Jayne Mansfield

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, Mansfield was known for her publicity stunts and well-publicized personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award. Mansfield gained notoriety after playing the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955–1956) on Broadway, which she reprised in the film adaptation of the same name in 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, each marriage ending 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 crash in New Orleans at the age of 34. Early life Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933, at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Herbert William Palmer, of English and German ancestry, and Vera Jeffrey (née Palmer) Palmer, of English and Cornish descent. She inherited more than $90,000 from her maternal grandfather, Thomas ($ in dollars), and more than $36,000 from her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Mary Palmer, in 1958 ($ in dollars).