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Going Down
After one year
off the screen Jayne returned with a film titled The
Sherriff of Fractured Jaw while it didn't make much
of a splash in American theaters, it did not hurt her career.
While filming this, she was also offered a role in a European
film, The Loves of Hercules. She agreed to take the
part if Mickey could play Hercules. Filming for Hercules
took place early in 1960.
Although Jayne
did not realize it for several years, this was the beginning
to the end of a short lived film career in Hollywood. She
would from here on make low-budget European films which
did little to show off her comedic talents as much as her
anatomy.
Fox's treatment
of their starlet was validated with her succession of box
office flops, the crazy stunts and their doubts about her
acting ability. However, considering that she had made them
a considerable amount of money with several of her films,
this treatment was really inexcusable. She requested a new
contract, and her requests were unheard, but she still continued
to work. While filming the Loves Of Hercules she was pregnant
with her son Zoltan. Within days of giving birth, she went
back to work on her film.
Fox continued
to loan her out for low budget European films and while
filming of Too Hot To Handle, she called Fox collect,
to forward the money to the studio making the film. They
had halted production on it, as they couldn't even pay their
actors. After this film, she hurriedly made two more European
films, and high tallied it back to Hollywood.
In June of 1960
she was honored on This is Your Life, and even though she
appeared in a bursting out of a playtex dress, she had the
build up of a domesticated mother and wife. Jayne's love
for her children was without question, but as her career
began to slide and her personal situations became shaky,
often her children took backseat to her surmounting problems.
In December of
1960, she and Mickey went to Las Vegas to perform their
act called "The House of Love". She and Mickey proved to
be such a hit, with Mickey swirling her around his head
while she was dressed in scantily clad costumes, that Fox
even released an album called Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las
Vegas in 1962.
It was shortly
after this when she replaced her endlessly inventive publicity
agent Jim Byron with Bill Shiffrin, who was to help her
carve out a more sophisticated image for herself. The New
Jayne decided she wanted to study acting in New York, a
la Marilyn Monroe.
Curiously enough,
the same year they released Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las
Vegas they also dropped her contract. In true Mansfield
form, she said she was pleased by the decision, as she did,
when Warner's has dropped her seven years earlier. within
a month of this announcement, Marilyn Monroe died, leaving
Jayne even more in the public eye, as a possible successor.
Jayne was under severe pressure, with the question of her
status as s sex symbol, paired with surmounting marital
problems. By 1963, Jayne decline was eminent. And she knew
it too...but she also wondered if she could become a starlet
again.
Taking
if off ->
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Livin' The Lifestyle
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