Jayne Mansfield, perhaps the Slate Belt’s biggest star, died 55 years ago this week.
Mansfield was an actress, model and sex symbol of the 1950s and ‘60s who lived life in the headlines but would still return to the Lehigh Valley to visit family and sign autographs.
In 1967, thousands of people flocked to her final resting place here. Even now, she still has fans who will likely pay a visit to the heart-shaped headstone in Pen Argyl, where she is buried next to her father.
The Express-Times gave the following account of her life on June 29, 1997, the 30th anniversary of her death:
Born in Bryn Mawr, reared a few years in Phillipsburg and shaped in Pen Argyl, pretty Vera Jayne Palmer — in the process of transforming herself into blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield — surfaced in show business wearing a red bathing suit.
Too tight to defy gravity, too flimsy to remain on her 40-21-35 figure for too long, it fell.
And with a splash, she upstaged star Jane Russell in a Howard Hughes Florida experiment called “Underwater” …
… It was the beginning of a lifetime of headline hunting — where her true genius and career lay.
That was 1955. She was just 22, and for the next 10 years, she flirted with a history of losing her clothes in the company of cameras and reporters.
Jayne Mansfield invented herself — a creature of the media at a time when “the media” was still “the press.”
[June 29 is the] anniversary of her violent death in a car crash on Route 90 near New Orleans. …
… She lives more in myth than memory these days, and her grave site in Fairview Cemetery near Pen Argyl is more likely to entertain perhaps a visitor or two — unlike the time of her death when thousands lined the Slate Belt townships and boroughs to catch a glimpse of her coffin on June 30, 1967.
More than 300 police officers were called in to quell the crowds.
… Mike DiGiacomo was a Bangor High School student in 1979, 12 years after Mansfield died at age 34. Now [in 1997] he’s the president of “Simply Divoon,” one of two Jayne Mansfield fan clubs that thrive on the legend of “Jaynie,” as DiGiacomo calls her.
“Simply Divoon” was Mansfield’s send-up of a then-chic Hollywood phrase — “Isn’t that simply divine, dear?”
… “I have 10,000 photos of her,” he said in a telephone conversation … . “Filing cabinets full of her stuff. If I move, I’d have to buy a second house to store it.”
He had to interrupt the interview to phone in a midnight bid to New York on Mansfield’s first Screen Actors Guild contract she signed in 1955.
He already owns her copy of the script to “The Girl Can’t Help It,” one of her first movies, recognized as the first rock-and-roll movie with a soundtrack provided by Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino and The Platters.
… But she’s noted most for her figure, and her role as the archetypal “dumb blonde,” despite her 168 IQ.
“Most people compare Jayne to Marilyn Monroe,” DiGiacomo said. “She wasn’t Marilyn. She’s more like Madonna — a talented businesswoman. A corporation.”
Her most challenging competitor was also not Monroe.
“It was Shirley Temple,” DiGiacomo said, explaining Mansfield grew up in Pen Argyl at a time when everybody’s sweetheart was curly-topped Shirley Temple.
Mansfield couldn’t compete with cute.
… DiGiacomo said when she grew up, Mansfield found another way to compete. She used glamour, as evidenced in the many photos she happily posed for.
And she had fun being Monroe’s cartoon.
… DiGiacomo said “she created herself” with staged events, stunts and appearances that kept her in the news.
She once staged a shipwreck in the Caribbean Sea. Amazingly, the first rescuers were news reporters.
Or maybe it was a real shipwreck? Nobody knew for sure.
“She didn’t want to be an actress,” DiGiacomo said. “She wanted to be a star, and she did everything she could to stay in the news. She once said, ‘If they’re not writing about me, I’m dead.’
“There is a dark side to Jayne Mansfield,” DiGiacomo said.
There are also myths as thick as the mist that rolled from the back of the truck spraying for mosquitoes in that Louisiana parish when nightclub driver Ronnie Harrison slammed into the back of the truck, killing himself, Mansfield’s lawyer, Sam Brody, and the star.
… That was the end of Jayne, but not her story.
Although she married three times, her second husband — Mr. Universe of 1955 Mickey Hargitay — was the love of her life. And she made sure her five children were taken care of after her death.
She made frequent trips from The Pink Palace, [her Beverly Hills mansion] with its heart-shaped pool and hidden rooms, to tank up on love in the house on Schank Avenue, Pen Argyl, with [her aunt Helen Millheim], family and friends.
She would go out into the street with the children and sign autographs all day long. Today, it’s difficult to track down those children.
She was described as “a generous heart.”
The man who dug her grave tells the story of how he had to bring in a load of dirt to replace that taken from the grave site by hundreds of fans who brought jars to fill with her soil — to tank up on her love.
During the day of her funeral — a private affair in the midst of a national extravaganza — she was remembered by her grade school teacher Emma Harris of the Gargield school in Pen Argyl.
Then 76, Harris said the town’s most famous resident was “a special favorite of hers.”
The child was smart.
… The Shirley Temple wannabe, who had to be a 1,000-mile-per-hour celebrity, found rest under a large heart carved from pink Italian marble brought from Italy by Hargitay.
She’s buried in the Palmer plot, next to her father — a lawyer who died of a heart attack while driving from Phillipsburg to Pen Argyl when Jayne was 3. He was only 36.
The great entertainer, Bob Hope, sent flowers.
Within the pink stew of myths, one poignant moment bubbles gently to the top.
One of the last things she did before the car hit the truck was snuggle the kids comfortably in the back seat.
MORE LEHIGH VALLEY HISTORICAL HEADLINES THIS WEEK
• 10 YEARS AGO | June 27 and July 2, 2012: Phillies stars Chase Utley and Ryan Howard each play with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs with rehab assignments less than a week apart.
• 25 YEARS AGO | June 26, 1997: The death of notable Phillipsburger William H. Blackton, founder of the Phillipsburg Free Press weekly newspaper, is reported. He was 89. Blackton had served on town council and as a press adviser for the campaign of New Jersey Gov. Robert B. Meyner, also of Phillipsburg.
This story is part of Lehigh Valley Then, a weekly series that recalls historical headlines from lehighvalleylive.com, The Express-Times and their predecessors from 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Stories are pulled from microfilm at the Easton and Bethlehem area public libraries. The original text is edited for clarity and length.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.
Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
Ad Choices