Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield (April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress working both on Broadway and in Hollywood. One of the leading blonde sex symbols of the 1950s, Mansfield was a Playboy Playmate of the Month, and appeared in the magazine several more times over the years. She won the Theatre World Award, Golden Globe and Golden Laurel. Mansfield starred in several popular Hollywood films that emphasized her platinum-blonde hair, hourglass figure and cleavage-revealing costumes.

While Mansfield's film career was short-lived, she had several box office successes. As the demand for blonde bombshells declined in the 1960s, Mansfield was relegated to low-budget melodramas and comedies, but remained a popular celebrity. In her later career she continued to attract large crowds in foreign countries, and in lucrative and successful nightclub tours. Mansfield died in an automobile accident at the age of 34.Mansfield, of German and English ancestry, was the only child of Herbert William and Vera (née Jeffrey) Palmer. Her birthname was Vera Palmer. A natural brunette, she was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, but spent her early childhood in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. When she was three years old, her father, a lawyer who was in practice with future New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner, died of a heart attack while driving a car with his wife and daughter. After his death, her mother worked as a school teacher. In 1939, when Vera Palmer remarried, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. Mansfield's desire to become an actress developed at an early age. In 1950, Vera Palmer married Paul Mansfield, thus becoming Jayne Mansfield, and the couple moved to Austin, Texas. She studied dramatics at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin. While attending the University of Texas, she won several beauty contests, with titles that included "Miss Photoflash," "Miss Magnesium Lamp" and "Miss Fire Prevention Week." The only title she ever turned down was "Miss Roquefort Cheese," because she believed that it "just didn't sound right." In 1954, they moved to Los Angeles and she studied dramatics at UCLA.

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