1955 Milton H Greene Jayne Mansfield Sexy Vintage Pin - Up Negative Strip
Item History & Price
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ITEM: This is a 1955 vintage and original, medium format Kodak camera negative strip with sexy, draped portrait views of pin-up beauty and blonde bombshell sensation Jayne Mansfield; from the estate collection of photographer Milton H. Greene. At the time this photo shoot occurred Greene was at the height of his partnership with Marilyn Monroe which allowed the superstar increased artistic freedom and an image change that enhanced her visibility and respect as an actress - which adds to the irony of this photo shoot, taken when Mansfield was achieving stardom by lampooning Monroe's sex kitten reputation on Broadway in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" This is the one of a kind original camera negative and comes with copyright (see bottom of listing for full information).
PLEASE NOTE: This auction is for the original camera negative. Scans below are of a positive view.
Measures 2.5" x 9.75" on Kodak Safety Film.
CONDITION: Fine+ condition with very nominal storage wear. Please use the included images as a conditional guide.
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
For this listing only, the consignor represents that the original camera negative/transparency ("Original") comes with United States copyright. The buyer is solely responsible for ascertaining that the Original is otherwise cleared for publication including but not limited to satisfying any publicity right that persons appearing in an image may have under any statutes or common law. Neither the consignor nor Grapefruit Moon Gallery makes any representation or warranty as to any matters that need to be cleared prior to publication. No representation or warranty is made regarding copyright outside of the United States. All publication issues should be referred to the buyer's own professional advisors. All representations or warranties as to copyright or rights to publish are made solely by the consignor and not by Grapefruit Moon Gallery; the buyer agrees that Grapefruit Moon Gallery will not be liable to Buyer in any respect for alleged breach of any such representation or warranty.
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One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to Vera J. and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney in Phillipburg, New Jersey, where Jayne began her girlhood. Her parents were both born with the same surname, and her ancestry was 7/8ths English and 1/8th German. Jayne was a talented pianist and violin player as a child.
Tragedy struck when Jayne was three, when her father suddenly died of a heart attack. Three years later, her mother remarried and the family moved south to Dallas, Texas. The family bought a little home where she had violin concerts in the driveway of their home. Up until the move, Jayne had no aspirations of being a star, but with maturity and the fact that she devoured the fan magazines of the day convinced her to try acting.
Amazingly, her I.Q. was reported to be a 163, and she attended the University of Dallas and participated in little-theatre productions. In 1949, at age 16, she married a man five years her senior named Paul Mansfield, the next year when Jayne was 17. Their daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield, was born in November.
After some productions there and elsewhere, Jayne decided to go to Hollywood. Her first film was a bit role as a cigarette girl in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Although the roles in the beginning were not much, she was successful in gaining those roles because of her ample physical attributes which placed her in two other films that year, Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) and Illegal (1955). Her breakout role came the next year with a featured part in The Burglar (1957). By the time she portrayed Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) and Playgirl After Dark (1960), Jayne was now known as the poor man's Marilyn Monroe. She did not get the plum roles that Marilyn got in her productions. Instead, Jayne's films were more of a showcase for her body more than anything else. Jayne did have a real talent for acting, but the movie executives insisted she stay in her dumb blonde stereotype roles. For the balance of her career, Jayne never received any standout performances although she was more than capable of doing them.
By the 1960s, Mansfield's career had options that grew lower. She made somewhat embarrassing guest appearances like on the popular game show What's My Line? (1950), she appeared on the show four times in 1956, 1957, 1964, and 1966 and many other 1950s and 1960s game shows. By 1962, she was dropped from 20th Century Fox and the rest of her career had smaller options like being in B movies and low budget movies or performing at food stores or small nightclubs.
While traveling from a nightclub in Biloxi, Mississippi and 30 miles from New Orleans to where she was to be on television the following day, she was killed instantly on Highway 90 in a car crash in the early hours of June 29, 1967, when the car in which she was riding in slammed into the back of a semi-tractor trailer truck that had stopped due to a truck in front of the tractor trailer that was spraying for bugs, and the car in which she was riding went under the truck at nearly 80 miles per hour along with boyfriend Samuel Brody and their driver Ronnie Harrison. The damage to the car was so bad that the engine was twisted sideways.
The beautiful woman who starred in 31 movies, the woman who fought so hard for respect, the woman who, in her own right, was a very good actress, was dead at age 34. Mansfield's funeral was on July 3, 1967 which was a small ceremony which her family, first child, and second husband Mickey Hargitay attended the same place in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, where her father was buried. Her final film, Single Room Furnished (1966), was released the following year of her death.
Jayne Mansfield's fame lives on in the success of her best movies, her documentary film appearances, her 22 television appearances, and in the career of her 4th child, actress Mariska Hargitay who plays Olivia Benson on the popular NBC crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Joel Nickerson and Vera Jayne Fan
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For over four decades, Milton H. Greene made his mark as one of the most celebrated photographers in the world.
Born in New York in 1922, Milton Greene began taking pictures at the early age of 14. Although he was the recipient of a scholarship to the renowned Pratt Institute, a heightened awareness of the photographic image diverted his attention to the camera and its versatility. He soon apprenticed himself to the famous photojournalist and wizard of composition, Elliot Elisofen. Before long, his keen regard for fashion and the camera found him assisting Louise Dahl-Wolfe, the distinguished fashion photographer known for her unique covers and fashion pages for Harper’s Bazaar. At the age of twenty-three, Milton was referred to as “Color Photography’s Wonder Boy.”
The majority of Milton's work in the Fifties and Sixties appeared in major national publications including Life, Look, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country, and Vogue. In fact, Milton Greene, along with other eminent photographers such as Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, and Norman Parkinson, is credited for bringing fashion photography into the realm of fine art.
Although Greene was initially renowned for his high-fashion photography, it is his remarkable portraits of our most beloved artists, musicians, film, television, and theatrical celebrities, which have become legendary. It was Milton's ability as a director that enabled him to capture the qualities that best identified the subject’s persona. Thus making each of his pictures an eloquent unique statement, as he converted his remarkable vision into compelling photographic art. As an artist/photographer, Milton believed that people all wanted to look beautiful, elegant, attractive, sexy! His gifts were his flawless timing and remarkable ability to create a rapport with his many subjects. Though he was shy in person, Milton was fearless and unafraid to create intimacy between him and his subjects when he was behind a camera.
The range of Milton Greene's subjects include such people as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Sammy Davis, Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Groucho Marx, Audrey Hepburn, Andy Warhol, Judy Garland, Giacometti, Lauren Hutton, Alfred Hitchcock, Romy Schneider, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Ava Gardner, Steve McQueen, Claudia Cardinale, Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Dizzy Gillespie, Catherine Deneuve and Norman Mailer, as well as countless others. But it was his unique friendship, business relationship and ensuing photographs of Marilyn Monroe for which he is most fondly remembered.
Milton first encountered Marilyn Monroe on assignment for Look Magazine, in 1953. They quickly became close friends, and in 1956 formed their own company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, which produced Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl. Their relationship blossomed from an instant connection shared their first encounter to an endearing and lasting friendship, garnered by the trust they shared in one another. Before marrying Arthur Miller in June of 1956, Greene photographed Monroe in countless sessions and was able to capture some of the most beautiful photographs ever taken including the famous Black Sitting. The Marilyn Monroe collection consists of over 5, 800 images, many of which have never been seen.
It was during this time that Marilyn entrusted Greene with her autobiography, simply called My Story. It is the combination of the book with the rare and vivid photographs Milton created that evoke the legendary spirit of Marilyn Monroe.
Milton also collaborated with Norman Mailer on a fictional autobiography of Marilyn Monroe, entitled Of Women and Their Elegance. Later in 1994 his eldest son, Joshua started the Milton H. Greene Archives, Inc., a company dedicated to marketing the works of his father. Joshua digitally re-mastered the first group of 300 images and released them in Milton's Marilyn, an autobiographical book telling the intimate story of Milton and Marilyn’s relationship, partnership and friendship.
Milton's photography won him many national and international honors, medals and awards; among them the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Art Director's Club of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Detroit. One of his last awards was from the Art Director's Club of New York for his work in Harper's Bazaar.
In recent years, Milton Greene's photographs and prints have been exhibited in major galleries and museums around the world, as well as represented in a multitude of private collections. Milton H. Greene's work will continue to be regarded as representative of an era in time, which may be gone, but will always be reflected in pictures.
— Biography From: The Archives, LLC c/o archiveimages (dot) com
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