second-highest-rated program in the U.S.). In November 1957, in a special episode of NBC's The Perry Como Show ("Holiday in Las Vegas"), one of her nightclub acts was featured, something quite scandalous for the audience according to the broadcaster. She was a guest on three episodes of The Bob Hope Show touring team. In 1957, she toured United States Pacific Command areas in Hawaii, Okinawa, Guam, Tokyo and Korea with Bob Hope for the United Service Organizations for 13 days appearing as a comedian; and in 1961, toured Newfoundland, Labrador and Baffin Island in Canada for a Christmas special. Her talk show career includes a large number of appearances which she appreciated for the publicity. One of her more notable appearances on a variety show was on The Ed Sullivan Show (Season 10, Episode 35; May 26, 1957) right after her success with Rock Hunter, where she played violin with a six-person backup band. After the show she exclaimed, "Now I am really national. Momma and Dallas see the Ed Sullivan show!"
By 1958, she earned $20,000 per episode for television performances. In 1964, Mansfield turned down the role of Ginger Grant on the up-and-coming television sitcom Gilligan's Island. Although her acting roles were becoming marginalized, Mansfield rejected the part as it epitomized the stereotype she wished to rid herself of. The part eventually went to Tina Louise. A widespread rumor that Mansfield had a breast-flashing dress mishap at the 1957 Academy Awards was found baseless by Academy researchers. Ten days before her death, she read To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, a poem by Robert Herrick about early death on The Joey Bishop Show – her last television appearance.
As late as the mid-1980s, Mansfield remained one of the biggest television draws. In 1980, The Jayne Mansfield Story aired on CBS starring Loni Anderson in the title role and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mickey Hargitay. It was nominated for three Emmy Awards. A+E Networks TV series Biography featured her in an episode titled Jayne Mansfield: Blonde Ambition. The TV series won an Emmy Award in the outstanding non-fiction TV series category in 2001. A&E again featured her life in another TV serial, Dangerous Curves, in 1999. In 1988, her story and archival footage was a part of the TV documentary Hollywood Sex Symbols.
Personal life[]
In 1967, film critic and exploitation movie expert Whitney Williams wrote of Mansfield in Variety: "her personal life out-rivaled any of the roles she played". She married and divorced three times and had five children. Mansfield was allegedly intimately involved with many men, including Claude Terrail (owner of the Paris restaurant Tour d'Argent), Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Brazilian billionaire Jorge Guinle, her attorney Samuel S. Brody, Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli, and producer Enrico Bomba. She met John F. Kennedy through his brother-in-law Peter Lawford in Palm Springs, California, in 1960, before he had his alleged affair with Marilyn Monroe, but their alleged affair did not last. Mansfield and Brody, her lawyer and alleged lover at the time, were both killed in a car crash.
She had a daughter with her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She was the mother of three children from her second marriage to actor/bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay. She also had a son with her third husband, film director Matt Cimber.
Jayne met Paul Mansfield at a party on Christmas Eve in 1949; she was a popular student at Highland Park High School, and he at Sunset High School in Dallas. On May 6, 1950, they married in Fort Worth, Texas. At the time of their marriage, Jayne was 17 and three months pregnant; Paul was 20. While most major biographies put the date at May 6, some sources say the marriage was on May 10, 1950. According to biographer Raymond Strait, she had an earlier "secret" marriage on January 28, after which she conceived her first child. On November 8, 1950, Mansfield gave birth to her daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield. Some sources cite Paul Mansfield as the father of her child,others allege that the pregnancy was the result of date rape.
Paul Mansfield hoped the birth of their child would discourage her interest in acting. When it did not, he agreed to move to Los Angeles in late 1954 to help further her career. In 1952, she juggled motherhood and classes at the University of Texas. Early in 1952, Paul was called to the United States Army Reserve for the Korean War. While he served in the army, she spent a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Her life became easier with Paul's army allotment. Returning from the Korean War in 1954, he took a job with a small newspaper in East Los Angeles, California, and lived in a small apartment in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, with Jayne and her pets – a Great Dane, three cats named Sabina, Romulus, and Ophelia, two chihuahuas, a poodle dyed pink, and a rabbit. While in California, she left Jayne Marie with her maternal grandparents and spent the summer semester at UCLA.
After a series of marital rows around Jayne's ambitions, infidelity, and animals, they decided to dissolve the marriage. It was a long process. In February 1955, Jayne filed for separate maintenance, and in August 1956, Paul filed for custody of their daughter, Jayne Marie. Jayne filed for divorce in California in 1956, Paul filed for divorce in 1957 in Texas citing mental cruelty, and they received their divorce papers on January 8, 1958. After the divorce, she decided to keep "Mansfield" as her professional name. Paul Mansfield remarried, settled into the public relations business and moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, but failed to win custody suits over Jayne Marie or restrain her from traveling abroad with her mother.
Following her 18th birthday, Jayne Marie complained that she had not received her inheritance from the Mansfield estate or heard from her father since her mother's death.
Mansfield met her second husband, Mickey Hargitay, at the Latin Quarter nightclub in New York City on May 13, 1956, where he was performing as a member of the chorus line in Mae West's show. Hargitay was an actor and bodybuilder who had won the Mr. Universe competition in 1955. Mansfield fell for him immediately, which resulted in a squabble with West. In the ensuing row, Mr. California, Chuck Krauser beat Hargitay up and was arrested and released on a $300 bond.
After Mansfield returned from her 40-day European tour, Hargitay proposed to her on November 6, 1957, with a $5,000 10-carat diamond ring. On January 13, 1958 (days after her divorce from Paul was finalized), Mansfield married Hargitay at the Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The unique glass chapel made public and press viewing of the wedding easy. Mansfield wore a sensational pink, skintight wedding gown made of sequins with a 30 yd (27 m) flounce of pink tulle (designed by a 20th Century-Fox costume designer), and at the reception she had Hargitay drink pink champagne.
Hargitay made his first film appearance with Mansfield in a bit part in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. The couple became a performing team touring in stage shows, where Mansfield's leopard-spot bikini became a topic of discussion and newspaper coverage. As a highlight, Hargitay tossed her around his waist and spun her in wide circles as her shows made more headlines. On screen, he was Mansfield's male lead in her Italian ventures – The Loves of Hercules and L'Amore Primitivo, and a major supporting character in Promises! Promises!. On stage, he was the male lead in The Tropicana Holiday, The House of Love, French Dressing, and other nightclub acts.
They made personal appearances on television shows such as the Bob Hope Christmas Specials. Mansfield and Hargitay had a number of business holdings, including the Hargitay Exercise Equipment Company, Jayne Mansfield Productions, and Eastland Savings and Loan. She co-wrote the autobiographical book Jayne Mansfield's Wild, Wild World with Hargitay. The book also contained 32 pages of black-and-white photographs from the film printed on glossy paper.
In 1962, she had a well-publicized affair with Enrico Bomba, the Italian producer and production manager of her film Panic Button. Hargitay accused Bomba of sabotaging their marriage. In 1963, she had another well-publicized relationship with singer Nelson Sardelli, whom she said she planned to marry when her divorce from Mickey Hargitay was finalized. The couple divorced in Juarez, Mexico, in May 1963, where Nelson Sardelli accompanied Mansfield in her legal preparations. She had previously filed for divorce on May 4, 1962, but told reporters "I'm sure we will make it up." During the acrimonious divorce proceedings, the actress attempted to force a more favorable financial settlement by accusing Hargitay of kidnapping one of her children.
On November 23, 1966, Mansfield's son Zoltan made news when a lion named Sammy attacked him and bit his neck while he and his mother were visiting the theme park Jungleland USA in Thousand Oaks, California. He suffered from severe head trauma, underwent three surgeries at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, California, including a six-hour brain surgery, and contracted meningitis. He recovered, and Mansfield's attorney Sam Brody sued the theme park on the family's behalf for $1,600,000 . The negative publicity led to closure of the theme park.
Mansfield discovered that she was pregnant after her divorce. Being an unwed mother would have endangered her career, so she and Hargitay announced that they were still married. Mariska Hargitay was born January 23, 1964, after the actual divorce but before California ruled it valid. Mariska became an actress best known for her role as Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Mansfield sued to get the Juarez divorce declared legal after Mariska was born, and the divorce was recognized on August 26, 1964. A court decree in June 1967 made Hargitay the guardian of Mickey, Zoltan, and Mariska, though they continued to live with Mansfield. He married airline stewardess Ellen Siano in 1968, and she accompanied him to New Orleans when he picked up his three children after Mansfield's death. Shortly after her funeral, Hargitay sued his former wife's estate for more than $275,000 to support the children, as he and his wife Ellen would raise them, but he lost the suit. Mansfield had once told Hargitay on a television talk show that she was sorry for all the trouble that she had given him.
Mansfield became involved with Matt Cimber (a.k.a. Matteo Ottaviano, né Thomas Vitale Ottaviano), an Italian-born film director, when he directed her in a stage production of Bus Stop in Yonkers, New York, costarring Hargitay. She married him on September 24, 1964, in Mulegé, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The couple separated on July 11, 1965, and filed for divorce on July 20, 1966. Cimber took over managing her career during their marriage, and guided her through a series of increasingly tawdry projects like Promises, Promises and The Las Vegas Hillbillys. Mansfield's marriage to Cimber began to collapse in the wake of her alcohol abuse, open infidelities, and her disclosure to Cimber that she had been happy only with her former lover, Nelson Sardelli. Work on Mansfield's film, Single Room Furnished directed by Cimber (1966), was suspended. The couple had one son, Antonio Raphael Ottaviano (a.k.a. Tony Cimber, born October 18, 1965). Cimber, and his third wife dress designer Christy Hilliard Hanak, whom he married on December 2, 1967, raised Tony, Mansfield's youngest child.Cimber later worked as an announcer for Married... with Children and a producer for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
At the time, Mansfield had degenerated into alcoholism, drunken brawls, and performing at cheap burlesque shows. By July 1966, she started living with her attorney, Sam Brody, who had frequent drunken brawls with her and mistreated her eldest daughter, Jayne Marie. Sam's wife, Beverly Brody, filed a divorce suit naming Mansfield the "41st other woman" in Sam's life.
Death[]
In 1967, Mansfield was in Biloxi, Mississippi, for an engagement at the Gus Stevens Supper Club. After two appearances on the evening of June 28, Mansfield, Sam Brody (her attorney and companion), their driver Ronnie Harrison (age 20), and three of her children – Miklós, Zoltán, and Mariska – left Biloxi after midnight in a 1966 Buick Electra 225. Their destination was New Orleans, where Mansfield was to appear on WDSU's Midday Show the next day. At about 2:25 a.m. on June 29, on U.S. Highway 90, 1 mile west of the Rigolets Bridge, the Buick crashed at high speed into the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed behind a truck spraying mosquito fogger. The semi-trailer was shrouded by insecticide fog. The three adults in the front seat died instantly. The children, asleep in the rear seat, survived with minor injuries.
Reports that Mansfield was decapitated are untrue, although she suffered severe head trauma. This urban legend started with the appearance in police photographs of the crashed car with its top virtually sheared off, and what resembled a blonde-haired head tangled in the car's smashed windshield. However, the blonde object was a wig Mansfield was wearing, and possibly parts of her real hair and scalp. Her death certificate stated that the immediate cause of death was a "crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain". After her death, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended requiring an underride guard (a strong bar made of steel tubing) on all tractor-trailers; the trucking industry was slow to adopt this change. In America, the underride guard is sometimes known as a "Mansfield bar", or an "ICC bumper".
Mansfield's funeral took place on July 3 in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania. The service was conducted by Charles Montgomery, a pastor of the Zion Methodist Church. A private funeral service was held at the chapel of the Pullis Funeral Home. A Methodist minister conducted her funeral ceremony. Mickey Hargitay was the only ex-husband present at the funeral. Mansfield was interred in Fairview Cemetery, southeast of Pen Argyl, beside her father Herbert Palmer.
In 1968, two wrongful-death lawsuits were filed on behalf of Jayne Marie Mansfield and Matt Cimber, one for $4.8 million and the other for $2.7 million. The death car was saved by a private collector in Florida, where it became a roadside attraction in the 1970s. As of 2019, the car is owned by Scott Michaels and is housed and shown at his Dearly Departed Tours & Artifact Museum in Los Angeles across from Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Two weeks before her mother's death in 1967, 16-year-old Jayne Marie accused Sam Brody of beating her. The girl's statement to officers of the Los Angeles Police Department the following morning implicated her mother in encouraging the abuse, and days later a juvenile court judge awarded temporary custody of Jayne Marie to Paul's uncle William W. Pigue and his wife Mary.
