The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Interview with Jayne Mansfield in Newcastle
The Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield finds herself out of step with the times on Tyneside in the 60s.
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Overview
The archetypal 'blonde bombshell' of the 50s, Jayne Mansfield, bravely defends herself against negative tabloid reviews on a cold Newcastle street. From Las Vegas's first – and highest paid – female headliner to a cabaret act on the Northern club circuit in Britain, Mansfield was a Hollywood movie star on the skids who had swapped a promising acting career (with a Golden Globe Award for 'The Girl Can't Help It' in 1957) for an obsessive merry-go-round of publicity.
Three months after this interview with Bob Langley for the Tyne Tees TV Late Look news magazine Jayne Mansfield died in a car crash in New Orleans. Born Vera Jayne Palmer in 1933, a violin and piano prodigy who spoke five languages, Mansfield had once studied with Baruch Lumet, a celebrated Yiddish Theatre actor and father of director Sidney Lumet. She shot to stardom on Broadway, and on screen, as the character Rita Marlowe in the Faustian comedy 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter', playing a caricature of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe. The 'dumb blonde' 50s fiction of womanhood dominated the rest of her public life. She has been described as a 'reality star' ahead of her time.
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