Jayne Mansfield - how do we love thee let us count the ways.

Jayne Mansfield was a member of the 'Blonde Bombshell' posse of the 1950s and 1960s who, on her own admission, rose to fame on the captivating magnetism of her curvaceous figure and prodigious cleavage.

Like so many others of her generation of movie stars,sex symbols and 'beautiful people' her flame burned ever so brightly and ever so briefly only to be tragically snuffed out prematurely.  

A contemporary of Marilyn Monroe Jayne did not go by her own hand as Marilyn did but instead fell victim to a tragic motor vehicle accident leaving behind her young family.  She was 34 years old when she died.

Jayne Mansfield's legacy has, however, lived on.  Her daughter Mariska Hargitay, who was a passenger in the accident that claimed her mother's life, has gone on to make her own way in tinsel town and doing so on the strength of her father's name and not Mansfield.

Notwithstanding that Hargitay's bust is reputed to be a 36C, far smaller than her mother's famous 40Ds (actually the measurements varied and were measured as a 46D by a British Newspaper shortly before Mansfield's death), we still think there is a family resemblance. 

In addition to starring on stage and screen Jayne Mansfield also appeared in Playboy Magazine on several occasions and is important for the fact that she was the first mainstream Hollywood actress to appear nude since the advent of talking motion pictures starring in Promises Promises.

The film was originally banned in Cleveland, which doesn't seem to have been too difficult a feat to achieve historically, but the ban was later lifted when the nude scenes in the movie were deemed not to be lewd.

In addition to Hargitay, Jayne Mansfield's first child, a daughter, also called Jayne Mansfield has made an impression in the entertainment industry following in her mother's...er...footsteps by posing nude in Playboy magazine.  Jayne Marie Mansfield was the first child of a Playboy Playmate to appear in the magazine.

But Jayne was not all blonde hair and big breasts.  She had an IQ of 163 and spoke 5 languages, not that those qualities and attributes were ever commonly associated with her.  Jayne knew what was required to gain what she wanted out of life once famously observing "A forty-one inch bust and a lot of perseverance will get you more than a cup of coffee-a lot more. But most girls don't know what to do with what they've got."  

In addition to her brains, savvy and beauty Jayne Mansfield had a wicked sense of humour and a love of pulling stunts which got her noticed (I guess today she'd be called a media tart or an attention whore).  Not many people could have pulled off what she did and not many people of her profile would have the confidence or the devil-may-care attitude to do it even if they had the courage.

One stunt she pulled involved pranking Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren.  Mansfield was at dinner at Romanoff's restaurant in Hollywood seated next to Loren wearing a particularly low-cut gown and did everything possible to attract the attention of Loren to Mansfield's ample jiggling cleavage.  When she got the desired result paparazzi were on standby to capture the scene.  The result caused a huge stir and an equally huge amount of publicity which is precisely what Mansfield intended.

  

Brains, beauty, a wicked sense of humour and a liberal attitude what more could any red blooded male ask for?

Jayne Mansfield how do we love thee let us count the ways.