No Plain Jayne

“I think the most misunderstood aspect about Jayne Mansfield’s career is that she strived to be a carbon copy of Marilyn Monroe. She didn't,” sighs Richard Koper, author of Affectionately, Jayne Mansfield.

This April marks the 85 th anniversary of her birth, and is as good a time as any to banish the lazy stereotypes of this Hollywood firework.

Koper is an ideal candidate to help dispel the commonly-held rumours about the ‘Poor Man’s Monroe’. (That nickname, incidentally, is one of them). Other fickle beliefs are that Mansfield was a ditzy blonde who relied purely on her looks. In fact, she was smart, talented, and was a loving mother of five, who reached for the stars but burned out too soon – tragically perishing in a motoring accident at the tender age of 34. Stripping back her public façade is akin to detective work, and Mansfield was such an enigma that Koper called in the help of pop culture historians Ashley Fulton, April VeVea and David Drake to assemble the bigger picture. Koper’s own extensive knowledge of 1950s starlets began when writing his debut title, Fifties Blondes – Sexbombs, Sirens, Bad Girls and Teen Queens. “My inroad to the era was seeing Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, but I soon found out that Monroe wasn’t the only icon of allure in Hollywood during that era. Although she had many copycats and imitators, many of her blonde contemporaries started their career around the time that she herself was still struggling to become famous.” Including Mansfield? “No. Jayne Mansfield was an original,” says Koper. “She was not like Monroe at all. Mansfield more readily embraced seduction and comedy than Monroe, and was not above participating in visual slapstick gags as well as innuendo. It was a different style of comedy. She enjoyed her movie persona and lived by it.” So how did such a defining comparison become commonplace? Mansfield started her Hollywood career in 1955, under contract at Warner Bros.

She reached out to her fans, inviting them into her life and even into her house

“They didn’t know how to use her, as the studio didn’t groom sex symbols,” explains Koper. “They had Bette Davis and Doris Day. Mansfield’s best part at Warner Bros. was in Illegal, as a gang moll. Unfortunately, she was immediately compared to Monroe and her breakthrough performance in The Asphalt Jungle." By March of 1956, Monroe was filming Bus Stop at 20 th Century Fox, after publicly proclaiming for months that her ‘dumb blonde’ comedies were consigned to the past. Jayne was signed by Fox on 2 May, 1956 – just as Monroe was finishing up filming – as Fox wanted to continue its long string of blonde comedies. Monroe was out, telling the press that comedies just weren’t for her anymore. Mansfield was in, and her first film at Fox was a huge success – The Girl Can’t Help It exceeded the profits that Monroe’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had earned three years prior. “Monroe was back in comedy by 1959 with Some Like It Hot and Mansfield was relegated to B-features,” outlines Koper. “She was sent to the United Kingdom, Italy and Greece to appear in potboilers [movies of questionable artistic merit] backed by Fox. That was where she earned that tag as a ‘Poor Man’s Monroe’ – because Monroe got to choose her parts, while Jayne was forced to take what was offered to her.” There’s only one documented instance of the pair meeting – at the premiere of The Rose Tattoo in 1955. “They didn’t speak at length, and if they ever met each other at the studios (at Fox) is unknown.” They did pass comment on one another, though. Koper recounts that Mansfield, “Once stated that ‘Marilyn and I are entirely different. We’ve never really been in competition.’ Monroe was reportedly not threatened by

Mansfield, and confided in a friend, ‘I just wish she’d realise that there’s room for everyone.’” In his book, Koper also cites a letter from 1963 that was addressed to Mansfield by a fan, who asked her about the tragedy of Monroe’s death. “Jayne wrote back, saying, ‘You mentioned Marilyn Monroe. This was a very tragic thing in my life as Marilyn and I were extremely good friends. When something like this happens there isn’t any explanation for it... It’s not only a loss as a personal friend, but Hollywood and the world has lost a great personality because she had it and even in death she still has it because the name of Marilyn Monroe will always be revered in Hollywood.’ I do think Jayne exaggerated the ‘extremely good friends’ part of her answer, though,” Koper adds. The handwritten reply contains the warmth that endeared Mansfield to the public, and in reciprocation she played along with the given persona. “She allowed them to witness her successes and the hard times that followed – her divorce, career decline, personal anguish,” explains Koper. “But the Jayne on-screen seemed no different than Jayne in private life. She was a good actress with especially adept comic ability. Her gift was being naturally funny, but she also gained a grip on it and honed a technique that carried her throughout her career.”

A journalist once said that, "She did not have fits of temperament and she was sympathetic to the problems of others. She had plenty of problems of her own, but she tried not to burden her acquaintances with them.” Koper adds that Mansfield “Was far more approachable than Monroe. She reached out to her fans, inviting them into her life and even into her house”.

Ah, that house. Mansfield’s zest and fun nature are no better encapsulated than by ‘Jayne Mansfield’s Pink Palace’ – a 40-room Mediterranean style mansion in Los Angeles which the actress acquired in 1957, then turned into a shrine to the candy floss hue.

She had the house painted pink, with cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights, pink furs in the bathrooms, a pink heart-shaped bathtub, and a fountain spurting pink champagne. Her mode of transport to reach the gaudy property was, naturally, a pink Cadillac. Yet what she perceived as goodnatured acceptance of the media hoopla “became her downfall,” explains Koper. Mansfield herself even commented, “I've been identified with pink throughout my career, but I'm not as crazy about it as I've led people to believe. My favourite colours are actually black and white but who thinks of a movie queen in black and white? Everything has to be in living colour.” When Mansfield staked that identity she was only around 20 years old. Says Koper, “She wholeheartedly embraced it in the beginning, and then felt forced to continue with that path.” Attempting anything serious in her later years “Mansfield was met with ridicule,” he explains. “She would branch out and then be forced to return to the publicity-hound that the public knew her as. It became her comfort zone. She was bound to the persona but as times changed, what was popular in the 1950s was out by the mid-1960s.”

The world simply never got to see the attributes that preceded her lasting first impression. “She studied acting at specialised drama school. She was intelligent and thrived in theatre but it was her heart’s desire to be a film star,” details Koper. “She created her own production company and was a shrewd businesswoman – estimates valued her estate at USD2million at the time of her death. You don’t accomplish any of that by being ‘dumb’.” Mansfield being unable to shift the narrative is sobering, when viewed from an age of 24/7 social media and cultivated personal branding. “She really does mother the seeds our modern version of celebrity for celebrity's sake,” posits Koper. “There are Instagram stars who are adored for their images, making a lucrative career out of that alone, and she instigated that. She drew the public close, and in many ways was a woman ahead of her time. In reality, Jayne Mansfield was the first ‘reality star’.” The biography Affectionately, Jayne Mansfield by Richard Koper is available from BearManor Media.

The Jayne on-screen seemed no different than Jayne in private life

Words: Chris Ujma