Jayne Mansfield

Some Hollywood stars were much more popular in Europe than at home. A fabulous example is sweet Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967), one of Hollywood's original platinum blonde bombshells. Although most of her American films did not do much at the European box offices, Jayne herself was a sensation whenever she came to Europe to promote her films. During the 1960s when Hollywood had lost its interest in her, Jayne continued to appear cheerfully in several European films.


West German postcard by ISV, no. A 60. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956).


West German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen. Retail price: 10 Pfg. Photo: Centfox. Publicity still for The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956).


West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3601. Photo: Centfox. Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956).


With Mickey Hargitey. Dutch postcard by Uitgeverij Takken, no. 3674. Photo: 20th Century Fox.


Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor S.L., no. 25. Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay.


With Bill Ramsey. West German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/219. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood (credited on the postcard). Possibly made for Heimweh nach St. Pauli (Werner Jacobs, 1963) in which Mansfield and Ramsey played supporting parts. However, IMDb credits Lothar Winkler as the stills photographer of this Schlager film in which Mansfield sings the classic Snicksnack Snucklechen.


French postcard by M.D., Paris, no. 106.


West German postcard by UFA, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 444. Photo: Terb Agency.

Shocking the nation

In 1957, Jayne Mansfield made a legendary promotional visit to the Netherlands. The film she promoted, Kiss Them for Me (Stanley Donen, 1957), was quickly forgotten. Still, forty years later, her visit was dearly remembered with an exhibition, a book and a TV documentary.

Obviously, Jayne shocked the nation while showing her voluptuous figure in a tight sweater and doing her interviews with her lisp, breathless voice. During her visit, photographers went wild. With the photo and film coverage, you can easily reconstruct her complete trip now. And with all the cameras around her, Jayne kept on smiling and posing.

We can see her glorious entrance at the stairs of the KLM aeroplane, Jayne drinking champagne from a wooden clog, posing on a table at the offices of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, surrounded by dozens of marines on a warship, and at the premiere of her film in cinemas in Amsterdam and The Hague.

She was interviewed on TV by Dutch celebrity Wim Sonneveld, kissed DOS goalkeeper and one-time film star Frans de Munck before a soccer match, posed sweetly in a Volendam costume, and finally, Jayne waved from the aeroplane that flew her to another country, her next stop of the promo tour.

Jayne Mansfield was a phenomenon - all over Europe.


Italian postcard, no. 605.


Jayne Mansfield, Arriving at Schiphol, 10 October 1957. Photo: Ben van Meerendonk / AHF. Collection: IISG, Amsterdam (Flickr).


Jayne with her dog Powderpuff, Press Conference at Schiphol, 10 October 1957. Photo: Ben van Meerendonk / AHF. Collection: IISG, Amsterdam (Flickr).


Jayne Mansfield visits the offices of De Telegraaf, 10 October 1957. Photo: Ben van Meerendonk / AHF. Collection: IISG, Amsterdam (Flickr).


Jayne Mansfield visits the printers of De Telegraaf, 10 October 1957. Photo: Ben van Meerendonk / AHF. Collection: IISG, Amsterdam (Flickr).


Dutch postcard by Art Unlimited, Amsterdam, no. A 10573. Photo: Ben van Meerendonk.


Jayne Mansfield on the editors' table during her visit to De Telegraaf, 10 October 1957. Photo: Ben van Meerendonk / AHF. Collection: IISG, Amsterdam (Flickr).

Prominent, problematic breasts

Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1933. She was the only child of Herbert William, a successful attorney of German ancestry, and Vera Jeffrey Palmer of English descent.

While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Mansfield won several beauty contests. However, her prominent breasts were considered problematic and led to her losing her first professional assignment — an advertising campaign for General Electric.

A natural brunette, Mansfield had her hair bleached and coloured platinum blonde when she moved to Los Angeles. She posed nude for the February 1955 issue of Playboy, modelling in pyjamas raised so that the bottoms of her breasts showed. This helped to launch Mansfield's career, and that year, she became a major Broadway star as Marilyn Monroe-like actress Rita Marlowe in the Broadway version of George Axelrod's play 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?'.

This role won her a contract at 20th Century Fox. The following year, she reprised the role in the film version, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin, 1957), with Tony Randall, and became a major Hollywood star. She showcased her comedic skills in The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956) and her dramatic assets in The Wayward Bus (Victor Vicas, 1957) opposite Joan Collins.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Despite good dramatic performances in such films as The Wayward Bus (1957), Kiss Them for Me (1957), and The Burglar (1957), Mansfield was forever typed as a parody of Marilyn Monroe.” By the late 1950s, with the decrease in the demand for big-breasted blonde bombshells and the increase in the negative backlash against her over-publicity, she became a box-office has-been.


Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, no. N 38.


Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, no. 3.


West German postcard by ISV, Sort IV/6.


Big German postcard by ISV, no. PX 5.


French postcard by Huit, Paris / ISV, no. D 25. Photo: Film-Press.


West German postcard by ISV, no. A 60. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for The Girl Can't Help It.


Italian postcard by Piccoli, Milano, no. 875/6. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Bernard of Hollywood

While Hollywood studios lost interest in her, Jayne Mansfield’s film career continued in Europe with films in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and Greece. 20th Century Fox loaned her out for the British Neo-Noir thriller Too Hot to Handle/Playgirl After Dark (Terence Young, 1960). Jayne played a nightclub dancer opposite Leo Genn, Karlheinz Böhm and Christopher Lee. In Britain, she also appeared in The Challenge/It Takes a Thief (John Gilling, 1960) with Anthony Quayle and Carl Möhner.

Hollywood then sent her to Italy for Gli amori di Ercole/The Loves of Hercules (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1960) opposite muscleman and husband Mickey Hargitay. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: “A fairly lavishly produced but otherwise relatively undistinguished sword-and-sandal adventure.”

After her contract with 20th Century Fox ended, she made in Germany Heimweh nach St. Pauli/Homesick for St. Pauli (Werner Jacobs, 1963) starring Schlager star Freddy Quinn, and Einer frisst den anderen/Dog Eat Dog (Gustav Gavrin, 1964). Mark Deming at AllMovie describes the latter as an “offbeat but stylish crime drama”. At the time, she was photographed in Germany by legendary glamour photographer Bernard of Hollywood (a.k.a. Bruno Bernard), which resulted in a series of very sexy and popular postcards. Jayne moved on to Italy for the comedies L'Amore Primitivo/Primitive Love (Luigi Scattini, 1964), and Panic Button (George Sherman, Giuliano Carnimeo, 1964) with Maurice Chevalier.

During the 1960s, Mansfield remained a highly visible celebrity through her publicity antics and her daring performances in international nightclubs. In early 1967, she filmed her last screen role: a cameo in A Guide for the Married Man (Gene Kelly, 1967), a comedy starring Walter Matthau.

Mansfield had taken her professional name from her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield, with whom she married in 1950 at age 16, and with whom she had a daughter. She was the mother of three children from her second marriage to actor–bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay (1958-1964). She married her third husband, Italian-born film director Matt Cimber/Matteo Ottaviano, in 1964 and separated from him in 1966. Mansfield and Cimber had a son. In 1967, while driving to a club engagement in New Orleans, Jayne Mansfield died in a car accident. She was only 34 years old at the time. Her fourth child, Mariska Hargitay, would later become a well-known TV actress.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


West German postcard by Krüger, no. 902 / 198. Photo: Gerard Decaux. Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay.


West German postcard by Krüger, no. 902 / 212. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

West German postcard by Krüger, no. 902 / 272. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


West-German postcard by Krüger, no. 902 / 220. Photo: Constantin / RAPID / Bernard of Hollywood. Jayne Mansfield in Heimweh nach St. Pauli/Homesick for St. Pauli (Werner Peters, 1963).

Sources: Herman Selier (De terugkeer van Jayne Mansfield in Nederland - Dutch), Joel Nickerson (IMDb), Hal Erickson, Mark Deming and, Bruce Eder (AllMovie - Pages now defunct), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Photo by Bernard of Hollywood

Bruno Bernard (1912–1987) fled from Nazi Germany to the USA in the 1930s. As Bernard of Hollywood, he became one of the most popular glamour photographers of Tinseltown. In 1961 he returned to Germany, where he photographed many European starlets and also worked as a set photographer.


Mylène Demongeot. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/66. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/67. Sent by mail in France in 1966. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Barbara Valentin. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/192. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Vivi Bach. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/277. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Sophie Hardy. German postcard by Kruger, no. 902/291. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Margaret Rose Keil. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/288. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

The Vargas of Photography

Bruno Bernard was born Bruno Bernard Sommerfeld (or Sommer) in Berlin, Germany in 1912. His Jewish parents were poor. He and his four siblings were on welfare by the time he was 8 years old and were placed in orphanages.  

At age 11, his parents gave him his first camera, a Rolleiflex, in 1923. It led to a lifelong interest in photography. As a young man, he worked as a photographer and reporter and earned a Ph.D. in criminal psychology at the Kiel University. He was in the two percent of Jews to gain a doctorate in 1934.

His activism in a Jewish youth organization landed him on the Gestapo’s blacklist and caused him to emigrate to the United States in 1937. He claimed to the German authorities that he was leaving the country to continue his graduate studies.

He was 26 and attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he planned to continue his education but soon became interested in the arts. He settled in Los Angeles and set up a darkroom in the basement of his apartment.

In 1940, he became a directorial apprentice at the Reinhardt School of the Theatre, opened by Max Reinhardt on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Unable to get a job as a director, however, Bruno returned to his interest in photography. He started out taking photos of the wives and children of the directors and producers he had come to know through his apprenticeship.

As he began making money, he opened a proper studio at Sunset Boulevard in 1940. Agent Paul Kohner, who helped many Europeans flee after the rise of Adolph Hitler and re-establish themselves in Hollywood, took notice of Bernard’s work. Kohner sent him clients, and thus brought him to the attention of the film industry. 'Bernard of Hollywood' was to reign at this studio for 25 years. It became a landmark of Hollywood.

Bruno developed a unique portrait style that he called the "posed candid"; a style that evolved into what is now known as 'pin-up' photography. Bernard preferred a moderate use of artificial light. He preferred natural light like the sun at the beach and sometimes added a flash to his light concept.

Soon he was called 'The King of Glamour Photography' and 'The Vargas of Pinup Photography', after his mentor, pin-up painter Alberto Vargas. Over the next two years, Bernard opened studios at Laguna Beach, at Las Vegas’s Riviera Hotel, and at the Palm Springs Racquet Club, then the favourite retreat for Hollywood’s top stars.


Monique Van Vooren. French postcard by De Marchi Frères, Marseille. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Marilyn Monroe. American postcard by The American Postcard Company, no. 282, 1981. Photo: Bruno Bernard (Bernard of Hollywood).


Rita Cadillac. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/297. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Heidi Brühl. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/321. Postcard: Bernard of Hollywood.


Helga Sommerfeld. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/324. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Marisa Mell. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/349. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Strippers, Showgirls, Starlets

Bernard of Hollywood photographed most of the big stars of Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s: Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, John Wayne, and of course Marilyn Monroe.

Bruno Bernard is credited with first photographing Marilyn Monroe at his studio in 1946. She was still known then as Norma Jean Dougherty. In 1947, Bernard introduced Monroe to agent Johnny Hyde, vice president of the William Morris Agency.

Hyde revamped Norma Jean completely from the loveable, carefree All-American Girl to the breathtakingly beautiful Hollywood blonde. A cosmetic surgeon in the Springs restyled her nose and straightened the facial tissues under her skin. Hyde got her seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox. There, Bernard took the well-known photographs of Monroe in the red dress she wore for Niagara (Henry Hathaway, 1953).

One of Bernard's most famous photos is 'Marilyn in White', shot in New York in September 1954. Monroe is holding her white pleated skirt down from a blast of steam from a New York sidewalk grating in The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder, 1955). This photograph was selected as the 'Symbol of the Century' by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Bernard's artistic muse, however, was the late, legendary striptease artist Lili St. Cyr, a spectacularly stunning beauty with wit, elegance, and a sense of humor. Bernard of Hollywood's pin-up work ranges from strippers, Vegas showgirls; unknown, poignantly unnamed models; to all the starlets of the 1950s and 1960s. Bernard's daughter Susan Bernard has made the case that the pinup style popularised by Bernard and Alberto Vargas was "celebrating and empowering women rather than exploiting them".

Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times: "No less than Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower praised Bernard’s pinups, and when--incredibly--Bernard had to fight an obscenity charge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1950s, he submitted in his defense a letter from the Secretary of Defense thanking him for the morale-building effect of his pinups."


German postcard by Kruger. Photo: Bruno Bernard/CCC Produktion. Pierre Brice as Winnetou Old Shatterhand (Hugo Fregonese, 1964).


German postcard by Kruger. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood (Bruno Bernard) / CCC-Produktion. Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand in Old Shatterhand (Hugo Fregonese, 1964).


German postcard by Krüger. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC Produktion. Pierre Brice in Old Shattterhand (1964). Sent by mail in Luxemburg in 1966.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/302. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC-Zugsmith Co-produktion. Letícia Román in Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/303. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC-Zugsmith Co-produktion. Letícia Román and Ulli Lommel in Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/358. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC-Zugsmith Co-produktion. Renate Hütte and Britt Lindberg in Fanny Hill (1964).

Legends

In 1961 Bruno Bernard sold his studios and started a new career as a foreign correspondent and photojournalist in Europe. For the German magazine Der Spiegel, he photographed the Eichmann Trial in Israel.

The German postcard publisher Krüger commissioned him to photograph European starlets during the early 1960s. Among them were German film stars as Heidi Brühl, Marisa Mell, and voluptuous Barbara Valentin, a.k.a. the German Jayne Mansfield.

Bernard of Hollywood also photographed the original, when Jayne Mansfield was working in Europe after her Hollywood career had dried up.

Bruno Bernard also worked as a still photographer for films including the erotic film Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964) and the Eurowestern Old Shatterhand (Hugo Fregonese, 1964).

Bernard returned to the USA, and in the 1980s he was living in Palm Springs and writing his memoirs. In 1984, Bernard became the first still photographer to be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles with a 50-year retrospective of his work. The exhibition showed 130 of his portraits and other pictures.

The celebration was to mark Bernard’s 50th year as a photographer. His 'Marilyn in White' was also chosen by the International Center of Photography as one of the '20 Unforgettable Photographs'.

In 1987, Bruno Bernard died of cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 75. He had just compiled the book 'Requiem for Marilyn'. His daughter Sue Bernard (1948–2019) was the founder and president of Bernard of Hollywood Publishing and wrote several books, among them 'Marilyn: Intimate Exposures' and 'Bernard of Hollywood’s Ultimate Pin-Up Book'. She preserved exhibited and published her father's legacy, introducing his photos to a new generation.

Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times: "There is in Bernard’s pinups an exuberant sexuality that is both innocent and mischievous, seductive yet sweet. Surely, it was the rapport that Bernard had with movie stars and models alike that yielded these wonderful combinations".


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Sources: Kevin Thomas (Los Angeles Times), Susan Bernard (Marilyn Intimate Exposures), Adrienne Miller (Esquire - offline), Bernard of Hollywood.com, Find A Grave, Wikipedia, and IMDb.