Too Hot to Handle

I just finished watching Too Hot to Handle in colour. Let me just say that I absolutely loved it. It was so vibrant and the colour popped out at you, particularly Jayne's lips which were a bright red the whole way through. Also the quality of the colour print was superb. Far more appealing than the dull low quality black and white version.

Here are some screen shots I took from the colour film. 

Jayne Mansfield Documentary - Arena Blondes

I thought it would be a nice idea to do a post on my favorite Jayne Mansfield documentary, Arena Blondes. It is in my opinion one of the greatest films ever made for Jayne Mansfield. It really makes you feel and there are many people who personally knew Jayne who share their stories of Jayne including all three of her husbands (Paul, Mickey & Matt), Jayne Marie, Ray Strait and Hugh Hefner. The documentary starts with an old news reel report on the death of Jayne Mansfield with the undertaker Jim Roberts as well as the current owner of the car wreck talking about her tragic death.There are amazing rare photos and even rarer footage included in the documentary including colour footage of Jayne's life with Paul (some of these are shown in the A&E documentary but this one has those clips and more). I love two little clips from this period in particular. The first one being of Jayne looking super glamorous and walking seductively with Paul tracing behind her fumbling over Jayne's luggage and a hat box.The second is of little toddler Jayne Marie playing in the front yard and running to Jayne and Paul for hugs and kisses. Night club promoter Paul Blane talks of the first time he meet Jayne at the Underwater press junket and working with her later down the track on her Satire on the strip show. Sabin Grey the former fan club president briefly talks about Jayne. One of my favorite parts is the footage of Jayne showing Robert Robinson around her pink palace. First she opens the gate for him and greets him into her home, then she shows him her lounge room, explaining to him the coat of arms above the fire place. She takes him into the dinning room where she explains Mickey made the table with his bare hands. Next she shows the bedroom and explains that Mickey also made the head board above her bed for her from pink antique mirror. Then it's straight to the fluffy pink bathroom where she shows off her one of a kind heart shaped bath tub. Lastly Jayne shows off the pool and its impressive water display. It is great footage. I love to see anything from inside the pink palace.

I love that in this documentary we hear from all three of her husbands. They all talk about how they met Jayne and the life they shared with her. Mickey gets the most personal. I think no one loved Jayne as much as Mickey did and he never did stop loving her. It clearly shows when he describes his life with Jayne. You could still see the heartbreak in him when he talks about Jayne leaving him for Matt. Rare photos from Jayne and Matt's Mexican wedding are also shown in the film. One thing I found very interesting was Paul  Mansfield describing the time where he meet Jayne once again while she was married to Matt. He said it was in a nightclub in Talsa, Oklahoma and he went backstage to the tiny dressing room to say hello to Jayne and was shocked to find her husband (Matt) selling photos of Jayne for 50c a piece.

Jayne Marie speaks of the incident where Sam Brody beat her and she had to leave her Mum. A very touchy subject for Jayne Marie I am sure as this happened two weeks before her mother died. She says that she does not blame her mother for what happened. Zoltan explains what he remembers from the accident and there is colour footage of the children being taken into hospital. Also shown is footage from the funeral.

The documentary ends with all three husbands shown as they are today (well at the time the documentary was made) and a quick explanation of their lives since Jayne. Paul Mansfield married in 1957 to a woman named Sue and had three kids with her (she already had one son from a previous marriage). Matt remarried and his wife adopted Tony. Mickey and Ellen were shown in a house they built together 20 years prior and had been living in happily ever since.

Arena Blondes is approximately 53 mins long. I highly recommend watching this. You will not be disappointed. I guarantee.

Another documentary that is excellent from the Arena Blondes collection is the Diana Dors segment. I have this one also and it features a clip of Diana and Jayne chatting backstage at Jayne's show in 1967. They were talking about their kids. Diana was impressed that Jayne now had 5 children. That is also worth a watch if you are into Diana Dors.

A collage of screen caps I made from the documentary

Jayne Mansfield Featured in Role Playing Book

Jayne Mansfield is featured in a new role playing book called Atomic Age Cthulhu. Jayne is called Jayne St Jayne in the book. It is a fantasy horror novel based in the 1950's. Unfortunately Jayne's part in the book is out of place as it is based on an event from the 60's not the 50's. It actually sounds quite interesting though and if you are into comic books then I think this would be right up your alley.

The book can be purchased from
http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=6875

And in in-depth review can be found here
http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/02/22/tabletop-review-atomic-age-cthulhu-call-of-cthulhu/

Jayne Magazine - The Jayne Mansfield Story

OK, so because there isn't too many books purely on Jayne Mansfield on the market I have decided to include the Jayne Mansfield magazines to my book reviews from now on. I have decided to start with one of my favorites, simply titled Jayne. Jayne is a pocket magazine printed in 1956 by Show magazine. The article inside the magazine is titled The Jayne Mansfield Story. Majority of the magazines entirely on Jayne were printed in the late 50's and a couple in the early 60's. Sadly there aren't any that I am aware of from her later life. As her popularity had dwindled Jayne still featured on many covers across the world but did not feature in any more magazines with herself as its entity. Also I think another reason for this is because that sort of magazine was not as popular as it had once been. Moving along, here is my review of the magazine Jayne.

The Jayne magazine is a wonder little pocket book packed full of interesting stories and features many glamours rare early photos of our darling Jayne. The very first page is a brief bio/facts table on Jayne with her name, age, weight, height (etc) recorded. The article was written by Evelyn Harvey and talks of Jayne's life to date. It says that Jayne Mansfield told people she comes from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania because that is where she was born but she actually lived in Phillipsberg, New Jersey. Jayne speaks of her father Herbert Palmer and his law firm practice he owned before he sadly passed away when Jayne was only three. Jayne was in awe of her father and you can tell how proud she was to be his daughter. Jayne talks of growing up a methodist because of her Grandfathers roots and speaks highly of her step father Harry Peers who was a sales man for Ingerson Rand at the time the magazine was printed. There is quite a bit of mention of Jayne's home life with Jayne Marie and her love for animals. One thing I found a little funny is that at the time Jayne Marie preferred to be called Linda, according to the story anyways. All of Jayne's beloved pets get a mention in the article. They were Philip the chihuahua, Lord Byron the great dane, two cats Romulus and Sinthia and a puppy named Charlessa. Not to mention the pets she no longer had. A pink toy poodle who died, Remus who was Romulus' twin and another cat called Sabrina who she had to give away.

There are stories about Jayne from co-workers and photographers who had the pleasure of working with her. And also from James Haspiel, a fan who had the privilege of becoming friends with Jayne. James was seventeen at the time and was one of about half a dozen Jayne fans in New York. This is what he says about Jayne. "It's a little embarrassing because we're really Marilyn Monroe fans. We belong to the Marilyn Monroe Fan Club of New York and we follow her where ever she goes. But we always come down and see people like Sheree North and Jayne to find out if they can give her any competition. We decided to help Jayne where we could, bring her clippings and stuff. I have a sort of brotherly feeling toward her. I'm very critical and I tell her what I think she does that's wrong. She takes it. She is very trusting. Sometimes when I meet her, I run out and grab a cab for her or we go to the movies or something. But she's really nothing like Marilyn. Marilyn is more polished, knows how to project herself. I think Jayne wants to get away from it."

Another interesting story is from her boyfriend at the time, Robbie Robinson. Robbie was an airline pilot and tells of the time he meet Jayne on a flight from Dallas to LA.

The last page in the magazine is a list of things she had appeared in. Rock Hunter is mentioned and also her first five films. A few titles she accepted like Miss Negligee and Miss Photoflash are also mentioned.

All in all, I love this little magazine. And I think every fan should own a copy. Keep an eye out on eBay as they do pop up every now and then and it is defiantly worth getting. 

The Jayne Mansfield Bandana by Eddie Kent

Eddie Kent has previously made some truly lovely Jayne Mansfield merchandise, including greeting cards, magnets and starpicks. Now he has created a completely original Jayne Mansfield bandana for us fans to enjoy. Everything available on the Eddie Kent website are original works of art made by Eddie himself. The bandana is a passion pink colour. I currently have mine among my other Jayne Mansfield collectibles inside my Jaynie display cabinet. The Jayne bandana is a wonderful little creation and can be used in so many different ways. A great little original item for us Jayne collectors.

You can order one for yourself at http://www.eddiekent.net/

Tropicana Holiday Starring Jayne Mansfield 55 Years On

This month marks the 55th Anniversary of Jayne Mansfield's show Tropicana Holiday at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. The show started on the 12th of February 1958 and was a huge success. Tropicana Holiday was scheduled to run for four weeks but due to its popularity it was extended. Jayne received $25,000 each week, an astronomical sum for performers in those days. Jayne played Trixie Divoon and was tossed and spun around the stage by her hubby Mickey Hargitay. The pair showcased their acrobatic flare with their adagio dancing while Jayne also sung. Jayne and Mickey had only been married a month and were on top of the world. The couple were the happiest they had ever been and Jayne was finally being paid the top dollar she deserved. The money from the show went into payment for their new home, that home was yet to become known as the Pink Palace.

Included in the cast besides Jayne and Mickey was Elaine Dunn, Cathy Crosby, Dante D'Paulo, George Chakaris, Lizanne Truex, Sean Garrison, Jack Ackerman, Miss USA 1959 Leona Gage, 8 Show girls, 4 Male Dancers and a chorus line of 7.

Starring in the show was Cathy Crosby (Bing Crosby's daughter). In an article for the Sunday Herald Newspaper in 1960 she mentioned that she got the job all on her own. In the article Cathy states "One of the reasons I moved out was to keep the world from thinking I needed Dad and the Crosby name to be successful. I found a job at the Tropicana Hotel on my own, and I've appeared on the Eddie Fisher TV show without help from anyone. When I was appearing with Jayne Mansfield at the Tropicana, Dad was staring at another Hotel in Vegas. One day we passed each other in the hotel lobby, but he didn't even say Hello."

Others responsible for the success of the show was of course the crew who were as follows.

Producer- Monte Proser
Stage Manager- Earl Barton
Original Music- Gordon Jenkins
Music- Nat Brandwynne and Orchestra
Set Director- Glenn Holse

Jayne's costumes for the show were extremely lavish. One particular evening gown cost a sum of $25,000. The same as one weeks salary for Jayne. A $1 Million dollar insurance policy was taken out for Jayne by the Tropicana amid fears Jayne and Mickey's acrobatic act would cause injury.

Jayne received good reviews for the show.

Printed in The Las Vegas Sun on the 13th of February 1958 (the day after opening night)
"Jayne wiggles and waggles and warbles and does some acrobatic maneuvers with Mickey Hargitay. Mickey tosses her around his waist and spins her in wide circles. She never touches the ground in this dangerous feat. There's her famous squeaking and squealing too".

I would love to have seen Jayne perform in Tropicana Holiday live at the Tropicana. I honestly think it would have been as spectacular as the photos and small footage make it look. Jayne looks dazzling in the hundreds of photographs that remain from her time at the Tropicana. Click on the photos below to check out more pics from this infamous show that we will forever remember (even if we weren't there to see it).

Jayne poses in a fluffy gown used in the show

Quite possibly the dress that cost $25,000

Jayne poses in another costume for the show

Jayne and Mickey practicing for the show

Jayne poses in yet another costume from the show

Jaynie's Pink Palace Layout Change

This is just a quick mention of the new layout to the site. It you are wondering the side bar is still there, it is a very thin black strip on the very right of the page. You need to hover your mouse over it to bring up the full panel. The face of the layout is much more simple without the hectic looking collage in the background. I enjoy the new layout and particularly like it as it is now much easier to view old posts in the archive.

Also I just wanted to say that I have removed the Jaynie's Pink Palace Facebook page as it is too public for my liking and there was a facebook user who wasn't even a member of the page sending me threats (more on that later). So I will continue to post on facebook under the Jaynie's Pink Palace Facebook Group which is a closed group but I will be making it private next week.

That is all for now. I can't wait to be blogging more Jaynie with the new look layout.

Love
Jaynie's Pink Palace

Sexbomb The Life and Death of Jayne Mansfield

Before you start using Sexbomb as a book for quoting Jayne Mansfield take a look at this little piece of interesting information.

http://www.joshpachter.com/bib/bib.sexbomb.html

The Story Behind The Photo

Here is a nice little story behind the photo of Jayne Mansfield at the Masqueam Reserve becoming a Princess. If you remember there was mention of Jayne's trip to Canada in the Canadian news last year. I have a wonderful little clipping from it too. I love to hear stories of what Jayne got up to on her international travels. Her trip to Canada is not something that gets mentioned a lot so it really is lovely to see it in the news, first last year and now again this year.

Check out the link
http://www.theprovince.com/story+behind+photo+Actress+Jayne+Mansfield+becomes+First+Nations+Princess/7973514/story.html

Happy Valentines Day

I would like to take a moment to wish the readers a very happy Valentines Day. May your day be filled with pink love hearts and kisses.

Jayne Mansfield's Cornish Ancestry

Jayne Mansfield was a full blooded American woman. She was born and raised in the USA and grew up to become one of America's most recognized sex symbols. Have you ever wondered about Jayne's ancestry though? Here is a quick revision. Jayne's father Herbert Palmer was born in 1904 in Pen Argyl to parents Alice Jackson and Elmer Palmer. Jayne's mother Vera Palmer was born on the 19th of May 1903 to parents Beatrice Jeffery and Thomas Palmer. I find it a little odd that we often recognize Vera's maiden name as being Jeffries or Jeffery however Jeffery was her mothers maiden name. I remember reading that Vera and Herbert were cousins and seeing that they both had fathers with the surname Palmer I think it could be true. Looking further back along the family tree line Jayne has a lot of Cornish ancestry and one German ancestor is named. One of her ancestry lines goes as far back as 1709 and there was even a Jane in the family. I wonder if all this information was easily accessible in Jayne's time if she would have taken an interest in it. I think to some extent she would have found it interesting. And she probably knew she had Cornish in her. I have read that Jayne was close to her grandparents. I wonder what stories they told her growing up and just how much she knew about her heritage. It is all very interesting. Check it out for yourself at the link below.

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=penargyl-cornish&id=P1333198519

Jayne Mansfield Websites

Here is a list of some really great Jayne Mansfield websites which I love to follow and I would recommend to other fans.

The Jayne Mansfield Online Fan Club
This is a really great site for Jayne lovers. It was created in 1998 by my friend, Kimmie Rosenthal, and is still going strong. This site is much more impressive than the official Jayne Mansfield page which has not been updated in a very long time. Kimmie still runs the page today on her own. The impressive web design is thanks to talented Damien Santroni. I would have to say that the Jayne Mansfield Online Fan Club website is my favorite Jayne Mansfield site, I even prefer it more than my own. It is a wonderful website and Kimmie has done a fantastic job at keeping Jayne's memory alive by providing us fans with this beautiful site.

Jayne Mansfield House of Love
This is a fan blog dedicated to Jayne and it is run by a very close friend of mine from Sweden. Regularly posted on this blog is photographs, links, articles, artwork, interviews, quotes etc. Another great fan site working to keep Jayne's memory alive and helping to give other fans the latest Jayne updates.

Jayne Mansfield Forum
The Jayne Mansfield's proboard's forum is now the only forum dedicated to Jayne Mansfield in use. I find it a little bit sad as there was once quite a few Jayne forums to chat in. I think the reason being for the closure of the other forums is because there are some people who like to come along and give others a hard time on places such as this and that is not the reason for a forum. In my opinion the proboards forum is doing nicely these days. At the moment there is no one on there causing drama or trouble for the fans who only want to talk about Jayne.

Jayne Mansfield on VK
Here is a Russian Social Networking site dedicated to Jayne Mansfield. There are hundreds of photos in the albums, none of which are new to me but it is still a nice site and worth checking out if you have not seen it before.

Jayne Mansfield at Michael Nagro Official Photographers Page
More than 500 images taken of Jayne while in Las Vegas by photographer Michael Nagro. I love that there are no watermarks all over these images so we get to appreciate the full glory of Jayne's Las Vegas Show in these images.

La Vie En Rose De Jayne Mansfield
A French blog dedicated to Jayne Mansfield. While it does not get updated too often it is still a nice contribution to the Jayne Mansfield online world.

Find A Death - Jayne Mansfield
I remember this site being one of the very first websites I came across with the real hard facts on Jayne's passing. It has been around for years and still has the same old dreary looking web design. Don't take this page too seriously folks, it's just for a bit of hard facts. And for anyone wondering, that pink suitcase is not Jayne's, I posted about it once a long time ago when I did not know the source. Find-a-death names the source and it comes from a known fraudulent seller.

Tumblr
Lastly I wanted to mention Tumblr, there are quite a lot of Jayne Manfield photo blogs on Tumblr so I won't mention them all. They are easy to find when doing Jayne searches on Tumblr. In fact when I very first started the Jaynie's Pink Palace Blog a few years back it was on tumblr. I prefer the non photo orientated blogs with information and links hence why I moved to blogger instead. I do my own photo searches often and there is very rarely unseen photos for me on Tumblr. However it is still an interesting place to check out for Jayne Mansfield love. I think these sites are great as they are aimed at people only just discovering Jayne.
You can tag all kinds of captions to the Jayne images (ie Vintage, 50's, pinup etc) and it broadens the audience and is a great way at bringing in new admirers.

Jayne Mansfield Movie Trailers

I thought it would make a nice post to put up links to trailers and small scenes from all of Jayne's movies. 

So here they are folks. Beginning with Female Jungle and ending with Single Room Furnished.

Female Jungle (1955)

Pete Kelly's Blues

Illegal (1955)

Hell on Frisco Bay (scene not trailer, 1955) 

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

The Wayward Bus (1957)

The Burglar (Scene not trailer,1957)

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (1957)

Kiss Them For Me (Scene not trailer, 1957)

The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958)

Too Hot to Handle (1960)

The Challenge AKA It Takes a Thief (Scene, not a trailer 1960)

The Loves of Hercules AKA Hercules vs The Hydra (1960)

The George Raft Story (1961)

It Happened In Athens (scene, 1962)

Homesick for St Pauli (Scene, 1963)

Promises Promises (1963)

Panic Button 

(Scene from French version which is 

in high def unlike the English version, 1964)

Dog Eat Dog (1964)

Primitive Love (Scene, 1964)

The Fat Spy (1966)

The Las Vegas Hillbillys (scene, 1966)

A Guide for The Married Man (1967)

Spree (1967)

http://matineeclassics.com/movies/1967/spree/

Single Room Furnished (Scene, 1968)

Jayne Mansfield Arrives and Talks to the Press Clip

Here is a nice little clip showcasing Jayne's famous curves. The parts where the clip is looped is a bit annoying but the footage is lovely particularly the colour footage filmed from a low angle.

Announcement for February 2013

Dear Readers,

I wanted to make an announcement regarding the Jaynie's Pink Palace pages. Firstly for all you instagram maniacs Jaynie's Pink Palace is officially on instagram. I have made it a private page because there are  many people who use instagram to create drama therefor this page is purely for the Jayne Mansfield fans, Mariska Hargitay fans are welcome also. You can follow Jaynie's Pink Palace on instagram at the link below.

Instagram
http://instagram.com/jayniespinkpalace/

Secondly, the Jaynie's Pink Palace Facebook page has been going really well, I have received fantastic feedback from the fans for it however there is one lunatic in particular who is hell bent on having the page removed. I honestly do not want to deal with petty people like him. He is not even a member of the page so I can not ban him from it. Instead I have created a closed group on facebook where I can post about Jayne freely, no feuds or dramas will be aloud as all I want to do is share as much Jayne with my readers as possible. I think I like the idea of a group more so anyways as everyone can post and share what they like as well. If you wish to join the group I encourage you to participate in the posting of Jayne. Request to join quickly as I will be changing the group from Closed to Private shortly.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/207959169329444/

Thirdly, a quick mention of the Jayne Mansfield forum. It went pretty quite for a while but has since picked up if you are looking to chat with other Jayne fans this is the place.

http://jaynemansfield33.proboards.com/

Lastly, I plan on doing more posts here on the official blog page and I want to give the page a makeover so watch this space, Jayne overload will be coming your way.

Keep up the adoration of Jayne

Love
Jaynies Pink Palace

P.S if you are being harassed by certain other fans and they are putting you off the Jayne community entirely. Don't sweat it. Life is too short to put up with people like that. There are some lovely people out there in the Jayne world, don't let those people defy the whole community.

Mariska Hargitay in Ladies Home Journal

Mariska Hargitay has done an interview for the February 2013 edition of the Ladies Home Journal. In it she mentions her Mum much like she did in her 2012 Muse Awards Acceptance Speech.

A lot of women feel pressure to have the perfect body. Do you have advice for them? - Maureen Higgins, Washington, D.C.

MH: My mother was actress Jayne Mansfield. She died when I was 3 years old. She was celebrated for her curves and for being feminine. There's this picture of her in a director's chair with her measurements on the back: 40-21-35. When I look at that picture part of me says, Mom, I love your sense of humor. But the other part of me says, No, your name is supposed to go there. Your body is not who you are. I don't think women should label themselves based on the way they look. What about defining yourself by a different kind of measurement? What about your heart, your soul, your compassion, your generosity, your strength, and your power? There are so many other things to focus on besides your waistline.

Let's Do It - Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las Vegas

The song let's do it was performed by Jayne for her House of Love show in Las Vegas. The songs performed in the show were recorded onto a record called Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las Vegas. The album was digitally remastered and released in CD format with a limited amount of 500 copies. I have the album and listen to it constantly. For anyone who has not heard the album here is Jayne signing Let's Do It.

Mariska Hargitay's Muse Awards Speech 2012 - She Misses Her Mum

This is the most gracious speech I have ever heard any entertainer give. Mariska is truly amazing. It breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes when she mentions missing her mum, Jayne.