The new documentary explores Jayne Mansfield after Slidell Crash | Entertainment / Life

With an breathless voice, platinum curls and a sheath outfit, it has become a symbol of Hollywood sex. But behind the image was a much more complex life – an interrupted by a car accident in Slidell.

The next documentary, “My Mom Jayne”, discovers the life of the actress and pin-up Jayne Mansfield of the 1950s almost 60 years after her death. Looking on June 27 on HBO, he was filmed by his daughter – producer and actress of “Law and Order: SVU”, Mariska Hargitay – who, with his two brothers, survived the car accident. She was three years old.

“Reclaiming Our Family Story,” said Hargitay in the trailer. “This is what it is for me because she is part of me. I want to know her under the name of Jayne, my mother Jayne.”

When she died at 34 in 1967, Mansfield had been a celebrity for a decade, with a dozen Hollywood films between travel around the world and stays in her palatial pink manor of 40 rooms in Palm Springs. Beyond her acting career, Mansfield was a mother of five children of three marriages, notably in the bodybuilder who became Mickey Hargitay.

“My life is only a long honeymoon,” Mansfield told journalists in New Orleans, where she frequently visited.

But the tumultuous chapters of Mansfield’s life – divorces, cheating scandals, guard battles – and its glamor was at the center of the tabloids.

Become a Hollywood star

The fixing of the entertainment industry on the curves of Le Mansfield and platinum hair has often overshadowed its theatrical talents, signaling it as a “stupid blonde”.

On the contrary, Mansfield studied at the University of Texas and Southern Methodist while frequently appearing in rooms at the Austin Civic Center. She finally signed up for the dramatic program of the University of California in Los Angeles.

After entering the office of a publicist and became his client on the same day, several film studios sought Mansfield. Of the four who made offers, she decided to Warner Brothers.

“I want to be known as an actress – not as a girl with a large bust. How can I bring producers and columnists to achieve this?” She said in an interview from 1955 with The Times-Picayune, after being performed in her first film as a attractive nightclub singer.

Needless to say, Mansfield – presented by the media as the most photographed woman since Marilyn Monroe – was well aware of the perception of her public. And finally, she played in this bomb image, posing on risky photos for Playboy Magazine and boasting of her male call to magazines.

“Oh, I do a sort of breath, a bit like Eartha Kitt,” said Mansfield about her plumeuse voice. “I have invested a year in Broadway that explains Hollywood to my mind.”

The cost of fame

The public eye was as concentrated on the personal struggles of Mansfield as on its appearance.

In November 1966, a year and a half after his Hargitay divorce, Mansfield posed for paparazzi in a California zoo when his son was mutilated by a lion and almost died.

In June 1967, a few days before his death, the daughter of Mansfield, 16, covered with bruises and Welts, reported to the Los Angeles police that his mother’s male companion had beaten him.

Her last months have revealed that the dream for life to become a famous actress had come with expensive costs – sexualization, meticulous examination and very publicized dead.

Date of Mansfield with God ‘

On June 28, 1967, a few hours before the fatal car accident won his life, Mansfield made two shows at Gus Steven’s Supper Club in Biloxi. The employees told Times-Picayune journalists that it was his best show to date.

After the concert, Mansfield, three of his children, four dogs and his lawyer, Samuel Brody, obtained a Buick Electra of 1966 led by Ronnie Harrison. They were on the road to New Orleans, where she planned to stay at the Roosevelt hotel and to be interviewed by the local information station WDSU.

The Buick traveled on a narrow 90 highway, west of the Runson bridge, when it struck and plunged under a semi-trailer tractor that had slowed down for a mosquito spray truck. Mansfield, Brody, Harrison and two of the dogs were instantly killed.

The children, asleep on the rear seat, survived with minor injuries.

Hargitay arrived at the Ochsner Foundation hospital, where his children received treatment on the day of the accident. With his tie stand out and his eyes staring at it, he addressed journalists in the hospital’s library.

“The little Mickey asked me what had happened to mother,” said Hargitay, holding tears. “I told her that she had an appointment with God. That she will be with God from now on.”

The consequences

The fatal accident prompted the authorities to recommend the installation of “undergoing undergoes” at the rear of the tractor trailers to prevent vehicles from sliding below them in collisions. Years later, these guards, commonly known as “Mansfield bars”, have become compulsory

The death of Mansfield also sparked rumors, much speculating that it was beheaded after seeing a photo of its blonde wig rest on the dashboard.

“She was fully intact,” said James Roberts of Bultman Funeral Home in the Lower Garden District, where Mansfield’s body was taken after his death. “I know. I hired it.”

Two days after the accident, Mansfield’s body was transported from New Orleans to the small town of Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, where she lived during early childhood.

Despite the efforts of his family to avoid published funeral, nearly 1,000 people cluttered the cemetery, creating what Times-Picayune described as a “circus atmosphere”. Some have crossed the police lines to take pictures of the Mansfield bronze coffin covered with pink roses.

“I want the whole world to remember her like me,” said Hargitay to journalists. “She was a remarkable woman and a great mother. I’m really sorry that nobody knows the real Jayne.”