Not Really An Urban Legend: Jayne Mansfield [1933-1967]
Image: Wikimedia Commons
On June 28, 1967, Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield was in the front seat of a 1966 Buick Electra when it crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer near New Orleans. Three of her children were in the back seat including her daughter Mariska Hargitay, famous as an actress on television’s Law and Order: SVU. All three children survived. Mansfield died from severe head injuries. Urban legend has it that she was decapitated although this was later debunked – it was her blonde wig that appeared in photographs.
Mansfield was an actress and singer best known for her roles in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? She was also very curvaceous and often compared to 1950’s icon Marilyn Monroe. Mansfield rejected the “dumb blonde” stereotype and claimed an IQ of 163 and said she knew French, Spanish, German and Italian.
It was rumored she had affairs with both John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.