Remembering the tragic death of Jayne Mansfield, 50 years later
Updated on June 30, 2017 at 12:47 PM, Posted on June 28, 2017 at 5:00 AM
By Mike Scott
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
The Times-Picayune is marking the tricentennial of New Orleans with its ongoing 300 for 300 project, running through 2018 and highlighting the moments and people that connect and inspire us. Today, the series continues with the 1967 death of blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield.
THEN: It was late. Actress Jayne Mansfield, one of Hollywood's original blonde bombshells, had just finished up the second of two performances scheduled for June 28, 1967, at the Gus Stevens Restaurant and Supper Club in Biloxi, Miss. -- but she wasn't ready to rest just yet. She had a TV appearance scheduled for the next day on WDSU's "Midday" show in New Orleans, so the 34-year-old actress loaded three of her children into the back seat of a 1966 Buick Electra driven by Ronnie Harrison and climbed into the front with Harrison and attorney Samuel S. Brody. Their intended destination was the Crescent City's glitzy Roosevelt Hotel, but they would never make it. In the early-morning hours of June 29 -- 50 years ago this week -- the car in which they were traveling slammed into the back of a tractor trailer that had slowed for a mosquito-spraying truck west of the Rigolets near Slidell. Their car slipped under the back of the truck, shearing off much of the roof and killing Mansfield, Harrison and Brody instantly.
NOW: The tragic, and grisly, circumstances surrounding Mansfield's death made instant headlines in Hollywood and beyond, only adding to the public's fascination with her. She was buried in Pennsylvania but, fueled by a macabre interest in her death, the crash site on U.S. 90 -- between New Orleans and Bay St. Louis -- is often visited by fans of the late star.
TRI-via
•Photos of the crash scene taken by Times-Picayune photographer G.E. Arnold, and showing what is believed to be her wig tangled in the car's windshield, fueled rumors that Mansfield had been decapitated in the crash. She wasn't, according to James Roberts of Bultman Funeral Home in New Orleans, where the actress' body was taken after her death. "She was fully intact," he once said in an interview. "I know. I embalmed her."
•The three Mansfield children who were asleep in the back seat of the car -- including a 3-year-old Mariska Hargitay, who years later would star in the TV series "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" -- received what were described as minor injuries in the crash. They were initially taken to Charity Hospital by an unnamed couple, then transferred to Ochsner Foundation Hospital at the request of their father, movie muscleman Mickey Hargitay.
• What's My Line? - Jayne Mansfield; Don Ameche [panel] (Aug 4, 1957) According to a Times-Picayune report, a $10,000 diamond bracelet was found in the wrecked car's engine compartment. "Miss Mansfield had apparently been wearing it," the newspaper said.
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http://www.nola.com/300/2017/06/jayne_mansfield_death_slidell_crash_06282017.html#incart_river_index
