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Jayne Mansfield Profile
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Photo gallery |
| (Vera Jane/Jayne Palmer) |
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| 19 April 33 | is born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to Herbert and Vera Palmer, of German and English ancestry |
| 36 | her father dies |
| 40 | her mother remarries, and the family settles in Dallas |
| 45 | does passionate petting with one of her teachers |
| 24 December 49 | meets college student-newspaperman Paul J. Mansfield |
| 28 January/6/30 May 50 | pregnant, she elopes and marries Mansfield at an unspecified location. Later they marry officially in Fort Worth. |
| 8 November 50 | her daughter Jayne Marie is born in Austin, Texas |
| 52 | is crowned "Miss Photoflash," among other titles |
| is crowned "Miss Magnesium Lamp" |
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| 54 | moves with her husband to Los Angeles and becomes the lover of her neighbor, actor Steve Cochran. Her husband returns to Dallas. |
| January 55 | makes a sensational splash at the Florida press party for Underwater, stealing the show from RKO's official beauties, Lori Nelson and Mala Powers. Howard Hughes instructs Walter Kane to "get this girl!" |
| separates from Mansfield, charging cruelty |
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| starts an affair with Jim Byron, doyen of the murky area of "fringe" press agentry. Byron, Greg Bautzer, and Bill Shiffrin form a successful team to promote her. |
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| February 55 | is Playboy's "Playmate of the Month" |
| 23 February 55 | auditions for Rebel Without a Cause |
| 12 October 55 | debuts on Broadway with Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?; she earns $1,200 a week. She dates director Nicholas Ray, and George Jessel and Robby Robertson. |
| meets "Mr. Universe," Mickey Hargitay |
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| 56 | her measurements are 40-22-35 1/2 |
| responds to the amorous advances of Duke Amoalli of Rome |
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| June 56 | her escort is airline pilot Robbie Robertson, who will later marry Linda Darnell |
| 57 | steals the limelight at Sophia Loren's Hollywood welcome party at Romanoff's |
| May 57 | old nude calendars of her appear |
| October 57 | refuses to marry Mickey Hargitay in October when her divorce is final because that's the month of Halloween, and she wants nothing spooky about her marriage |
| celebrates the completion of Hargitay's Wanda Park pool that's filled with pink champagne |
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| is on a sixteen-country European tour for Fox and is introduced to Queen Elizabeth |
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| plans the $75,500 purchase of a 40-room Sunset Boulevard extravaganza built by Rudy Vallee and plans to revamp it into her "Pink Palace" |
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| December 57 | she and Hargitay accompany Bob Hope on his Christmas USO tour to Japan, Korea, Guam, and Hawaii |
| 8/11 January 58 | her divorce from Mansfield is final |
| 13 January 58 | marries Hargitay in Portuguese Bend, California. 10,000 admirers surround the church. They go on a Florida honeymoon. |
| Early 58 | the Hargitays open at the Tropicana, Las Vegas |
| April 58 | is bitter and disillusioned over her first marriage and vowed to be remain single, but along came Mickey Hargitay |
| Summer 58 | is off to London and Spain for The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw |
| October 58 | comes through with the ecstatic news that she's pregnant |
| November 58 | the Hargitays drink pink champagne at the wedding reception for actor-dancer Gene Nelson |
| the couple faces problems when the former Mrs. Hargitay sues for higher alimony payments |
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| 13 December 58 | her son Miklos Hargitay, Jr., is born in Santa Monica, California |
| Early 59 | the Hargitays are off to Rio de Janeiro for the Carnival week |
| the Hargitays are off to Rome for the filming of The Loves of Hercules |
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| 1 August 60 | her son Zoltan Anthony is born in Santa Monica, California |
| hints to friends that the end of her marriage may be in sight |
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| End 60 | the Hargitays are off to Rome again for the filming of It Happens in Athens |
| February 62 | a second honeymoon in Nassau offers real-life drama when their boat overturns and they are found twelve hours later, freezing and huddled together in the bushes on Rose Island. The press considers it a hoax. |
| the Hargitays rent a villa in Rome for the filming of Panic Button. She starts boldly dating the film's producer, Enrico Bomba. |
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| End 62 | she files for divorce from Hargitay, but they reconcile at Christmas |
| Beginning 63 | rushes headlong into a hot relationship with actor-director Tommy Noonan while filming Promises! Promises! |
| does her first fully nude pictorial for Playboy, which results in an obscenity charge |
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| after Noonan, follows young Brazilian singer Nelson Sardelli |
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| 1 May 63 | her divorce from Hargitay is granted |
| films Homesick for St. Paul in Munich. Afterwards, she and Hargitay visit his native Hungary. |
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| 23 January 64 | her daughter Mariska Magdolina is born in Santa Monica, California, possibly fathered by Nelson Sardelli |
| Early 64 | opens her Bus Stop tour in Yonkers, New York. Wealthy and dynamic 28-year-old Matt Cimber directs. |
| 64 | divorces Hargitay in Juarez, Mexico |
| 26 August 64 | the California Superior Court recognizes the divorce that was pronounced earlier in Mexico |
| 24 September 64 | marries film director Matt Cimber, who later becomes her manager, in Baja, California/Aereo Mulege, Mexico. Mickey's settled with $10,000. |
| resides with her family in a 52 East 69th Street, New York City townhouse and has a regular column in the National Insider |
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| revisits Europe to film Primitive Love, under Cimber's direction |
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| 18 October 65 | her son Antonio Raphael Ottaviano (Anthony Richard) Cimber is born in Los Angeles |
| she gives a christening party for the baby, but no one comes |
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| starts calling Hargitay |
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| Summer 65 | tours Canada and starts drinking heavily |
| has a string of dubious nightclub engagements in South America, where she falls noisily for twenty-year-old student Douglas Olivares, whom she brings back to Los Angeles |
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| July 66 | divorces Cimber |
| is a twosome with lawyer Sam Brody, partner of Melvin Belli in the Jack Ruby/Lee Harvey Oswald murder trial |
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| the organizers of the San Francisco Film Festival ask her to leave when she shows up with Brody and is wearing a near-nude show dress |
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| visits San Francisco's Church of Satan and becomes deeply involved with High Priest Anton La Vey, who will play the Devil in Rosemary's Baby. Le Vey informs Brody he will be dead within a year. |
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| in a jealous attack, Brody sticks her head in a hotel toilet bowl |
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| December 66 | her son Zoltan is critically injured by a "tame" lion while visiting the Jungleland zoo in Thousand Oaks, Ventura County, California |
| March 67 | has her last disastrous foreign tour to England and starts an affair with club owner Allen Welles |
| May 67 | her eldest daughter reports to a Los Angeles police station that she was beaten by Brody on instruction from her mother; the case goes to court |
| 28 June 67 | on the way to an assignment in Biloxi, Mississippi, on Highway 90, 15 miles from New Orleans, a Buick driven by a hotel employee and carrying her, Brody, Mickey Jr., Zoltan, and Mariska, plows into a mosquito-spraying machine. Brody, Jayne, and the driver are flung from the car and killed instantly; the children survive. Her blonde wig is knocked off during the crash, and the morbid rumor is born that she was decapitated. |
| her body is released to Hargitay, who buries her in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania. Thousand of sightseers attend; the press wonders about the rumor that the embalmers had sewn the head back on the corpse. |
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| Sources: Pink Goddess: The Jayne Mansfield Story by Michael Feeney Callan, Made in Heaven by Victoria Houseman, Movieland, Motion Picture, Screen Stories, Silver Screen, www.IMDb.com | |
| Recommended Books: Here They Are Jayne Mansfield by Raymond Strait Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton Sexbomb: The Life and Death of Jayne Mansfield by Guus Luijters and Garard Timmer Fifties Blondes by Richard Koper | |
| Links: Filmography The Jayne Mansfield On-Line Fan Club Ain't No Way To Go: Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield's Grave Jayne's Bombshell Page Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Coudn't Help It Jayne Mansfield The Pin-up Zone JSR Pages: Jayne Mansfield Find A Grave Brian's Drive-In Theater: Jayne Mansfield | |