Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, Playboy Playmate, and sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award. She gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."

Mansfield gained popularity after playing the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on Broadway in 1955–56 and reprising it in the 1957 film adaptation. Her other film roles include the musical comedy The Girl Can't Help It (1956), the drama The Wayward Bus (1957), the neo-noir Too Hot to Handle (1960), and the sex comedy Promises! Promises! (1963), the last of which made Mansfield one of the first major American actresses to perform a nude scene in a post-silent era film.

Mansfield's professional name came from her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She married three times and divorced twice. A third initiated divorce was not finalized at the time of her death. Between the marriages she had five children. On June 29, 1967, she died in a traffic collision at age 34.

Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933, at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Herbert William Palmer and Vera Jeffrey (Palmer) Palmer. She inherited more than $90,000 ($980,000 in 2024 dollars) from her maternal grandfather, Thomas H. Palmer, and more than $36,000 ($390,000 in 2024 dollars) from her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Mary Palmer, in 1958.

Until age six, Mansfield lived in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where her father, Herbert, was an attorney practicing with future New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner. In 1936, her father died of a heart attack while driving. Three-year-old Jayne was in the car.

In 1939, Mansfield's widowed mother married sales engineer Harry Lawrence Peers, and the family moved to Dallas, Texas. As a girl, Jayne was known as Vera Jayne Peers. As a child, she wanted to be a Hollywood star like Shirley Temple. At age 12, she took ballroom dance lessons. She graduated from Highland Park High School in 1950. While in high school, she took violin, piano, and viola lessons. She also studied Spanish and German.

At age 17, she married Paul Mansfield on May 6, 1950. A daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield, was born on November 8, 1950. Jayne and her husband enrolled in Southern Methodist University to study acting. He later became a public relations professional. In 1951, Jayne moved to Los Angeles and attended a summer semester at UCLA. She entered the Miss California contest (hiding her marital status) and won the local round but Paul forced her to withdraw. She and Paul moved to Austin, Texas, where she studied dramatics at the University of Texas at Austin. While there, Mansfield worked as a nude art model, sold books door-to-door, and worked as a receptionist at a dance studio. She also joined the Curtain Club, a campus theatrical society that included lyricist Tom Jones, composer Harvey Schmidt, and actors Rip Torn and Pat Hingle. Mansfield lived for a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia, where Paul served in the United States Army Reserve during the Korean War.

In 1953, she moved back to Dallas and studied acting for several months under Baruch Lumet, the father of director Sidney Lumet and founder of the Dallas Institute of Performing Arts. Lumet gave Mansfield private lessons and called Mansfield and Rip Torn his "kids".