The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Jayne Mansfield in Male Call
Jayne Mansfield turns it on for the camera at the Webbington Country Club.
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Overview
Jayne Mansfield arrives at the Webbington Country Club Axbridge with her promoter Alan Wells and is interviewed by TV reporter David Mudd. She reportedly broke with promoter Don Arden after refusing to perform in a see-through dress and apparently received £3000 for appearing at this venue near Weston-super-Mare. Her show included anecdotes, singing and violin-playing. Almost exactly two months later Jayne Mansfield was killed in a car accident in Louisiana.
Born Vera Jayne Palmer, Jayne Mansfield signed to Twentieth Century Fox and gained recognition in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) and The Girl Can’t Help It (1956). Mansfield appeared nude in Promises! Promises! (1963) to rival Marilyn Monroe who was to have appeared nude in Something’s Got to Give (1962). Mansfield appeared nude in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine and thereafter failed to shake the poor man’s Marilyn Monroe image. By 1962 she was dropped by the studio and her career was on the wane. Rumours abounded while she toured the UK of an album with John Lennon, a role in the West End production of The Prince And The Showgirl and of a possible Bond girl role in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).
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