Nashville Then Notes: Jayne Mansfield in March 1965

Actress Jayne Mansfield makes first trip to Nashville for a telethon

Jayne Mansfield, Hollywood's original blonde bombshell, arrived at Nashville Municipal Airport March 26, 1965, for the 18½ hour United Cerebral Palsy Telethon that started that night at the Municipal Auditorium.

She arrived from New York with her director husband, Matt Cimber, nurse Fannie Ottaviano, and her pet miniature Chihuahua named Cow. It was her first trip to Nashville, and she said she always wanted to see the city.

After signing autographs for the fans at the airport, she rushed to a meeting with telethon officials. Viewers watched the telethon on WSM-TV (Channel 4), WLTV-TV in Bowling Green, Ky. and WOWL-TV in Florence, Ala.

Accompanying Mansfield for the telethon were New York television and theater star Molly Scott; Michael Landon, Little Joe of "Bonanza"; James Drury, star of "The Virginian"; Ed Ames, "Mingo" on the "Daniel Boone Show"; and Jack Smith, star of "You Asked for It."

Mansfield said she had a special desire to help United Cerebral Palsy.

Notes from Jayne Mansfield interview

Jayne Mansfield, this generation's sweater girl, is proud of a statistic other than her 41-18-35½. It's is her IQ, a 164. "But it's hard to be an intellectual and dumb blonde at the same time, so I kept my intellectual background somewhat hidden early in my career," Mansfield said.

"I'll still be Jayne Mansfield, sex goddess, but now I'm trying to do more serious roles," she added, lounging in a gold-knit Italian suit on a couch in the Cordell Hull Suite of the Capitol Hill Holiday Inn in downtown Nashville.

She recently recorded an album entitled "Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky and Me," where she recites Shakespeare's sonnets. "I hear it's big with the college crowd. The boys probably play it to their dates to set things up," she giggled.

Mansfield is proud of her performance in a summer stock "Bus Stop" production she did in 1964. "I got good reviews, not as a sex goddess, but as an actress. That's when I met my husband who was directing the play. The experience started whole new cravings in me," she added.

The sex queen for over seven years intends to remain a sex queen. When asked what it takes to be one, she said, "You have to have a large bosom, a beautiful face and a beautiful figure. Also, the women have to accept you as well as the men, in another way, of course. And you have to be sort of sweet and soft, like a little white Persian cat."

Mansfield said America is "all wrong" in it's attitude toward sex. "Here it's regarded as something sinful," she said. "Too much worry and fret is dissipated over sex in America, while in Europe it's accepted as a natural part of the human make-up. In England, for instance, they won't allow violence or bloodshed on television but you can have cleavage practically down to your navel."

Mansfield, who is expecting her fifth child (A son, Tony Cimber was born Oct. 18, 1965), said she will sing and dance on the telethon. "I can't do too much dancing in my condition," she said, "but I'm looking forward to singing my new record." She recently releases the songs "Little Things Mean A Lot" and "That Makes It."

Her last movie release was "Panic Button," which came out in 1964. She plays Angela, a "woman of the evening with a heart of gold who helps this little old Italian painter with 13 children to support." Mansfield said the plans for her next movie are "That Girl From Boston" (The movie, directed by Cimber, wasn't made until the mid-70s with Mamie Van Doren).

There is a plan to film a situation-comedy television series pilot called "The Jayne Mansfield Show" in 1965 with another play, "Nature's Way," for the summer. She and husband Cimer do a daily radio show called "Leave It to Jayne." Mansfield added, "I become more active when I'm expecting, and I think that's what more women should do rather than lie around as if to say 'Look how pregnant I am!' "

(Source: The Tennessean)