"It is virtually impossible to imagine the Golden Age of Glamour Girls without this platinum phenomenon," writes pin-up maven Steve Sullivan of Miss February 1955, who occupies a place of honor in his 1995 book "Va Va Voom!" Little Vera Jane Palmer enjoyed a privileged childhood. "We were fairly well off, and I had most of the things that a normal kid has, until I discovered movie magazines," Jayne told one interviewer. "Then I wanted to be a movie star and have Cadillacs, minks and swimming pools." In 1950, Jayne married Paul Mansfield, with whom she had a daughter, Jayne Marie--who herself posed for Playboy in 1976. Mansfield disapproved of his wife's later Hollywood career, and they divorced in 1958. 

Once she arrived in Hollywood in 1954, Jayne displayed the outstanding talent for self-promotion that was to jump-start her career. She posed for a number of photographers, including Peter Gowland, whose wife and collaborator, Alice, felt the buxom blonde would never make it: She was just too sexy. "Shows how much I knew," Alice observes today. But it was veteran advertising photographer Hal Adams who shot the then-unknown actress for Playboy. He had used her in a campaign for Hartog Shirts and recalls that actor Jack Webb of "Dragnet" fame had introduced her. Adams remembers Jayne as intelligent, delightful and utterly uninhibited. She admired a pair of leotards he kept on hand in his studio, and when he offered them to her she stripped and donned them then and there -- a surprise to Adams, who's a firm believer in leaving something to the imagination, photographically speaking. "I'm not a prude, but I find that more erotic," he explains. 

After her Playboy bow, Jayne made the hit Broadway show "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" and more than a dozen movies. She was also featured in six memorable Playboy pictorials, including one based on the movie "Promises, Promises," in which shots from her bedroom scene with actor Tommy Noonan landed Hefner in hot water with Chicago's police establishment. (Charged with obscenity, Hefner was cleared when the jury voted seven to five for acquittal.) 

Although she bore five children to three husbands -- Mansfield, strongman Mickey Hargitay, Jr., and director Matt Cimber -- Jayne was still in spectacular shape when she posed for new nudes shortly before her death. Early in the morning of June 19, 1967, under conditions of poor visibility, the car in which she was riding with her driver, attorney and her three children by Hargitay -- Mickey Jr., Zoltan and Mariska -- plowed under a semi, shearing off the top of the Buick. The children, seated in the rear, survived, but the occupants of the front seat were killed instantly. Jayne Mansfield was only 33. 


PLAYBOY APPEARANCES: Cover girl, February 1955; Centerfold, February 1955; "First 24 Playmates," January 1956; Article, February 1956; Pictorial, February 1956; "Tallulah's Follies," December 1956; Cover girl, February 1957; Pictorial, February 1956; "Loren vs. Mansfield," November 1957; Pictorial, February 1958; "Music to Make Your Eyeballs Pop," July 1958; "Most Popular Playmates," December 1958; "Best of Mansfield," February 1960; Cover girl, June 1963; "Nudest Jayne Mansfield," June 1963; "Playmates Revisited," March 1964; "Portfolio of Sex Stars," December 1965; "History of Sex in Cinema #13," December 1966; "History of Sex in Cinema #14," January 1967; "History of Sex in Cinema #16," June 1967; "History of Sex in Cinema #20," January 1969; "20 Years of Playboy," January 1974; "20 Years of Playmates," January 1974; "Jayne Maries Pictorial," July 1976; "Illustrated History of Playboy," January 1979; "25 Beautiful Years," January 1979; "Celebrity High School Pictures," November 1982; "30 Memorable Years," January 1984; "Women of the Fifties," January 1989; "Remember Jayne," January 1994.

PLAYBOY NEWSSTAND SPECIALS: "Best From Playboy #2," January 1968; "Book of the Breast," January 1972; "Playmates: The First 15 Years," January 1983; "Newsmakers," March 1985; "100 Beautiful Women," November 1988; "50 Beautiful Women," January 1989; "Nudes #1," October 1990.

PLAYBOY VIDEO CREDITS: "Video Centerfold: Van Breeschooten," January 1989; "Playmates: The Early Years," January 1991.

PLAYBOY CALENDARS: 1959.

MOVIE CREDITS: "Hell on Frisco Bay" (1955); "Illegal" (1955); "Pete Kelly's Blues" (1955); "The Burglar" (1956); "Female Jungle" a.k.a. "The Hangover" (1956); "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956); "Kiss Them for Me" (1957); "The Wayward Bus" (1957); "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" a.k.a. "Oh! For a Man!" (1957); "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw" (1958); "Too Hot to Handle" a.k.a. "Playgirl After Dark" (1959); "Amori di Ercole, Gli," a.k.a. "Hercules and the Hydra," a.k.a. "Hercules vs. the Hydra," a.k.a. "The Loves of Hercules" (1960); "It Takes a Thief," a.k.a. "The Challenge" (1960); "The George Raft Story," a.k.a. "Spin of a Coin" (1961); "It Happened in Athens" (1962); "Heimweh nach St. Pauli" (1963); "Promises! Promises!" (1963); "Amore primitivo, L'" a.k.a. "Primitive Love" (1964); "Dog Eat Dog," a.k.a. "When Strangers Meet" (1964); "Panic Button" (1964); "The Fat Spy" (1965); "The Las Vegas Hillbillys," a.k.a. "Country Music" (1966); "A Guide for the Married Man" (1967); "Mondo Hollywood" (1967); "Spree," a.k.a. "Las Vegas by Night" (1967); "Single Room Furnished" (1968); "The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield" (1968).

TELEVISION MOVIE CREDITS: "Lux Video Theatre" (1954); "Warner Brothers Presents: Casablanca" (1955); "Bachelor" (1956); "Down You Go (regular)" (1956); "Person to Person" (1956); "Sunday Spectacular" (1956); "Holiday in Las Vegas" (1957); "Kraft Mystery Theatere" (1961); "Monte Carlo" (unsold pilot, 1961); "Jackie Gleason Show" (1961); "Alfred Hitchcock Theatre" (1962); "Follow The Sun: The Dumbest Blonde" (1962); "Jack Benny Show" (1963); "Burke's Law: Who Killed Molly" (1964); "Jayne Mansfield Show" (unaired pilot, 1965). 

OTHER TELEVISION APPEARENCES: "Bob Hope Special," "Dragnet," "Ed Sullivan Show," "This is Your Life."

VIDEO CREDITS: "Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies" (1955).