Jayne Mansfield - Publicity

Publicity

Mansfield's publicity drive was one of the best in Hollywood. For publicity gave up all privacy keeping her doors always open to photographers. In 1954, the day before Christmas she walked into publicist James Byron's office with a gift and asked him to supervise her publicity. From that time till the end of 1961, Byron shaped much of her publicity. Byron appointed most people in her team – William Shiffrin (press agent), Greg Bautzer (attorney) and Charles Goldring (business manager), and constantly planted bits of publicity material in the media. She appeared in about 2,500 newspaper photographs between September 1956 and May 1957, and had about 122,000 lines of newspaper copy written about her during this time. Because of the successful media blitz, she quickly became a household name. In 1960, Mansfield topped press polls for more words in print than anyone else in the world, made more personal appearances than a political candidate, and was regarded as the world's most-photographed Hollywood celebrity. She made news on a regular basis, from dresses falling off to clothing which burst strategically at the seams to the lowest cut dresses worn with a bra. Things started to get over the top even in her standards when she took charge of her own publicity without advice. According to Shiffrin, "She became a freak." James Bacon wrote in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1973, "Here was a girl with real comedy talent, spectacular figure and looks and yet ridiculed herself out of business by outlandish publicity".