JAYNE MANSFIELD: The Girl Couldn't Help It, massive research, pretty pictures to sweeten the deal

JAYNE MANSFIELD: The Girl Couldn't Help It
EVE GOLDEN
University Press of Kentucky (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$34.95 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967) was driven not just to be an actress but to be a star. One of the most influential sex symbols of her time, she was known for her platinum blonde hair, hourglass figure, outrageously low necklines, and flamboyant lifestyle.

Hardworking and ambitious, Mansfield proved early in her career that she was adept in both comic and dramatic roles, but her tenacious search for the spotlight and her risqué promotional stunts caused her to be increasingly snubbed in Hollywood.

In the first definitive biography of Mansfield, Eve Golden offers a joyful account of the star Andy Warhol called "the poet of publicity," revealing the smart, determined woman behind the persona. While she always had her sights set on the silver screen, Mansfield got her start as Rita Marlowe in the Broadway show Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She made her film debut in the low-budget drama Female Jungle (1955) before landing the starring role in The Girl Can't Help It (1956). Mansfield followed this success with a dramatic role in The Wayward Bus (1957), winning a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and starred alongside Cary Grant in Kiss Them for Me (1957). Despite her popularity, her appearance as the first celebrity in Playboy and her nude scene in Promises! Promises! (1963) cemented her reputation as an outsider.

By the 1960s, Mansfield's film career had declined, but she remained very popular with the public. She capitalized on that popularity through in-person and TV appearances, nightclub appearances, and stage productions. Her larger-than-life life ended sadly when she passed away at age thirty-four in a car accident.

Golden looks beyond Mansfield's flashy public image and tragic death to fully explore her life and legacy. She discusses Mansfield's childhood, her many loves—including her famous on-again, off-again relationship with Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay—her struggles with alcohol, and her sometimes tumultuous family relationships. She also considers Mansfield's enduring contributions to American popular culture and celebrity culture. This funny, engaging biography offers a nuanced portrait of a fascinating woman who loved every minute of life and lived each one to the fullest.

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My Review: I was a young boy when Jayne Mansfield died. It was stunning how insensitive the chatter around the tragedy was...my mother vocally disapproved of the demeaning way she was talked about as a "sex kitten" and bringing up her nude photos and scenes. I've been interested in her ever since, as my judgmental mother was *defending* her, so something had to be interesting about her.

the most famous photo...Sophia Loren disapproves

More interested in being a star than an actress, the lady was quite a handful as a person—ramping up the public persona that would've made her zillions in the Aughties, fighting, undressing, taking risqué to its apotheosis in the days when Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors, and she were working the blonde bombshell vein in the publicity mine.

how she made her millions

Like those ladies, Jayne Mansfield was an intelligent, troubled person with a hot ambitious streak in her that her face and body were able to fuel. She never hesitated to use her sex appeal...and sex...to get her name in front of the public. It worked; she was famous.

Mickey and Jayne in mid-act

She was not respected, as no woman in that era was really respected; but certainly no frankly, openly sexual anyone, still less a woman, was going to be highly regarded in the film or television industry. Thus when fashions changed and gamines became The Next Thing, she had no baseline of support in the industry she'd made so much money for.

Las Vegas was ready for her

Turbulent, addiction-haunted personal lives were, are, always have been back into pop-culture history all too common among the famous. Jayne Mansfield was no different than so many others with messy personal lives. She did seem to get married a lot and ended up with five children born between 1950 and 1965.

the family side

The terrible tragedy of a life cut so very short is that her potential, her development, her impact on the world is frozen at a moment; not a moment I suspect, reading about her in this book, she would have stayed in forever. Author Golden has come in for criticism in her supposed inaccurate information about what, when I poked into it a little bit, looked to me like pretty insignificant dates and details about trifles. Looking at the notes...all fiftyish pages of 'em!...Author Golden *lived* in newspaper archives for a good while. Where the issue seems to arise is in the slightly too-prominent tone of disapproval some have seen in the text. It did not feel moralizing to me. I was more interested in the trajectory of a proto-Kardashian sibling.

either of these could have Kim Kardashian in them and be the same publicity campaign

When Yule gifting is the point, the life and times of bygone stars make very instructive reading. We're in fame hyperdrive thanks to a level of mass communication unknown in Jayne Mansfield's life, but the exploitive outlines are still there. Your budding feminist film scholar might enjoy seeing how we got where we are; your brodawg cousin might just like seventy-plus pictures of Jayne Mansfield. The Fifties and Sixties exert fascination that will peak in the late 20s and early 30s as the TCM crowd starts watching the silly innocent farcically "naughty" work of the era. A book like this will please those audiences.

She might not have received the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but this family is very much a testament to the fact she did something right.

THE WARNER BROTHERS, the Jewish immigrants who created modern Hollywood

THE WARNER BROTHERS
CHRIS YOGERST
The University Press of Kentucky (Screen Classics series)
$34.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars.

These days, the studio is best known as a media conglomerate with a broad range of intellectual property, spanning movies, TV shows, and streaming content. Despite popular interest in the origins of this empire, the core of the Warner Bros. saga cannot be found in its commercial successes. It is the story of four brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—whose vision for Hollywood helped shape the world of entertainment as we know it.

In The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst follows the siblings from their family's humble origins in Poland, through their young adulthood in the American Midwest, to the height of fame and fortune in Hollywood. With unwavering resolve, the brothers soldiered on against the backdrop of an America reeling from the aftereffects of domestic and global conflict. The Great Depression would not sink the brothers, who churned out competitive films that engaged audiences and kept their operations afloat—and even expanding. During World War II, they used their platform to push beyond the limits of the Production Code and create important films about real-world issues, openly criticizing radicalism and the evils of the Nazi regime. At every major cultural turning point in their lifetime, the Warners held a front-row seat.

Paying close attention to the brothers' identities as cultural and economic outsiders, Yogerst chronicles how the Warners built a global filmmaking powerhouse. Equal parts family history and cinematic journey, The Warner Brothers is an empowering story of the American dream and the legacy four brothers left behind for generations of filmmakers and film lovers to come.

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My Review: Four driven Jewish immigrants left Poland poor nobodies and became the architects of an entire multi-billion dollar empire...and multi-trillion dollar industry.

They didn't play nice all the time. They didn't hesitate to call out hypocrisy while practicing it. But they, for better or worse, made the modern celebrity/entertainment culture we all live in from their savviest business instincts and their unrelenting drive to be Safe in their new homeland. They were charitable with their money and made a big difference in many lives, for the better.

Their studio acquiesced to the Production Code, as they had to in order to stay in business, but produced subversively messaged anti-Nazi and anti-Klan movies. They innovated technologically (The Jazz Singer's sound was an invention of Sam Warner, who died before its premiere...one of the brothers' many personal tragedies). They created and massaged and changed advertising paradigms, distribution methods, audience metrics...and how to make a mess of your life. Jack Warner, a horrible man, comes out of this biographical book looking like Iago's mentor. He was awful to actresses, he was awful to his brothers, he was horrible to his son. No one that terrible should've made the amazing films he made.

Loads of black and white images make this a handy reference for studio publicity photo lovers, and enrich the general reader's experience of the story. It is told as a story, albeit not in the most exciting narrative voice. The author definitely wants you to know that he's done the research, thought through the implications of the Warner Brothers's effect on film as an art and an industry. He's not ignoring the personal details of their Shakespearan family saga. He just doesn't give it to you in punchy, quip-laden sentences.

Author Yogerst is telling us the story of an Institution, The Warner Brothers, a family of immigrant Jews in an anti-semitic world, who created the institution Warner Bros., whose thousands of films we've all watched our entire lives...pure Hollywood, that story. That will appeal to your film-buff giftee as well as your Jewish studies maven. The Warner Brothers are well-served by The Warner Brothers.

A FRONT ROW SEAT, as close as we can get to the Golden Age of Hollywood in real life

A FRONT ROW SEAT
NANCY OLSON LIVINGSTON
University Press of Kentucky (Screen Classics series)
$34.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From her idyllic childhood in the American Midwest to her Oscar–nominated performance in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the social circles of New York and Los Angeles, actress Nancy Olson Livingston has lived abundantly. In her memoir, A Front Row Seat, Livingston treats readers to an intimate, charming chronicle of her life as an actress, wife, and mother, and her memories of many of the most notable figures and moments of her time.

Livingston shares reminiscences of her marriages to lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner, creator of award-winning musicals Paint Your Wagon, Gigi, and My Fair Lady (which was dedicated to her), and to Alan Wendell Livingston, former president of Capitol Records, who created Bozo the Clown and worked with legendary musical artists, including Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Band, and Don McLean. One of the last living actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Livingston shares memorable encounters with countless celebrities—William Holden, Billy Wilder, Bing Crosby, Marilyn Monroe, and John Wayne, to name a few—and less pleasant experiences with Howard Hughes and John F. Kennedy that act as reminders of women's long struggle for equality.

Entertaining and engrossing, A Front Row Seat deftly interweaves Livingston's life with her observations of the artists, celebrities, and luminaries with whom she came in contact—a paean to the twentieth century and a treasure for readers enamored with a bygone era.

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My Review: Oscar nominee for her second role, in Sunset Boulevard, Olson was a woman with a future in acting on stage and screen. Instead, she hitched her star to two powerful men and became a wife and mother. As they were powerful, she was never far away from the glamour of the industry she'd left behind.

She never stopped working, she never made it as big as she would have had she stuck it out, but this lady had herself one amazing ride through the greatest years of the industry she walked away from serving.

Imagine her two daughters born in the early 1950s as Mom and Stepdad bring 'em to meet the Beatles.

What this book does is give you exactly what the title says it will: A front row seat, next to a bona fide insider, at all the major theatrical, musical, and entertainment world events of the Jet Set/Rat Pack era.

The personal life the lady led was honestly one of pretty typical stuff for a woman in that time...a lot of hard work supporting the career of her husband, a lot of swatting away the eight hands most men seemed to grow when her lovely blonde-capped profile hove into view, raising three children in an ever-scarier world. She stints with none of it.

Come for the glamour, the nostalgia of this bygone cultural moment; stay to get acquainted with someone you can easily imagine becoming your friend. A book of delights and pleasures that raids a scrapbook of stunning depth and fun! There are so many more images than I could show to you, but I chose some to demonstrate the feel of them all.

Your women-in-film reader, your glamour-chaser giftee, and your own good self could really sink into this charming hostess's beautifully curated cocktail party. Great for #Booksgiving.

MEAN...MOODY...MAGNIFICENT!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend, more than one way to make it in the world

MEAN...MOODY...MAGNIFICENT!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend
CHRISTINA RICE
University Press of Kentucky
$34.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921–2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched in what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history, which invited filmgoers to see Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) and to "tussle with Russell." Throughout the 1940s, she was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and had only three films in theaters. With such an inauspicious, slow start, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. Instead, Russell carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became a memorable and enduring star.

In Mean... Moody... Magnificent!, Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps best known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors—including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg—and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. She also learned how to fight back against Howard Hughes, her boss for over thirty-five years, and his marketing campaigns that exploited her physical appearance.

Beyond the screen, Rice reveals Russell as a complex and confident woman. She explores the star's years as a spokeswoman for Playtex as well as her deep faith and secondary vocation as a Christian vocalist. Rice also discusses Russell's work in creating and leading the WAIF foundation, which helped unite tens of thousands of orphaned children with adoptive parents. This stunning first biography offers a fresh perspective on a star whose legacy endures not simply because she forged a notable film career, but because she effectively used her celebrity to benefit others.

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My Review: Old Hollywood was an unfriendly place for women in general, buxom beauties in particular. Jane Russell was a very early example of what happens when a very targeted publicity campaign succeeds at one aim and damn near torpedoes a career in the process.

The very young girl Miss Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell
What makes a star? It's a question that most people really don't think much about. In today's world, it's less mysterious than it ever has been. The earlier one goes, the more the alchemy was being codified and made into chemistry...and Jane Russell was a kind of case in point of that moment of change.

Two examples of the advertising stills responsible for the actress being dismissed for a decade as a figure with a face, not a talent
Getting the world to pay attention to a newcomer in any industry is a giant challenge in every era. What Howard Hughes got into his head was to show Russell in the way he, and most men, saw her and women in general...sex objects. He gave her an entirely unfounded image as a sex kitten. It was something the religious, conservative Russell was unhappy to have lumbered on her. That is, until she leaned into it later in life, with her hugely successful Playtex 18-Hour Cross-Your-Heart bra campaigns that funded her old age! Making lemonade from bitter early-life lemons indeed.

In her entire film career, she made fewer than two dozen films, and was famous for only one: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) in which she was decidedly less emphasized than Marilyn Monroe.

It was never her film, no matter what; the roles she played were pretty blah, if I'm at all honest; no one would remember her if not for her role in The Paleface starring Bob Hope:

...which she said saved her career, and which led to a lifelong friendship with the powerful and string-pulling Hope.

Honestly, the reason I cared to read the book, and recommend it to y'all, is simple: Russell the woman was more interesting than Russell the actress. After an abortion, illegal in those days so always unsafe to have, left her unable to bear children, she settled down with one wonderful husband, a football player then famous, and adopted three children. Her struggles to complete international adoptions led her to found Waif, a non-profit that helped people get international adoptions recognized in the US. She was actually pro-life, though unfortunately to me also anti-abortion; she focused her sincere christian belief into making it possible for people to bring otherwise parentless children into their homes to make families. That's walking the pro-life talk.

She married for the last of three times (one divorce, one death) to a real-estate developer whose projects she influenced, while re-starting a glamorous career in nightclubs:

And the image lived into the 2000s!

Her undistinguished Hollywood career, followed by her success as a nightclub entertainer for decades, her tenacity and uncompromising refusal to either quit or be dismissed by the many men who belittled, tried to control, and even ruin her is inspiring.

Film fans, students of fame and its many costs, glamourhounds...plus the feminists who need to see how someone not possessed of a liberal viewpoint could still make a powerful career...are among your giftees this #Booksgiving? Here's a book for them. Maybe you, too, don't front! You'll glom a few pages before wrapping.