The Inevitable End of a Love Goddess

On 10 May 2008 artist Susannah Edwards re-enacted a bizarre event, which for a brief moment in 1959 bought together post-war depressed London and the ambrosial glamour of Hollywood. Jayne Mansfield, in town to make a brit-flick, in her characteristically publicity hungry way, opened a budgie show in Haggerston, east London. Jayne eventually went back to her Pink Palace home and Edwards’ modern day bird show, complete with human budgies went on to become an exhibition at Tatty Devine in east London. Writer Iain Sinclair also found the Hackney Gazette cover, which is all that remains of Jayne’s visit and wrote about it in his book Red Rose Empire. Thus Jayne was beamed into the consciousness of middle England when Sinclair’s paean to Hackney became Radio 4’s book of the week. Jayne often appears when least expected; her phantom-like presence enhanced by impossibly blonde hair glowing supernaturally around over emphasised features… There she is in the first film to feature the original rock 'n' rollers. A Hollywood caricature with an impossible figure juxtaposed against the raw teen spirit of a rough looking Gene Vincent. There she is again on the cover of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, her low-cut satiny dress barely covering her forward tilting body....

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