Born on this day 90 years ago in Pennsylvania, USA, Vera Jayne Palmer would go on to find fame and fortune as larger-than-life Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield.
Working in the same era as fellow sex symbol and archetypal 'dizzy blonde', Marilyn Monroe, Mansfield would forge a moderately successful career with 20th Century Fox in the 1950s and early '60s. Her most notable film was 1956’s The Girl Can’t Help It, which showcased the new musical craze of rock’n’roll and featured cameos by Little Richard, Fats Domino and Eddie Cochran. Other movie offerings included Kiss Them For Me (1957), Illegal (1955), and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957).
If her dozen or so films were generally acknowledged to be less-than-memorable, off screen she played the movie star role to the full, becoming one of the most well-known glamour girls of the era. But by 1967, with her film career in terminal decline, Mansfield was working as a nightclub singer and entertainer. Taking up the offer of lucrative work in the UK, in March that year she pulled into Newcastle Central Station with her retinue on the latest stop of a national cub tour.
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The Evening Chronicle reported how Mansfield would appear for a week of engagements at Newcastle's foremost nightspot La Dolce Vita, and would also perform shows at South Shields' Club Latino. Giving a taste of the North East's after-dark cabaret scene at the time, other showbiz names scheduled to appear at clubs run by the Bailey Organisation across the region included the likes of Max Bygraves, Val Doonican, The Bachelors, Sandie Shaw, Kathy Kirby, Bob Monkhouse, Diana Dors and Billy Fury.
On disembarking from the train in Newcastle with her children, pets and furs, 34-year-old Mansfield declared that Newcastle was “cool and swinging” and - not the naturally shy and retiring type - immediately leapt on to a station trolley to pose for photographers. Station porter, 61-year-old Patrick Kilbride, unexpectedly found himself in the newspapers after Jayne pulled him into one press picture. “It was quite a surprise,” said Patrick, of South Dwellings, Benwell. “I was just curious to see what she looked like!”
Reportedly earning £3,000 a week (£44,000 in today's money) for her Tyneside cabaret stint, and transported in a chauffer-driven Rolls Royce, Mansfield's performances drew only lukewarm audience response. She would often turn up late for shows and there was criticism of the quality of her act. She also let down a crowd of 200 who had turned up at a car showroom on Scotswood Road to see her, claiming she was feeling unwell and cancelling her visit. However, the mood wasn’t always negative and the star, who was staying in a plush suite at Gateshead’s Five Bridges hotel, told the Chronicle: “I really love the people up here.”
But just three months later, on June 29, 1967, tragedy struck as Mansfield and two companions were killed instantly in a horrific car crash in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA. Initial reports and the long-standing rumour that the star had been decapitated in the collision with a trailer truck were untrue, although she was killed by a severe head injury. Her death led to the introduction of the so-called 'Mansfield Bar' on the back of trailers to prevent cars from sliding underneath in the event of a rear-end crash.
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