Jayne Mansfield
When Marilyn Monroe's fame hit the stratosphere, it was inevitable that platinum blondes would come out of the woodwork. 20th Century Fox, to whom MM was under contract, encouraged the competition since she was known to be uncooperative. No one ever equaled her fame but Jayne Mansfield perhaps came the closest. I never detected a scintilla of acting talent but she garners an A+ on cheesy self-promotion.
She never tried to pass herself off as a great actress but she knew she had assets that would get her all the attention she needed. Her face was pretty enough, her mousy brown hair was turned a shimmering white-blonde and she had a figure that was not to be denied. She saw to it. As Jack Paar would say when he introduced her on his TV show, here they are, Jayne Mansfield. She went all out by upstaging busty Jane Russell at the latter's Underwater premiere and famously took a photo with another voluptuous woman, the astonished Sophia Loren ogling her.
Not willing to let her 40D's do all the work to bump off Monroe and aside from the same hair color, Mansfield copied her breathless voice and added a squeal when she laughed. She also copied the dumb blonde persona although it was claimed she had a high IQ, spoke five languages and was a classically-trained pianist and violinist. They don't say...
She would make two dozen films, three or four of which acquired some fame but were mediocre and many more that are too embarrassing to even contemplate mentioning. Her male costars tended to be weak and ineffectual types such as Tom Ewell in The Girl Can't Help It (1956) and Tony Randall in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). Her classiest offering likely was Kiss Them for Me (1957) opposite Cary Grant, which, in turn, is one of his least classy movies.
She was always ridiculed for her shameless self-promotion and her shameful acting. While she was married to muscleman Mickey Hargitay, she couldn't take enough photos of her bikinied body atop his bare, muscly shoulders. As her movie career flamed out, she took jobs in strip joints and seedy bars and descended into alcoholism.
In 1967 she was in Louisiana driving from one gig to the next when the car in which she was a passenger rammed into a slow-moving tractor-trailer and she and two other adults were instantly killed. The three children in the back seat all survived. Although Mansfield suffered horrific head injuries, a long-standing rumor that she was decapitated is untrue.
Nancy Olson
She was a great scene-stealer in 18 or 19 movies that showcased her as normal, upbeat and smart with just the right touch of scorn and sarcasm. I always found her to be a joy to watch and the blonder she got over the years, the more lively and fetching she seemed to become.
She was discovered in a play at UCLA in the late 40's and put under contract at Paramount. She received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for only her second film, the iconic and bruising Billy Wilder account of Hollywood, 1950's Sunset Blvd. Playing a script girl and romantic partner of William Holden, she proved troubling for Gloria Swanson's character, Norma Desmond.
It was a most fortunate role for the neophyte actress. The public was so drawn to the Olson-Holden pairing that they were immediately teamed in three more films, Union Station, also 1950, and Force of Arms and Submarine Command, both 1951. None held a candle, of course, to Sunset Blvd.
Her film career was off to a great start when she married lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and had two daughters. While she worked very little she did have two good roles, in 1954 in Edna Ferber's So Big as the cherished son's new bride, and as war widow Pat Rogers in 1955's Battle Cry, which I consider her best role. She and Aldo Ray gave the war film an extra zest.
After the Lerners divorced in 1957, Olson attempted to regain the momentum of her early career but it never took. Disney came to the rescue and put her in five films. She was lovely as one of Jane Wyman's spirited maids in 1960's Pollyanna. She was rather lost in the silliness as Fred MacMurray's girlfriend in The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and as his wife in the sequel, Son of Flubber (1963).
In 1962 she began a 47-year marriage to Capitol Records exec, Alan Livingston, which ended with his passing. She had just a few scenes in Airport 75 (1974) as one of the many harried passengers, and as Michael Ontkean's mother in 1982's Making Love. She last worked in 2014. Nancy Olson is 90 years old.
Jean Wallace
In her late teens her tumultuous personal life eclipsed her movie career and as a result, she never really caught a break. She had been a model, singer, dancer and showgirl. She was visiting a film set one day in 1941 when she met actor Franchot Tone and four months later they were married. She was 18, he was 36.
The Tones had two sons and a dreadfully unhappy marriage, much of which played out in the newspapers and brought on, in large part, due to their drinking. She had a few small parts in movies that never amounted to much. In 1946 she attempted suicide and around the time of her divorce in 1949, she made another attempt. Tone got custody of their sons because of her erratic behavior and because she hung out with gangsters. She had been seeing mobster Johnny Stompanato who eight years later Lana Turner's daughter would stab to death.
Oddly enough, the year of the divorce, she and Tone made two films together, neither of which was successful. He badmouthed her when he got the chance. She was touring army hospitals the year after and upped and married a wounded soldier. The marriage was annulled several months later.
The following year she married actor Cornel Wilde. Some Hollywood tongues were wagged because she bore a striking resemblance to his former wife, actress Patricia Knight. Wilde and Wallace would not only have a son of their own, but now that her life appeared more orderly, she got back the custody of her sons with Tone, whose life was then spiraling out of control.
Wallace would make only eight more pictures and all of them starred and/or were directed by Wilde who decided to move into independent film production. The two best, both film noirs, were in 1955. The most praise went to the brutal The Big Combo with Wilde as a cop and Richard Conte as a violent kingpin who is with Wallace. My favorite is Storm Fear where an injured bank robber (Wilde) and his cohorts hole up at his brother's snowbound mountain cabin. Wallace plays Wilde's sister-in-law. The Wildes other films together were Star of India, The Devil's Hairpin, Maracaibo, Sword of Lancelot, Beach Red and No Blade of Grass.
While they were married for 31 years, it was not an especially happy one, particularly in the final decade. She had not worked at all and his career, once rather glittering, had faded considerably. They both were drinking too much. The divorce was very bitter. She became a recluse in her Beverly Hills home and a hopeless alcoholic. She passed away in 1990 at age 66 from a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.
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A good 50's movie
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