Jayne Mansfield in Popular Culture - Life and Career

Life and Career

Close up of the lobby image with Kee Joon, owner of Empress of China

Mansfield's public persona and career image became another subject in popular culture. Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat books often refer to Mansfield; their characters Dirk and Weetzie watch The Girl Can't Help It, and the Witch Baby's mother is part of a sinister cult that masquerades as a Jayne Mansfield fan club. In Lynda Curnyn's 2004 novel, Bombshell, the character Grace is advised not to become a Jayne Mansfield when it is suspected that she is pregnant without a boyfriend or a husband. Mansfield's films and events of her life also became subjects of inspiration in popular culture. In the 1963 movie, The Stripper, the aspiring stripper Lila Green, played by Joanne Woodward, is mistaken as Mansfield. In the 2005 novel Who Wrote the Book of Love? by Lee Siegel, Lucky Lee, an American boy in Southern California in the 1950s, becomes infatuated with Marilyn Monroe and Mansfield in his journey through sexual enlightenment. In the book Lucky Lee uses famous quotes from films and literature - like "Wow! What a body!" and "Me Tarzan, you Jayne!" In the book it is spelled Jayne instead of Jane, to make a pun to allude to Mansfield. Dutch writer Jan Cremer wrote a large part of his autobiographical novel I, Jan Cremer – III about their relationship.

She remains a recurring character in works of fiction. In the eleventh episode of the second season of TV series Goodnight Sweetheart - titled Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (19993) - Diana Kent plays the role of Mansfield in a time travel story. In the same episode John Evans plays the role of Winston Churchill. She also was a character in Underworld, a 2005 novel by Don DeLillo. In a 2002 detective novel by Max Allan Collins, Chicago Confidential, the series private investigator Nathan Heller falls in love with Mansfield, becomes friends with Frank Sinatra and is threatened by Joseph McCarthy.

Mansfield also features in numerous works of art and entertainment in general. She is mentioned in the third sketch of the 48th show of the second season of the The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (also featuring Wailing Whale episodes 5 & 6), which was first released on May 13, 1961. Mansfield also helped unveil a Rocky & Bullwinkle statue on Sunset Boulevard. On the Married with Children season 3 episode "A Dump of My Own," Al Bundy says that when he was young he had two dreams and one of them was to become an astronaut and land on the planet Jayne Mansfield. In the episode of Frasier, "The Impossible Dream", Mansfield is mentioned by Marty, stating that an example of a fun dream would be in the jungle with Jayne Mansfield and her getting bit by a snake. In the 2001 film Vixen Highway, Ann Tait plays the role of a Dr. Jayne Mansfield. Writer-artist Jack Kirby of Marvel Comics drew inspiration from the strong-woman image of Jayne Mansfield in designing the character Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four.