For the third consecutive February, this magazine takes pleasure in reporting the progress of its favorite valentine, Jayne Mansfield. We rather like to feel we've had a bit to do with the to-do over Jayne these past two years. In February of 1955 a then-unknown Miss Mansfield was featured in Playboy as Playmate of the Month. That same February, the Brothers Warner signed her up and she appeared in a number of minor movie parts in stuff like Illegal, Pete Kelly's Blues and suchlike, whereupon she came to the attention of eagle-eyed Julie Styne. Styne was producing a comedy called Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and the script required the services of a big, bounteous blonde. We're going to let you guess just which big, bounteous blonde got the part, but the show opened in October 1955 to what they called "mixed" notices, while audiences and critics alike were notably unmixed in their enthusiasm for Miss Mansfield (her costume in the show was a bath towel).
We assigned that Broadway Boswell, Earl Wilson, to interview Jayne for our February 1956 issue and asked the rhetorical question, Will Success Spoil Jayne Mansfield? The answer was an unequivocal No, of course, and we illustrated the interview with the most provocative photographs ever published of the girl (until now).
Jayne's success with Rock Hunter made her even more attractive to Hollywood and rumor has it that 20th Century-Fox tried to buy out her run-of-the-show contract, failed, and so bought the entire production in order to liberate Jayne for film assignments. Be that as it may, Jayne was liberated and returned to the wonderful land of celluloid make-believe a full-fledged star.
The new Jayne Mansfield is a very different girl than the one who appeared as Playboy's Playmate two years ago. She's a good deal wiser, she is one husband lighter (shed immediately upon her return to Hollywood) and she even looks different; the West Coast wizards have done magical things to her hair style and make-up and produced a Mansfield fresher and more lovely than any seen before. Along the way, Jayne has also developed more of an acting talent than might be expected from one of her proportions (40-21-32). The talent can be viewed in The Girl Can't Help It, the first of seven starring vehicles already scheduled by 20th Century-Fox; the proportions can be viewed on these pages.
A talented as well as beautiful actress, Jayne Portrays a scene of sensual emotion in these Photographs taken Especially for Playboy by William Read Woodfield
... and her love of life is as lusty as ever
