HOLLYWOOD MYSTERIES AND SCANDALS Jayne Mansfield - The Blonde bombshell and the Untold Story
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00:00Jane Mansfield, one of the most explosive bombshells ever dropped on Hollywood.
00:05The buxom blonde from Texas, believe it or not, claimed to have an IQ of 163,
00:10genius level. But Jane wasn't exactly known around town for being the girl
00:14with the big brains.
00:17I'm Rockwell Hunter, Miss Harlow.
00:19Rockwell Hunter? His name sounds influential.
00:22His name only so happens to be Rockwell Hunter. What do you do?
00:27Hmm? Um, I work for a LaSalle Jr. Raskin, Pooley & Crockett.
00:33The advertising agency?
00:35Those names! How crazy influential.
00:39By the time Jane Mansfield died in a harrowing car crash on June 29, 1967,
00:45she was hounded by rumors of devil worship, drinking, and debauchery.
00:48Her career had been relegated to grocery store openings and small-time dinner theater.
00:52In fact, it was after an appearance at a deluxe Mississippi supper club
00:56that her tragic fate was sealed.
00:58How did one of Hollywood's most notorious glamour girls meet such a gruesome end?
01:02On this episode of Mysteries & Scandals, we'll expose the truth behind the myth.
01:06We'll have an exclusive interview with Jane's son, Zoltan Hargitay,
01:10who was asleep in the car on the night of the fatal accident.
01:13If she wanted to pull me out of the front seat and she stayed in the back,
01:17then I would have been history.
01:20Noted film historian Charles Champlin will give us an inside look at Jane's troubled career
01:26And I just felt a sadness.
01:29I mean, I was shocked because it was just a ghastly way to die.
01:33And Hugh Hefner will remember one of his favorite centerfolds.
01:36You know, she died tragically.
01:39And in an ironic way, that also keeps the mystique alive.
01:43Jane Mansfield's story will also be told through archival footage,
01:46classic film clips,
01:49Leave and walk out on all this publicity?
01:52as well as rare photographs and dramatic reenactments.
01:56I'm A.J. Benza.
01:59Join us as we take a look back at one of Hollywood's favorite sex sirens
02:02and explore the unhappy ending to the fast and furious life of Jane Mansfield.
02:26Jane Mansfield is memorialized here in this Hollywood cemetery,
02:29but she was born Vera Jane Palmer
02:32in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on April 19th, 1933.
02:35Jane's early childhood was marked by tragedy
02:38and eerie foreshadowing of her own fate.
02:41Jane's press agent Ray Straight explains.
02:44When Jane was three years old, her father had a heart attack.
02:47They were driving down the hill.
02:50He died in the car and it was just a tragic, tragic thing.
02:53And it was very fortunate that her and her mother survived the accident.
02:56They moved, the family moved to Dallas, Texas
02:59and Jane hated the place.
03:02Absolutely hated the place.
03:05So Jane devised a plan to take her far away from Texas.
03:08The buxom teenager believed the movies just might be her ticket out of obscurity.
03:11But at age 16, Jane's plans for fame and fortune
03:14were derailed when she discovered she was pregnant.
03:17She'd married young and dragged her husband
03:21and their baby to Hollywood and she was still
03:24maybe just out of her teens.
03:27Jane was determined to bust into the business, so to speak.
03:30Hollywood folklore has it that she picked up the phone
03:33and called Paramount Pictures and said,
03:36My name's Jane Mansfield and I want to be a movie star.
03:39See, nowadays you'd get a dial tone.
03:42But back in 1954, she was invited to come down here for a screen test.
03:45They gave her a scene from, of all things, Joan of Arc.
03:48They finally set the studio executives on fire.
03:51It's pretty hard to buy a saint with a 40-inch bust line,
03:54so no contract offer.
03:57On the personal front, Jane's marriage disintegrated.
04:00Her husband moved back to his native Texas
04:03while Jane and the baby stayed in Hollywood.
04:06Jane then moved into high gear when she hooked up
04:09with legendary Hollywood publicity man Jim Byron.
04:12One day this lady with rather mousy brown hair, as he said,
04:16I've got the biggest ones in Hollywood and I want you to make me a star.
04:19When we return, we'll take a look at how Jane Mansfield
04:22splashed onto the Hollywood scene and examine how a career
04:25that held such promise could unravel so quickly and end so tragically.
04:40In 1955,
04:44aspiring starlet Jane Mansfield finagled an invitation
04:47to a press junket in Florida for a picture
04:50starring another full-figured actress, Jane Russell.
04:53It was here that Mansfield made a bold move to grab attention
04:56with a publicity stunt orchestrated with her new publicist, Jim Byron.
04:59He introduced her to some men in the press
05:02and got her a free pass on the plane
05:05to the premiere of Underwater, which was a Jane Russell picture.
05:08A bikini or a red bikini came from somewhere
05:11but it didn't fit Jane and she knew when she plunged into the water
05:14when she came up there'd be no bikini
05:17and that was the end of Jane Russell and Underwater in Florida
05:20and Jane Mansfield became a household name from that day forward.
05:23So subtlety wasn't exactly a word in Jane's vocabulary,
05:26but savvy was.
05:29Jane parlayed the attention from her Florida publicity stunt
05:32into a movie contract with Warner Brothers
05:35but the deal only resulted in a few big parts.
05:39They dropped her pretty quickly
05:42and she went on to do a small independent film called The Burglar.
05:45And while she was shooting that movie
05:48she saw in the newspaper an open call for an actress in a play.
05:51So she went to audition in New York
05:54for a play called Will Success Boy Rock Hunter.
05:57Of course Jane wasn't timid about accepting the role.
06:00Audiences cheered her portrayal of a dumb, blonde movie vixen.
06:03The New York theater critics were less than complimentary
06:06High school classmate Ann Wedgworth remembers her friend's ambitions.
06:09She said,
06:12this is a stepping stone on my way to the top.
06:15Now how?
06:18I mean, how many people do you hear her say that?
06:21Author Jim Haspiel met Jane Mansfield in New York
06:24while she was on Broadway.
06:27He remembers the night she met her male counterpart,
06:30former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay.
06:34That included a group of bodybuilders.
06:37And Mickey Hargitay, then Mr. Universe,
06:40was in the act.
06:43And Jane, on seeing Mickey, supposedly said to the waiter,
06:46I'll have a steak and that man on the right.
06:49Grade A beef all around.
06:52For Jane and Mickey it was love at first sight.
06:55Never one to waste time, Jane quickly married the media-hungry bodybuilder
06:58who seemed to enjoy the spotlight as much as she did.
07:02He would often pick her up and hold her above his head
07:05and twirl her around for the photographers.
07:08And they were quite a sight.
07:11Quite a sight to see.
07:14When it came time to make the movie version of Will's success-spoiled Rock Hunter,
07:17Jane was chosen to co-star alongside Tony Randall and Groucho Marx.
07:20Rita, I love you.
07:23Oh, and I love you, Georgie.
07:26But why did you wait so long to tell me?
07:29I never could get that close.
07:34Did she ever.
07:37On the heels of her success, one of Hollywood's biggest studios
07:40decided to position Jane as the new Marilyn Monroe.
07:4320th Century Fox had been so upset with Marilyn Monroe
07:46who was in New York on strike
07:49that they opted to buy Jane's contract out
07:52and to present her as Marilyn Monroe King Size
07:55is the way they put it.
07:59And put her in those roles that Marilyn didn't want to play.
08:02Jane, on the other hand, was more than happy to take those roles.
08:05Fox tapped her for a film called The Girl Can't Help It
08:08playing yet another dumb blind.
08:11Then studio execs decided it was time to test
08:14Jane Mansfield's range as an actress.
08:17They cast her in a dramatic role.
08:20The film was The Wayward Bus based on a John Steinbeck novel.
08:23Simple as ABC.
08:26You're a salesman. So am I.
08:29We both know what the score is. It's even.
08:32But SEX was still Jane's greatest commodity.
08:35Hardly a surprise that she would catch the eye
08:38of Playboy magazine's Hugh Hefner.
08:41Well, I think that Jane Mansfield was bigger than life.
08:44I think that to some extent, and it's a curious phenomenon,
08:47Marilyn Monroe's impact on the 50s was so dramatic
08:50that there were clones
08:54or variations on the theme.
08:57And I think that Jane Mansfield was the most successful of those.
09:00We did almost an annual pictorial on her.
09:03In the case of Jane Mansfield, the pictorials actually
09:06helped make her a star. I think she knew it.
09:09Yeah, a big star. And certainly one who could boost
09:12the morale of troops overseas.
09:15Jane joined Bob Hope for a trio of his USO tours.
09:18Have you anything to say?
09:22You're ready to fight?
09:25No, honey, it's a code word. I think you'll fix it.
09:28So Jane had finally arrived.
09:31But the road ahead was about to get pretty rocky.
09:34When we come back, we'll look at the falling star
09:37and how her unquenchable thirst for fame began to destroy her life.
09:40We'll also dispel the myths surrounding that now-famous
09:43car crash that took the life of one of America's favorite
09:46sex kittens, Jane Mansfield.
09:51By the end of the 1950s,
09:54Jane Mansfield had finally achieved movie star status,
09:57but it was to be short-lived.
10:00Mansfield's life was about to become a decade-long battle
10:03with disappointment, scandal, and despair.
10:06Welcome back to Mysteries & Scandals. I'm A.J. Benzo.
10:09Jane and her husband, former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay,
10:12moved into this house in the late 1950s.
10:15It was the home of the late Michael Jackson,
10:18Her husband, former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay,
10:21moved into this Beverly Hills estate back in March of 1958
10:24with Jane's daughter from her first marriage and the couple's
10:27newborn son. And for a while there, let's just say that
10:30Jane was in the pink.
10:33Senior Daily Variety columnist Armie Archard
10:36fondly recalls being a guest in Jane's home.
10:39Jane and Mickey invited me over there one day
10:42when we were doing a special little segment about
10:45what stars like to do, and she, of course, liked to exercise.
10:48She was teaching me some of her exercises.
10:51There wasn't almost anything that she wouldn't do for publicity.
10:54Singer Engelbert Humperdinck was a friend of Jane's.
10:57He purchased the pink palace in 1978 for a cool $2 million.
11:00That's a lot of Las Vegas lounge shows.
11:03Behind this wall
11:06is 100 front covers of Jane Mansfield.
11:09Right behind here.
11:12100 front covers.
11:15And I put this wall here to protect them
11:18and preserve them for austerity.
11:21Her attributes were, of course,
11:24what every man
11:27or producer-director ever wanted,
11:30I would say.
11:33So it would seem. But Jane's career was not living up to the hype.
11:36Fox decided Jane was not movie star material after all.
11:39It was 1959, and the studio began to loan around
11:42to overseas productions.
11:45Why are you staring at me like that?
11:48Have you never seen a blonde before?
11:51I myself enjoy filming in Hollywood.
11:54I enjoy filming in Europe.
11:57I wouldn't want to confine it to one place or the other.
12:00In 1963, Jane jumped at the opportunity to do a film in the States
12:03called Promises, Promises, but there was a twist.
12:07In those days, on-screen nudity was a no-no.
12:10Playboy magazine was there to cover what Jane uncovered.
12:13For an American actress to make a film
12:16with any nudity in it
12:19was, in the early 1960s, revolutionary.
12:22And because of the long-standing relationship
12:25between Jane Mansfield and ourselves,
12:28we elected to do a pictorial
12:31based on that film.
12:34It was sensational.
12:37More of a sensation than we had anticipated
12:40because in Chicago they called it obscene
12:43and they arrested me
12:46and held a kind of a mock trial
12:49on the basis of the pictorial.
12:52Hefner ended up paying a $200 fine,
12:55there was a huge public outcry,
12:58and the film was actually banned in some parts of the country.
13:02Jane's career was in deep trouble, and so was her marriage.
13:05The couple split, but Jane didn't waste any time finding a new man.
13:08She met and married a director named Matt Simber.
13:11Jane hoped Simber would be her ticket back to the top.
13:14He was going to do for her
13:17what Arthur Miller did for Marilyn Monroe.
13:20But in reality, Jane's new husband
13:23had less clout in the film business than she did.
13:26Mansfield eventually found her way back to the big screen
13:29starring opposite Mamie Van Doren
13:32in the 1966 film Las Vegas Hillbillies.
13:35Oh, hello, Boots, darling.
13:38I thought it was about time to get acquainted with Woody.
13:41We're practically relatives, you know.
13:44You two kissing cousins enjoy yourself. I've got work to do.
13:47Pure camp, and still another bad choice.
13:50I really wanted to say something to her and say,
13:53look, you know, I know why we're doing this movie, Jane.
13:56Right, they were doing it for the bucks.
13:59After all, she had a new baby to support
14:02that made 5 kids by 3 different husbands,
14:05and the woman was desperate to maintain her movie star lifestyle.
14:08Gone a lot, and when she was gone,
14:11we had a couple people taking care of us,
14:14and of course I had my father there when he wasn't working.
14:17But she had such love,
14:20she wanted to bring us along as much as she could.
14:23I think she would like to be remembered
14:26as being a wonderful mother.
14:32And I know that she was.
14:38I mean, she loved her children so much.
14:41So much that when her brief marriage to Matt Simber ended,
14:44Jane went to court to fight for sole custody of their baby.
14:47The lawyer was a shady character by the name of Sam Brody.
14:50He and Jane soon became lovers.
14:53He had a wife who was handicapped and 2 children,
14:56and it was a huge scandal.
14:59It didn't reflect well on Jane because he left his 2 children
15:02and his wife who was handicapped to be with this glamorous sex symbol
15:05and this more bad press that Jane didn't need.
15:08At this point, the only press Jane Mansfield was getting was bad.
15:11She struggled to maintain her glamorous image,
15:14but let's be honest, her career was history.
15:17The word is that she began to hit the bottle pretty hard,
15:20which only made things worse.
15:23Jane's life was in a downward spiral and headed toward a tragic and violent end.
15:26Just ahead, we'll look at the final chapter in Jane Mansfield's sad life,
15:29dispel some of the lingering rumors,
15:32and clear up one of the myths surrounding the crash
15:35that ended her short but sensational life.
15:47By 1967, Jane Mansfield's rollercoaster life had hit bottom.
15:50The glory days of the Pink Palace were over,
15:53and to the American public, Jane Mansfield was yesterday's news.
15:56All that was left were the rumors.
15:59So as promised, let's set the record straight.
16:02First of all, what about this genius IQ of hers?
16:05I would be deeply suspicious that it was 163,
16:08because it seems to me if you have an IQ of 163,
16:11you're not going to be able to do anything.
16:14I would be deeply suspicious that it was 163,
16:17because it seems to me if you have an IQ of 163,
16:20you somehow end up in a little bit better charge of your life.
16:23Either you go completely crazy early on,
16:26or you take better control of yourself.
16:29And I think that her life spun out of control.
16:32From my observations and the numbers involved with Jane Mansfield
16:35did not go up to 163.
16:38I think the highest was 40, and that was her bust.
16:41Another rumor that dogged Jane for years is that she was a devil worshipper.
16:45She was once photographed with famed 60s Satanist Anton LaVey
16:49as part of another wild publicity ploy.
16:52Biggest backfire of a press stunt that she ever pulled.
16:56Jane thought she'd get a lot of publicity out of Anton LaVey
16:59because he was getting so much publicity as Satanism.
17:02Well, Satanism has become a joke nowadays,
17:04but to Jane it was a joke then. It meant nothing to her.
17:07But her career meant everything,
17:09and the film roles for Jane had dried up.
17:11So she was forced to make a living doing personal appearances
17:14and performing in small nightclubs,
17:16showcasing both her physical attributes and her limited musical talents.
17:20A sable will do for the rain
17:23I'm just plain Jane
17:28I think that that kind of sexual attraction, physical attraction,
17:34I think is a very perishable commodity.
17:37I mean, I think you just don't last long.
17:39I think at the end, I mean, she's sitting in men's laps
17:42at a nightclub in Mississippi someplace.
17:44I can't imagine what her future held.
17:46And neither could Jane.
17:48By now, according to biographers, Jane's drinking was out of control.
17:52One of her ex-husbands was claiming she was an unfit mother.
17:55Her eldest daughter went to police and claimed physical abuse
17:58at the hands of Jane's lover, Sam Brody.
18:01But despite all the turmoil, Jane jumped at the opportunity
18:04to perform when her friend Mamie Van Doren asked her
18:06to fill in for her at a supper club in Mississippi.
18:09I called her and said, would you please do this for me?
18:12And she says, she was really surprised.
18:14She says, yeah, she says, that's good because I love to get away.
18:17The timing is perfect. I'm going to take the kids down there.
18:20We need a vacation.
18:21It was June of 1967.
18:23Jane, three of her kids, and boyfriend Sam Brody
18:26headed off to Biloxi, Mississippi.
18:28Jane was scheduled to headline at Gus Stevens Supper Club.
18:32It was to be her final curtain call.
18:34Always the publicity hound, Jane agreed
18:36to make a talk show appearance in New Orleans.
18:39Louis Evans, who worked for Gus Stevens,
18:41was supposed to drive Jane, Sam, and the kids to New Orleans.
18:44So all I knew was I was just told
18:47that we were going to take them over in Gus's car.
18:51But I asked Ronnie to go because I had a physical
18:53for the military the next morning.
18:55I didn't figure I'd be back in time.
18:56Ronnie Harrison was a local boy
18:58who also worked at the supper club with Evans.
19:00The night of the accident,
19:01Jane's son Zoltan was just six years old.
19:04And I can remember my mom going to this gas station
19:07and pulling me out of the front seat
19:10and telling me I had to go in the back seat.
19:12I remember her doing this and saying,
19:14oh, you're going to be okay.
19:15I was dead tired, man.
19:16I just wanted to go back to sleep.
19:17Okay, Mom, whatever.
19:19In that car sitting between Mansfield and Ronnie Harrison
19:23was Jane's then attorney slash lover, Sam Brody.
19:27In the back seat of this car,
19:29three of her children were lying down asleep,
19:32which literally saved their lives.
19:34They were doing something like 80 miles an hour
19:37and coming around a curve.
19:39And there was a truck that was spraying insecticide
19:42for mosquitoes that loomed ahead of them.
19:45And in the awfulness of that moment,
19:48the car went into the back of this trailer truck
19:51and the top of the car was sheared off.
19:54And everyone in the front seat was killed.
19:57And my brother, me, and my sister survived.
20:02And, of course, the biggest rumor of all
20:04was that Jane Mansfield was decapitated in the accident.
20:07Jane was wearing a wig and it flew up in the air
20:10and came down and landed on the hood of the car.
20:13This initiated the myth that she had been decapitated.
20:17She was not decapitated at all.
20:19Police photographs of her body uncovered at the scene
20:23illustrate clearly that she was not decapitated.
20:26This myth would be left for her children to live with
20:29when it didn't happen.
20:30Death is final and awful enough.
20:32But despite all the misconceptions,
20:34Jane's children carry the memory not of a glamorous movie star
20:38but of a loving mother who was taken from them too soon.
20:42But we definitely had guardian angels that evening.
20:46And I think one of them was my mom, for me.
20:52Because she saved my life.
20:57She did.
20:59Jane Mansfield was only 34 years old when she died,
21:02leaving behind five children.
21:04A star who never achieved the level of greatness she dreamed of
21:07but who, for one brief moment in Hollywood history, made her mark.
21:10In the end, it was Jane's horrendous death
21:12that would bring her more fame than she ever achieved in life.
21:15I'm A.J. Benza.
21:16Join me the next time our paths cross
21:18in a state of mind called Hollywood.
21:20.
21:21.