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The FIR Vault

JAYNE MANSFIELD’S STARLET DAYS

By • Aug 1st, 2012 • Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

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Jayne's film debut, opposite Burt Kaiser, in FEMALE JUNGLE

Baruch told Jayne of Lewis’ enthusiasm: “She was excited. I said, ‘Alright Jaynie, I’ll prepare you for a screen test.’ I worked with her on a scene from JOAN OF ARC.” Jayne’s leap from Arthur Miller’s floozy to Bernard Shaw’s saint was not without difficulty: “It was a hard job. I talked to this girl so much, until she began to cry. When she began to cry I said, ‘Jaynie, you’re going to be a good Joan.’ She left for Hollywood in a jalopy. I called up Milton Lewis, Jaynie never knew I called Milton. She was so excited that she had got an interview when she called Paramount that she wrote me a letter and enclosed the Interview Pass to prove it.” Lumet produced the Interview Pass -23306- – that officially welcomed ’54’s unknown Jayne Mansfield onto the Paramount lot. Dated April 30th, it scheduled Jayne for an appointment with Milton Lewis.

She said. “Well, I made this test at Paramount, JOAN OF ARC, Crazy? And the man who saw it said I was a good actress but my figure was taking his mind off the character. And if it would take his off it, it would take everybody’s. I had brown hair then.” Jayne was given another test scene script to study and filming was set-up for May 8, ’54. “Then they tried me in a bit from The Seven Year Itch. The piano bit.” Jayne’s Itch test failed to impress. She next posed for a photographer in the famed forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, her own hands firmly planted atop the recent cement impressions of the handprints of Marilyn Monroe. Following in Marilyn’s footsteps, Jayne next turned up at MM’s former alma mater, The Blue Book Model Agency. Agency head Emmeline Snively sent her on to a photographer, Gene Lester, and that led to her short-lived appearance as one of a half-dozen bathing beauties in a commercial for the General Electric Corporation. Lester elaborates: “She was way over to the left side of the picture. General Electric notified me that they had to cut her out of the picture because she looked too sexy for 1954 viewers.”

'Road company Marilyn Monroe' publicizing UNDERWATER in which JM did not appear

Jayne continued making the studio rounds but had to settle for jobs distantly related to her goal. The girl who wanted to be in the movies earned $35 a week selling candy at the Wilshire Wiltern movie theater in West Los Angeles. The girl who less than three years later would be named one of the ten most photographed people in the world, stood behind the camera taking pictures of patrons at Esther Williams’ new nightclub, The Trails, where she earned $6 (plus 10% of her sales) each evening. Jayne was fired after her second night on the job. “I never had any inclination to turn back,” she explained some years later, describing success as “eighty per-cent determination and twenty per-cent talent.” It was that determination which led to her first professional appearance before the cameras as an actress on television – speaking ten lines of dialogue in AN ANGEL WENT A.W.O.L. televised live on “Lux Video Theater” October 21, ’54. An independent movie producer noticed her and the following month she was paid $150 to make her motion picture debut as an “available blonde” named Candy Price in Hangover, a low budget quickie production which would be released two years later as Female Jungle. When Jayne saw herself on screen, viewing Hangover’s daily rushes, she frankly admitted it was “love at first sight.” But the stature she felt she’d achieved via a featured movie role was short lived. “Two weeks later, I was back selling candy.” While Jayne pushed the popcorn, her young husband, Paul Mansfield, ushered ticket buyers into the gaudy movie palace. He had already made it clear to Jayne that they were as close to the world of movie magic as he ever cared to tread. Unable to agree with Jayne about her future, Mr. Mansfield soon found himself ushered out of her life.

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