Jayne Mansfield biographical timeline

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This is a chronology of the life and times of Jayne Mansfield, a leading American actress, model, Playboy Playmate and sex symbol.

[edit] Early years

1933: Jayne Mansfield is born Vera Jane Palmer in Bryn Mawr to Herbert William Palmer and Vera Jeffrey Palmer.
1936: Her father Herbert Palmer dies. Vera Jane and her mother Vera move to Pen Argyl, Pa.
1939: Vera Palmer and her new husband Harry Peers move the family to Dallas, Texas.
1940: Vera Jane begins studying at Highland Park High School in Dallas.
1947: Marilyn Monroe becomes Miss California Artichoke Queen.
1950: Vera Jane gets pregnant and marries Paul Mansfield. Jayne Marie is born.
1952: Jayne, Paul and Jayne-Marie move to Hollywood, Calif. Jayne wins a leading role in The Female Jungle and thinks up some wild publicity stunts to keep herself in the public eye, like delivering bottles of liquor to the National Press Association in a bikini. Jayne and Paul Mansfield part ways. She keeps his name because she thinks it sounds good.
1954: The couple moves to Los Angeles. Jayne begins studying drama at UCLA. She lands a small part in The Female Jungle. Marilyn Monroe wins a Golden Globe Award as World Female Film Favorite.

[edit] 1955-1969

Year	JM's Life	JM's Films	Other stars	Sex and censorship	Film industry
1955	Jayne Mansfield scores roles in Pete Kelly's Blues, Hell on Frisco Bay and Illegal, in which she sings and mimics Marilyn Monroe's part in Asphalt Jungle. She appears in her first Playboy spread as Playmate of the Month (she then appears in the magazine every February until 1963). She also takes the part of Rita Marlowe wearing only a towel on Broadway in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She takes part in a publicity campaign for the Howard Hughes film, Underwater!, starring Jane Russell.	Hell on Frisco Bay, Female Jungle, Pete Kelly's Blues, Illegal	James Dean dies.	Animal Farm and 1984, two adaptation of George Orwell's novels, were toned-down under CIA initiatives. United Artists withdraws from MPAA upon disagreement on seal of approval issues.	Fred Zinnemann's operettas Oklahoma! introduces the widescreen process. RKO Pictures sells its film library to TV. Walt Disney's film Lady and the Tramp becomes the first CinemaScope animation film. Marty becomes the first film adapted from TV to win a Academy Award for Best Picture. It also wins the Palme d'Or.
1956	Mansfield meets future husband Mickey Hargitay at a restaurant. Says to the waiter: "I'll have a steak and that man on the right." 20th Century Fox buys the rights to Rock Hunter on Broadway and shuts the show down to compel Mansfield to come back to Hollywood. It also releases Mansfield's musical comedy vehicle The Girl Can't Help It, with performances by Little Richard, Abbey Lincoln and others. She receives the Theatre World Award for her performance in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?	The Girl Can't Help It	Elvis Presley's first film, Love Me Tender, released.	—	Federico Fellini's 1954 film La Strada becomes the first official winner of Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Cecil B. DeMille makes his last film The Ten Commandments, a remake of his 1923 epic. Ampex introduces the first practical VTR equipment.
1957	Mansfield appears in the John Steinbeck's adaptation The Wayward Bus with Joan Collins, Kiss Them for Me with Cary Grant and Suzy Parker, The Burglar and reprises her role of Rita Marlowe in the screen version of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Tony Randall and Hargitay. Wins a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. Goes on a tour of Europe for 20th Century Fox. She is presented to Queen Elizabeth. She says to the Queen: "You are so beautiful." The Queen replies: "So are you."	The Burglar, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Kiss Them for Me	—	Roger Vadim's ...And God Created Woman, starring sex kitten of the 1950s Brigitte Bardot, released heavily censored in the US.	American International Pictures, a house of exploitation films, releases I Was a Teenage Werewolf, the first of many "I was a..." films. Frankenstein's monster appears in color for The Curse of Frankenstein by Universal Studios.
1958	Divorces Paul Mansfield and marries Mickey Hargitay on the same day. Hargitay and Mansfield buys the Pink Palace. The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw comes out. Miklós Jeffrey Hargitay is born.	The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw	—	The Lana Turner scandal breaks out.	Number of drive-in theaters peakes near 5,000 in the US. The Cinéma vérité techniques flourish spontaneously. The Blob, starring Steve McQueen in his first leading role, and The Fly are released. Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece of obsession, and Touch of Evil, one of the last films in the film noir genre by Orson Welles, are released. Gigi wins nine Academy Awards.
1959	Wins a Golden Laurel for the Top Female Musical Performance for her role in The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw.	—	—	—	William Wyler's roman epic Ben-Hur wins eleven Academy Awards. The Three Stooges make their 180th and last film Sappy Bullfighters. Walt Disney makes Sleeping Beauty, the most expensive animation film ever at a production cost of US$6 million. Experiments to put smells into films, including Smell-O-Vision and Odorama techniques.
1960	The Loves of Hercules, co-starring Hargitay, is released, as is Too Hot to Handle. Zoltan Anthony Hargitay is born. The family appears on This Is Your Life.	The Challenge, Too Hot to Handle, The Loves of Hercules	Marilyn Monroe wins a Golden Globe Award as Best actress for Some Like It Hot.	—	A number of milestone films are released, including Alfred Hitchcock's psychological horror-thriller film Psycho, the "mother" of modern horror suspense films, Michael Powell's disastrous Peeping Tom, a UK film about a voyeuristic photographer and sadistic serial murderer, Stanley Kubrick's only work for hire Spartacus, a film originally directed by Anthony Mann, Federico Fellini's masterpiece La Dolce Vita and Michelangelo Antonioni's neo-realist encore L'Avventura.
1961	Mansfield co-stars in The George Raft Story.	The George Raft Story	Sophia Loren becomes the first, and only as of 2007, actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for a foreign language movie - Two Women.	—	West Side Story, film adaptation of the 1957 Broadway hit wins 10 Oscars, a record only surpassed by four movies as of 2007. NBC turns How to Marry a Millionaire to be the first film to be aired on TV.
1962	Mansfield stars in It Happened in Athens, and she and Hargitay do a show together that's released as a record, Jayne Mansfield Busts up Las Vegas.	Lykke og krone (Documentary), It Happened In Athens	Marilyn Monroe dies, leaving George Cukor's film Something's Got To Give, featuring the first major Hollywood star nude on screen, unfinished. Before that she wins another Golden Globe Award as World Female Film Favorite.	Victim, a UK film starring man Dirk Bogarde, is refused an MPAA seal of approval for its homosexual theme. Kubrick's Lolita, based on Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel, is threatened with a denial of seal of approval. Dr. No becomes the first successful Bond movie and Ursula Andress creates sensation in a bikini as the first Bond girl.	—
1963	Mansfield does the first nude scene in a mainstream American movie in Promises! Promises!. Stills from the movie run in Playboy magazine and gets the publisher Hugh Hefner arrested for the first, and only as of 2007, time in his life on indecency charges. Jayne also appears in Homesick for St. Pauli.	Homesick for St. Pauli, Promises! Promises!	—	American International releases Beach Party, the first of their sexploitative comedy "beach party" films.	Cleopatra, one of the most expensive films ever at starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, becomes one of biggest flops. Ampex brings out the first VTR set for common consumers.
1964	Mariska Magdolna is born. Divorces Mickey Hargitay. Marries director Matt Cimber. Mansfield films an episode of the TV show Burke's Law, does a summer stock production of Bus Stop, appears in the films L'Amor Primitivo, Dog Eat Dog! and Panic Button, and tours in a theatrical version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.	Primitive Love, Panic Button, Dog Eat Dog	—	—	Michelangelo Antonioni makes the Red Desert, his first film in color using the newly perfected telephoto lens. The Beatles releases A Hard Day's Night , a mockumentary and the first film of the band. NBC and Universal Studios produce and broadcast See How They Run, the first feature length film made for TV. Sony markets the first reel-to-reel VTR specifically for home use.
1965	Antonio Raphael Ottaviano Cimber is born.	The Loved One (Scenes deleted)		The Catholic Church's Legion of Decency condemns Sidney Lumet's film The Pawnbroker for bold depiction of actress Thelma Oliver's bare breasts. Woody Allen meets success with his first screenplay What's New Pussycat?, a sex farce. Director John Lamb's nudist film The Raw Ones openly shows genitalia.	The Sound of Music, film adaptation of the 1959 Broadway musical, surpasses Gone With the Wind as the number one box office hit of all time and wins five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
1966	Mansfield divorces Matt Cimber. Stars in The Fat Spy with Phyllis Diller, and has a cameo in Las Vegas Hillbillys with Mamie Van Doren. She gives birth to her fifth child Antonio. She plays to a sold-out house at New York's Latin Quarter club for two months.	The Las Vegas Hillbillys, The Fat Spy		The Hays Code is revised to remove prohibitions of lustful kissing and passion that stimulates the base emotions, and to permit certain films to be labeled recommended for mature audiences. Swinging UK film Georgy Girl released as the first suggested for mature audiences film under the new code. At Warner Bros.'s appeal MPAA allows the seal of approval for the Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the first US film recommended for mature audiences, despite profane expletives and frank sexual content. MGM distributes Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, the director's first non-Italian feature, featuring teenaged groupies, full-frontal nudity and pubic hair. Legion of Decency changed its official name to the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures.	Academy Awards ceremony broadcast in color. ABC buys airing rights of The Bridge on the River Kwai for a record US$2 million.
1967	Mansfield has a cameo in A Guide for the Married Man starring Walter Matthau. She dies in a car accident on Highway 90 near Slidell, Louisiana. The car crashes into a truck and slides under it. The three adults in the front seat are killed. Mansfield's children, including Mariska, are sleeping in the backseat and survive the accident. Mariska Hargitay has a scar on her head from the accident, but has no memory of the event. A private funderal is held in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania.	A Guide for the Married Man, Spree (1967) (documentary), Mondo Hollywood (Documentary)			The first "spaghetti western", A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the man with no name" is released. Arthur Penn's film Bonnie and Clyde becomes a hit featuring anti-heroes. Mike Nichols is paid a record US$1,000,000 to direct The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman. New Line Cinema is born. In the Heat of the Night becomes the first Best Picture Academy Award winner film to be adopted as a TV series. Sony introduces the first out-of-studio video camera.
1968	The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield and Single Room Furnished are released posthumously.	The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (Documentary; Posthumous), Single Room Furnished (Posthumous)		A new voluntary rating system was introduced by MPAA, with four categories - G (general audiences), M (mature audiences), R (no one under 16 admitted without an adult guardian) and X (no one under 17 admitted). Mädchen in Uniform, a 1931 German film, becomes the first film released in the US with a lesbian theme.	Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey reinvents the science fiction genre. Work begins for Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman, the only X-rated picture to win an Best Picture Academy Award as of 2007.