How Jayne Mans­field set the blue­print for today’s mod­ern real­i­ty stars

When Bar­bara Wal­ters inter­viewed the Kar­dashi­an fam­i­ly for her ​“10 Most Fas­ci­nat­ing Peo­ple in 2011” list, she declared that they were ​“famous for being famous” before pro­ceed­ing to note their lack of tal­ents in the enter­tain­ment scope. Fast-for­ward over a decade lat­er, and the real­i­ty TV clan par­layed their appar­ent absence of real artistry into a full-fledged empire. But the Kar­dashi­ans weren’t the first stars to climb to the top of the A‑list with noth­ing but fame and deter­mi­na­tion to aid them – that hon­our should per­haps go to Jayne Mans­field, the blue­print for mod­ern real­i­ty stars today.

Con­sid­ered by many con­tem­po­raries to be a cheap imi­ta­tion of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, Mans­field played up her per­sona of a dumb blonde to the mass­es, let­ting her icon­ic mea­sure­ments do most of the talk­ing while she coy­ly purred her way through inter­views. What many of her fans at the time didn’t know was that this was all for show. Roger Ebert claimed Mans­field had an IQ of over 160, while she also spoke an impres­sive five dif­fer­ent lan­guages, some that she’d utilise lat­er on in her career.

Man­u­fac­tured per­sonas were noth­ing new dur­ing Hollywood’s Gold­en Age. The His­pan­ic Rita Hay­worth under­went a name change and a painful process known as elec­trol­y­sis to change her hair­line, while even Mon­roe her­self came to Tin­sel­town as the brown-haired Nor­ma Jeane Morten­son. By the time Mans­field land­ed her first major film role in 1956’s The Girl Can’t Help It, the Gold­en Age of Hol­ly­wood was already near­ing its final years, and the blonde sex sym­bol knew what she had to do. ​“The real stars are not good actors or actress­es,” she once cooed. ​“They’re personalities.”

Born Vera Jayne Palmer on 19 April, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Penn­syl­va­nia, Mansfield’s famous last name was actu­al­ly acquired from first hus­band, Paul Mans­field, whom she mar­ried a few months before her high school grad­u­a­tion in 1950. By 1954, with their daugh­ter in tow, the ambi­tious celeb-to-be con­vinced her beau to move to Los Ange­les with one goal in sight: star­dom. While her mar­riage to Paul end­ed the fol­low­ing year (it would be her first of three divorces), Mansfield’s desire for the bright lights of Hol­ly­wood nev­er fal­tered. Her unwa­ver­ing con­fi­dence is what ini­tial­ly got her an inter­view with Paramount’s tal­ent chief, Milt Lewis, too, mere­ly by ring­ing up the stu­dio and pro­claim­ing, ​“I’m Jayne Mans­field, and I want to be a star.”

On top of schmooz­ing with indus­try exec­u­tives, the secret to Mansfield’s suc­cess came through her tabloid scan­dals, many of which she orches­trat­ed her­self. Her most famous atten­tion-grab­bing stunt came in 1955, where the bud­ding actress attend­ed a press jun­ket for Howard Hugh­es’ Under­wa­ter. Instruct­ed by her agent to wear a risqué, red lamé swim­suit and min­gle with the press as opposed to fel­low stars, Mans­field grabbed their atten­tion the best way she knew how: By div­ing into a pool and let­ting her suit tear open in the process. The moment became an icon­ic piece of Hol­ly­wood lore.

Mansfield’s will­ing­ness to talk to the press at any giv­en time was echoed through Kim Kardashian’s own rise as influ­encer extra­or­di­naire. In fact, in the 2000s, while Kar­dashi­an was still Paris Hilton’s assis­tant, the pair would text the paparazzi them­selves before head­ing out in pub­lic to ensure they were the talk of the town. In a world before Insta­gram offered up real-time access to our favourite celebri­ties, the tabloids reigned supreme – some­thing Mans­field and Kar­dashi­an both knew how to cap­i­talise on.

Frank Tashlin’s musi­cal com­e­dy, The Girl Can’t Help It, solid­i­fied Mansfield’s spot on the A‑list, util­is­ing her great­est assets in a part­ner­ship made in heav­en. Tash­lin, who had a back­ground as an ani­ma­tor of Warn­er Broth­ers car­toons, trans­formed his star into a com­i­cal pin-up, only bol­stered by cos­tume design­er Charles LeMaire’s whacky cre­ations. LeMaire played up Mansfield’s fig­ure, adding tas­sels to her der­rière, padding her hips, and equip­ping her with point­ed, exag­ger­at­ed bustiers.

The result? A deli­cious­ly campy par­o­dy of Hollywood’s glam­our girls. Out­do­ing even Monroe’s trade­mark breathy drawl, Mansfield’s deliv­ery as a sex­pot is mas­ter­ful and nuanced, adding an air of intel­li­gence to her char­ac­ter. She’s in on the joke, and the sub­se­quent bal­anc­ing act she pulls off is impres­sive. As Mans­field saun­ters from scene to scene, she looks oth­er­world­ly – and she’s in com­plete con­trol of her image.

The Girl Can’t Help It was tru­ly the apex of Mansfield’s rise as a Tin­sel­town great. Although her dream of becom­ing a star came true, the rest of Mansfield’s life wasn’t easy. She dealt with a steady stream of ridicule from the press for being too exhi­bi­tion­is­tic and ​“unla­dy­like”. Despite work­ing steadi­ly, Mans­field nev­er quite achieved the sta­tus of a ​“seri­ous” actress, and her life was sad­ly cut short in 1967, when she was involved in a fatal car acci­dent on her way to New Orleans from Mississippi.

The tabloids had a field day with the star­let, spread­ing a false sto­ry that she was decap­i­tat­ed; dead or alive, the pub­lic was infat­u­at­ed by rumours of the blonde icon. Kim Kar­dashi­an may have mas­tered the art of ​“famous for being famous,” but it was Jayne Mans­field who paved the way.

Frank Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It will be released through The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion on 19 April.