Jerry Skinner: What Happened To Jayne Mansfield?

Source:Jerry Skinner- Hollywood Babydoll and Bombshell Jayne Mansfield.

Source:The Daily Review 

"Jayne Mansfield: A Tragic Ending (Jerry Skinner Documentary)"  

From Jerry Skinner

"How Jayne Mansfield's Death Car Changed The Trucking Industry. Great New segment about The Mansfield Bar on the REAR of Truck's and how her death changed Federal regulations."

Source:Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust- The car crash that killed Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield in 1967.

From Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust

This is a scene from CBS's The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980) where Jayne Mansfield (played by Loni Anderson) just wrapped up her latest nightclub act in Biloxi, Mississippi. And she calls her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) to tell him that she has a big business meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. If you are familiar with this story, you know that Jayne and her crew, including her kids, never make it to New Orleans on this tip.  

Source:Make a GIF- Hollywood Babydoll Loni Anderson as Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield.

From Make a GIF

This is a scene from CBS's The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980) where Jayne Mansfield (played by Loni Anderson) just wrapped up her latest nightclub act in Biloxi, Mississippi. And she calls her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) to tell him that she has a big business meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. If you are familiar with this story, you know that Jayne and her crew, including her kids, never make it to New Orleans on this tip. 

Source:Streamer Clips- Hollywood Babydoll Loni Anderson, as Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield.

From Streamer Clips 

"Jayne Mansfield: A Tragic Ending (Jerry Skinner Documentary)" 

Source:Jerry Skinner- Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield, I believe appearing in a British documentary about her.

What happened to Jayne Mansfield? Well as far as her death, she died in a car accident in June, 1967. She was a passenger and not driving and was headed to New Orleans from Biloxi, Mississippi just after midnight because Jayne had an interview that next day on a local New Orleans news show. They probably should have waited until the next morning to leave because as we know now the driver of the car was working and driving literally on no sleep.

And to make things worst, they were trying to make an 87 mile trip in about an hour or so and were in a real rush. So you got a tired driver driving past midnight and in a hurry to get from Biloxi to Mississippi and you also had a lot of traffic on the road as well and two men who died in the accident in front of Jayne's car who were real impatient.

But I believe the better question as far as what really happened to Jayne Mansfield is not so much about how she died in the end, but why was she performing in nightclubs in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1967 when she was still only 34 years old. Instead of New York or Los Angeles making movies, or doing TV shows, performing comedy, perhaps putting her own music album together. Because she had real talent to do all these things as a versatile entertainer, but wasn't doing them by 1967.

One thing that I agree with the narrator in this video is that Jayne Mansfield wasn't a dumb blonde. The woman had a college degree and came from a successful family in Pennsylvania and later Texas. The daughter of a layer and teacher. She could act, she had a comedic wit, and a singer's voice. But she played the dumb sexy blonde as a career move in order to make money and bring publicity to herself.

But to go back to the fact that she was actually a good actress who could act: she played the dumb sexy blonde so well that people took her seriously as the dumb sexy blonde and didn't see her as anything else. Both her fans and studios, movie and TV executives. She voluntarily left Hollywood in the 1960s because she was tired of playing the dumb sexy blonde and wanted serious roles as an actress. She could have stayed in Hollywood and continued to play the dumb sexy blonde and had very successful career as a comedic actress and comedian in general.

But Jayne was no longer interested in playing the dumb blonde. I believe she would have made a great soap actress in the 1970s and 80s even on prime time had she lived a normal life in years, because of a great comedic timing and wit and she had real dramatic affect as well. But of course we'll never know that. I believe Saturday Night Live in the 1970s and 80s would have been a great place for her too, but we'll never know that either. By the early and mid 1960s Jayne's Hollywood career was basically over.

Jayne's Hollywood career wasn't over because she was tired of working in it, but because she was tired of the roles that she was getting as the comedy relief in movies and TV appearances and wanted to go further as an actress. And was left to doing b-movies and and even some pornographic film and even films of her simply traveling around the country and going to Europe simply to stay busy as an actress.

Marilyn Monroe is famous for saying that it takes a smart woman to play the dumb blonde. Jayne played the dumb blonde so well that she had too many people fooled. Which is why she's always been known as the dumb sexy blonde and not much else even though she had so much else going for her as an entertainer and person.