Jayne Mansfield courted gossip and wacky scandal to such an extent that even 50 years later it’s difficult to tell fact from rumour.
That’s why a new documentary about the years before her gruesome death can get away with embracing the craziest theory of all – that she was kill by a satanic course.
Mansfield 66/67, by P David Ebersole and Todd Hughe, goes so far as to play on its title in the opening credits to make it resemble a 666 while demonic rock plays.
Jayne Mansfield courted gossip and wacky scandal to such an extent that even 50 years later it’s difficult to tell fact from rumour
Mansfield 66/67, by P David Ebersole and Todd Hughe, examines the last two years of her life before her death in a horrific car crash
The original Hollywood ‘blonde bombshell’, Mansfield was hired by studios like Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox to be the next Marilyn Monroe.
She most famously starred in The Girl Can’t Help It in her late 1950s heyday and later in Promises! Promises! as the fist major U.S. actress to appear nude.
The 34-year-old was a sought-after celebrity even as her film bankability waned in the 1960s and she sometimes had to sing in cheap nightclubs.
Mansfield was also a magnet for trashy gossip magazines, which she exploited to heighten her profile despite the outlandish rumours.
Mansfield was hired by studios like Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox to be the next Marilyn Monroe (pictured in Will Success Spoil the Rock Hunter? in 1957)
She most famously starred in The Girl Can’t Help It in her late 1950s heyday and later in Promises! Promises! as the fist major U.S. actress to appear nude
Mansfield on the set of film Sheriff of Fractured Jaw in 1957
The film also brings in many other alleged Mansfield facts, such as her having an IQ of more than 160 and being able to speak five languages.
Scenes from her movies are also shown to prove the natural comic timing she was widely believed to have.
The documentary has other odd touches befitting its subjects wild life, such as breaking into bizarre interpretive dance scenes without warning.
Mansfield was famous for low-cut dresses and Playboy centrefolds as much as her acting, but also an extremely complicated personal life.
The 34-year-old was a sought-after celebrity everywhere she went ever since she mad it big
Mansfield was also a magnet for trashy gossip magazines, which she exploited to heighten her profile despite the outlandish rumours
Her film bankability waned in the 1960s and she sometimes had to sing in cheap nightclubs
Over her short life she married and divorced three husbands and had five children (pictured with ex-husband and former Mr Universe Mickey Hargitay)
Over her short life she married and divorced three husbands and had five children and by the events of Mansfield 66/67 was dating her married lawyer Sam Brody.
As if a dalliance with a married man while fighting for custody of her fifth child wasn’t scandalous enough, she added another love interest.
Mansfield met Anton Szandor LaVey, real name Howard Levey, the self-styled head of the Church of Satan during a drug-fuelled trip to San Francisco.
‘The Black Pope’ painted his row house jet black and always wore demonic costumes, and had a pet lion and a home full of topless women.
By the events of Mansfield 66/67 was dating her married lawyer Sam Brody (right)
Brody (left) was killed alongside her in the 1967 car crash when they hit the back of a trailer
Mansfield met Anton Szandor LaVey, real name Howard Levey, the self-styled head of the Church of Satan during a drug-fuelled trip to San Francisco
The pair were not shy about letting the tabloids know they were lovers and Brody was soon so displeased he challenged LaVey, leading to LaVey putting a curse on him
The pair were not shy about letting the tabloids know they were lovers and Brody was soon so displeased he challenged LaVey.
In response, LaVey was said to have put a curse on Brody, saying he would die in a car crash.
Brody and Mansfield survived no less than six car accidents before the fateful night of June 28, 1967, as they drove down I-90 from New Orleans.
Their Buick smashed into the back of a trailer that was obscured by a cloud of insecticide dust from the truck hauling it.
Brody and Mansfield survived no less than six car accidents before the fateful night of June 28, 1967, as they drove down I-90 from New Orleans
Their Buick smashed into the back of a trailer that was obscured by a cloud of insecticide dust from the truck hauling it
The car went under the trailer, sheering the roof clean off and killing Mansfield, Brody, and their driver Ronnie Harrison instantly
There were rumours that Mansfield was decapitated in the crash after police photos showed blonde hair on the ground
The car went under the trailer, sheering the roof clean off and killing Mansfield, Brody, and their driver Ronnie Harrison instantly.
There were rumours that Mansfield was decapitated in the crash after police photos showed blonde hair on the ground.
However, this was later disproved, though her skull was badly crushed and some of her scalp and hair possibly torn off and thrown from the car.
Three of her children, Miklós, Zoltán and Mariska, were relatively unhurt in the back seat, Mariska Hargitay later going on to star in Law and Order: SVU.
Hargitay was the most prominent and long-lasting of her three husbands
Mansfield with husband Hargitay and daughter Jayne Marie Mansfield at London Airport in 1958