In the 1950's, Jayne Mansfield was probably the most well-known Hollywood blonde bombshell next to Marilyn Monroe. Whereas Marilyn was the unattainable goddess, Mansfield was the girl that every swinging bachelor hoped and prayed to meet at a nightclub. She was everyman's ideal of the buxom beauty. She knew how to purr and how to sway her hips. But these are the same attributes that caused her own downfall. As intelligent as she was (an IQ of 163) and as much as she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress, she could never shed her image of the dumb blonde. In the 1960's the world changed, but Mansfield stayed where she was, a prisoner of her pink-colored world and unmarketable to a new generation who had grown tired of the classic glamour model. But in the last 40 years, Mansfield's mystique has grown. As kitschy as her life was, we still adore her.

     Here's an essay about Mansfield's experience fliming "The Vegas Story."