Eve Golden

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967) was driven not just to be an actress but to be a star. One of the most influential sex symbols of her time, she was known for her platinum blonde hair, hourglass figure, outrageously low necklines, and flamboyant lifestyle.

Hardworking and ambitious, Mansfield proved early in her career that she was adept in both comic and dramatic roles, but her tenacious search for the spotlight and her risqué promotional stunts caused her show more to be increasingly snubbed in Hollywood.

In the first definitive biography of Mansfield, Eve Golden offers a joyful account of the star Andy Warhol called "the poet of publicity," revealing the smart, determined woman behind the persona. While she always had her sights set on the silver screen, Mansfield got her start as Rita Marlowe in the Broadway show Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She made her film debut in the low-budget drama Female Jungle (1955) before landing the starring role in The Girl Can't Help It (1956). Mansfield followed this success with a dramatic role in The Wayward Bus (1957), winning a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and starred alongside Cary Grant in Kiss Them for Me (1957). Despite her popularity, her appearance as the first celebrity in Playboy and her nude scene in Promises! Promises! (1963) cemented her reputation as an outsider.

By the 1960s, Mansfield's film career had declined, but she remained very popular with the public. She capitalized on that popularity through in-person and TV appearances, nightclub appearances, and stage productions. Her larger-than-life life ended sadly when she passed away at age thirty-four in a car accident.

Golden looks beyond Mansfield's flashy public image and tragic death to fully explore her life and legacy. She discusses Mansfield's childhood, her many loves—including her famous on-again, off-again relationship with Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay—her struggles with alcohol, and her sometimes tumultuous family relationships. She also considers Mansfield's enduring contributions to American popular culture and celebrity culture. This funny, engaging biography offers a nuanced portrait of a fascinating woman who loved every minute of life and lived each one to the fullest.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I was a young boy when Jayne Mansfield died. It was stunning how insensitive the chatter around the tragedy was...my mother vocally disapproved of the demeaning way she was talked about as a "sex kitten" and bringing up her nude photos and scenes. I've been interested in her ever since, as my judgmental mother was *defending* her, so something had to be interesting about her.

the most famous photo...Sophia Loren disapproves

More interested in being a star than an actress, the lady was quite a handful as a person—ramping up the public persona that would've made her zillions in the Aughties, fighting, undressing, taking risqué to its apotheosis in the days when Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors, and she were working the blonde bombshell vein in the publicity mine.

how she made her millions

Like those ladies, Jayne Mansfield was an intelligent, troubled person with a hot ambitious streak in her that her face and body were able to fuel. She never hesitated to use her sex appeal...and sex...to get her name in front of the public. It worked; she was famous.


Mickey and Jayne in mid-act

She was not respected, as no woman in that era was really respected; but certainly no frankly, openly sexual anyone, still less a woman, was going to be highly regarded in the film or television industry. Thus when fashions changed and gamines became The Next Thing, she had no baseline of support in the industry she'd made so much money for.

Las Vegas was ready for her

Turbulent, addiction-haunted personal lives were, are, always have been back into pop-culture history all too common among the famous. Jayne Mansfield was no different than so many others with messy personal lives. She did seem to get married a lot and ended up with five children born between 1950 and 1965.

the family side

The terrible tragedy of a life cut so very short is that her potential, her development, her impact on the world is frozen at a moment; not a moment I suspect, reading about her in this book, she would have stayed in forever. Author Golden has come in for criticism in her supposed inaccurate information about what, when I poked into it a little bit, looked to me like pretty insignificant dates and details about trifles. Looking at the notes...all fiftyish pages of 'em!...Author Golden *lived* in newspaper archives for a good while. Where the issue seems to arise is in the slightly too-prominent tone of disapproval some have seen in the text. It did not feel moralizing to me. I was more interested in the trajectory of a proto-Kardashian sibling.


either of these could have Kim Kardashian in them and be the same publicity campaign

When Yule gifting is the point, the life and times of bygone stars make very instructive reading. We're in fame hyperdrive thanks to a level of mass communication unknown in Jayne Mansfield's life, but the exploitive outlines are still there. Your budding feminist film scholar might enjoy seeing how we got where we are; your brodawg cousin might just like seventy-plus pictures of Jayne Mansfield. The Fifties and Sixties exert fascination that will peak in the late 20s and early 30s as the TCM crowd starts watching the silly innocent farcically "naughty" work of the era. A book like this will please those audiences.


She might not have received the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but this family is very much a testament to the fact she did something right. show less

There's an oldish joke which goes something like "a teenage boy looks at a picture of Theda Bara and asks his grandfather 'Was she really a sex symbol?' and when the grandfather said yes, the lad replied "No wonder you went through a great depression."

Having seen the photos of Bara in "Vamp", one has to agree that she seems an unlikely sex symbol, but it seems she was. That aside, Vamp is an enjoyable read with Golden making some wry asides throughout the book and some interesting details show more on early Hollywood included. Golden also does well to explain why Bara was considered a sex symbol, when she looked plain and plump compared to some of her contemporaries. show less

I am a huge classic film fan and own thousands of them. I also own hundreds of biographies of Hollywood actors, directors, studios, etc. I'm not interested in the actors of today, mostly because I watched those films with my parents. So I am of course eager to get my hands on anything written about actors from the past. Therefore, I wanted to read this biography.

Much has been written about actress Jayne Mansfield, but I've never thought anything had given her any justice. Eve Golden is a show more prolific author who has written other Hollywood biographies, and I've found her to be a fair judge and not biased on one side or the other.

Jayne Mansfield was an enigma. She wanted it all: marriage, motherhood, and utter Stardom. She tried to have it all, and failed so miserably, but never conceded that she did. She was a lovely person, both lovely in face and in her treatment of others, but was never taken seriously. Perhaps it's because she was given terrible scripts and offers; perhaps it's because she herself was at fault. I first saw her many, many years ago in a film called The Girl Can't Help It, and thought she was delightful. In that film, her gangster boyfriend wanted her to be a star, but all she wanted was a home and family. Maybe this is what should have happened to her in real life, but it was not meant to be.

She had a kind nature and while true stardom eluded her, she signed every object fans thrust in front of her. She talked to all reporters, even though they trashed everything she did and spoke badly of her. She went on tours, both to plug films and see the soldiers overseas. Jayne never landed in one place for any length of time, dragging both children and pets (and even husbands) with her.

When she died, reporters tried to make it lurid stories to sell papers. Lies were told, and to this day there are people that still believe them. She was thirty-four years old, still beautiful and young, like her fellow actors who died young - Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow. But while they achieved their own brand of stardom, Jayne never achieved hers until after her death. It's a sad commentary.

I will say I was at first skeptical of this biography when Ms. Golden quoted a Bob Hope film - The Lemon Drop Kid - as being a western. It's not; he plays a con artist and the movie takes place during the Christmas season. I watch it every year during the holidays. So, you can see why I was skeptical. But I found the rest of her information quite well researched and quotes from Jayne's family accompany this.

This is a hefty book that delves into Jayne's birth and upbringing; her need to have a man in her life at all times - perhaps because she craved love as well as adoration? - and her struggle to make a name for herself in Hollywood. It's well-researched, goes into great length of a recounting of Jayne's film, stage, etc., appearances and what the result of those were. Not only were reporters cruel, but other actors and studio executives. Yet Jayne never had an unkind word to say about anyone.

She was also educated, played two instruments and spoke several languages. She loved children and animals. It makes one think when you read this. You get an insight into who the woman really was. She wasn't perfect; no one is nor can they aspire to be so. But when you cease reading this book, you think how nice it would have been to sit and talk with her. But since that's impossible, you can still read the book. Highly recommended. show less

Well researched biography of Mexican "spitfire" Lupe Velez. While not a fan of Velez, her story needed telling. I never enjoyed her films although her encounter with Stan and Ollie in Hollywood Party is a classic and enough to make her remembered. Her roles in the Mexican Spitfire films turned me off but I would like to see The Broken Wing that the author indicated showed her in a dramatic role. However, there were some things the author mentioned that I disagreed with, one being on page 287 show more that Kay Kyser was a "briefly" very popular bandleader. Kyser had 11 number one records and one of the few whose radio show transitioned to television. He was the most popular bandleader with the USO and one of the highest paid bandleaders of the era. One thing the author did not go into and that is if Velez had some kind of personality disorder. All of her lovers ended up bitten and bruised including Gary Cooper and husband Johnny Weismueller. She loved the weekly boxing matches in Hollywood and had a ringside seat. Why did she seem to enjoy violence so much? This question went unanswered. Someone as sexually promiscuous as Velez should have known the consequences was pregnancy. And while Harald Ramond treated her shabbily as well as Velez's own family, she committed suicide to avoid the scandal of being an unwed mother as well as a has been star. I applaud the author for setting to rest the manner of her death as erroneously reported in the Hollywood Babylon book.While the author provided the street name and a photo of Velez's home, she did not provide the specific house number which I always like to look up on Zillow. I wish there had been a complete filmography in the book but do appreciate the effort the author made in documenting the life of Lupe Velez. show less