Mansfield 66/67 (2017) - full transcript

You can write anything
when someone's dead.

You don't... Like... You
can write a whole book of lies

and there's nothing you can do.

Jayne Mansfield, her
hair dresser, her best friend

as soon as she died,
wrote a book

and said all sorts of
gossip about her.

Don't trust your hairdresser.

Hello.

Yes, this is Jayne, baby.

There's Jayne Mansfield
and this was her first film.

That was her first film.



She had a very short career.

And she was
very busy being a star

and she got killed
in a very bad way.

She pursued her career
in personal appearances

and she went all over
the country in a big car.

And in that car she had a
really tragic accident and died.

She was standing up
in an open convertible

and the convertible hit a truck

and rolled under the truck
and decapitated her.

Was she
decapitated or even?

She wasn't at all.

Traffic was
light, the weather was clear.

A truck slowed down and apparently
disappeared momentarily into the cloud.

Behind it, the car carrying Ms.
Mansfield did not slow down.



It crashed into the rear of the
truck shearing off the top of the car.

The three adults in the front
seat were killed instantly.

Ms. Mansfield was decapitated.

A false report circulated
that Jayne had been decapitated.

She was not decapitated,
she was scalped.

Just the top of her head
came off.

And there was a liquor bottle
or something...

Well, I might be making that up.

Rumors of the curse.

I, frankly, think
it's all a bunch of bullshit.

Like, a movie star gone
crazy. What is the matter with you?

You're, like, so glamorous,
you're insane.

Jayne wants to meet Anton LaVey.

This is the guy that runs
the Church of Satan.

Anton had a headpiece
with the horns.

I like my devil
serious and scary.

I like humor, but I'm not sure
I like cavorting plastic horns.

So, we're left to wonder.

Was Jayne Mansfield's life
spinning out of control?

Or did the devil make her do it?

Most of what
we know of Jayne's life

comes from newspaper coverage.

But it's all based on
that sort of public record.

And by public record
I mean publicity.

I don't mean things like
a birth certificate.

Could you please take the stand?

You solemnly swear to
tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth
so help you God?

Yes, sir.

This Is
Your Life, Jayne Mansfield.

This Is Your Life!
Come on!

In the name of
our most exalted God,

Satan, Lucifer,

I command thee to come forth.

Come forth and bestow
these blessings of hell upon us.

Come forth by these names,

Satan,

Lucifer,

Asmodai,

Belial,

Leviathan,

Shemhamforash.

Hail Satan!

Get your morning papers!

Jayne Mansfield
is a full-bodied, fu ll-breasted,

blond bombshell,

you know, full sex appeal,

all the curves in the right
places. You know, sex symbol.

I always liked
Jayne best.

To me, she was
the ultimate movie star.

She was so exaggerated

that people were
scared of her, I think.

She was always in on the joke.

People just considered
Jayne Mansfield a punchline.

And why is
Jayne's name on the news?

For two
perfectly obvious reasons.

When you're in England,
and you think of America,

you think of cowboys
and Indians,

gangsters,

Jayne Mansfield.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

She ain't Rome.

What we're talking about
is already built.

You think of icons,

you've strive to be
someone like her,

but is someone you want to be.

As far as American stories go,
hers is a triumph.

Which is to be rich, famous,
live in a pink palace,

all those things that she got.

When I first came to California,
I wanted to see her pink house

on Sunset Boulevard.

Oh, my goodness.

I even bought one of those maps.

Actually, for a good
period of time,

she was one of the biggest
stars in the world.

I mean, you know,

there was a span there where
the first four studio movies for Fox

which she did,
were massive hits.

Well, The Girl Can't Help It, to
me, was a life changing movie.

I mean, I grew my mustache
after Little Richard in that movie.

And it has the color
of any movie ever,

I don't think anyone's ever
talked, really, about her walk.

You really see it
in The Girl Can't Help It.

She keeps having to
walk through rooms

where she'll be kind of doing
this strange truck and strut.

And I'm sure if it's what the heels are
doing to her or the outfit is doing to her,

but it's nothing like that
practiced sexy deliberate wiggle

that's very sensuous,
that Monroe perfected.

Jayne's early career
was really designed

as a counterpart
to Marilyn Monroe

to let her know that
she was replaceable.

But don't leave me out.

I have to be important
in my own incorporated.

But I can relate.

You know, anyone who's got
like a, like, an alter-ego

OI' a persona,

you have to differentiate
where the line is.

It was Jayne Mansfield.

I mean Rita Marlow
was Jayne Mansfield.

I mean, she did flamboyance,

so she was over the top.

Oh, Rock Huntington...

I know I'm, oh, so kissable,

but why don't you pour
the champagne first, Lover Doll?

It's, uh, Hunter,
not Huntington.

Shh. How can I remember?

I'm all excited because
you're loving me up.

Hourglass and the hair
and the... Eve... The lips.

My oh-so-kissable lips.

She's like a cartoon.

Say something sweet to me.

I can say this.
You have beautiful hair.

And it's natural,
except for the color.

She was doing camp
before it was ever invented.

If you were hired because you
had to become Marilyn Monroe

because Marilyn Monroe was
sort of not working anymore,

I mean, wouldn't you
make fun of yourself?

'Course you would.
Whoever heard of such a thing?

What kind of moron
thought that up?

Hence camp.

But most people do think
of you as a sex symbol. Do you mind that?

Yeah, I think it's fun.

I think it's very campy.

I mean, I sort of dig
being sexy, don't you?

Rocky kissed me and then...

something happened.

It's hard to even replicate...

In fact, you can't replicate this
kind of squealing, exuberant noise.

Well. Oh!

Simple, huh?

You know, for most of us,
we haven't seen her movies.

She was more of a sensation.

She was the kind of woman
who we knew her name

and we may never have
seen her movies.

I Female jungle,
Pete Kelly's Blues I

I Hell on Frisco Bay,
The Wayward Bus I

I The Church You Had to Handle I

I The Girl Can't Help It,
Panic Button I

3 Promises... Promises'. 3

I Will Success
Spoil Rock Hunter? I

I Single Room Furnished I

I would assume
that you are in movies.

Ms. Newman.

Are you a, a, a beautiful,
curvy lady?

The next thing that happens is
we think about what she looked like.

Oh, yes,
it's a breast-belly ratio.

You, you can have big breasts, and that's
one thing. I mean, that's very useful.

But you know, if your belly
is, is large as well,

that's less impressive.

So being an attractive woman
is all about the breast-belly ratio.

It's not the only thing,

but it's a very useful tool.

And there's some
connection between

the idolized figure of the 1950s

and the, the pointiness
of the breasts

and the missiles of the
military industrial complex.

When they said
"the blond bombshell",

she was the blond bombshell.

These cultural figures
like the blond bombshell

do a lot of work for us.

They carry our desires

and our hopes and our fears

and we're fascinated with them.

But we rarely think about
what that actually does

for the person
who is in that position,

who is the one who is
literally standing on the altar.

People don't realize
that when you have blond hair,

you have a brain
under that head.

Which confirms
the theory of relativity.

Sincerely yours,
Mathilda Gabriel West.

Jayne Mansfield wasn't
given the chances that Marilyn had

'cause Marilyn was the top
and she was the second.

The three M's
is a very long story.

Well, actually, it's short
for them and it's long for me.

Some journalists decided

that we all had M's in our name.

Maybe we should've sat
in Marilyn Monroe's section.

- Would you like some coffee?
- Which one? There's two Monroes.

No, there's not.

That is Marilyn Monroe.

That is Mamie Van Doren.

I don't see Jayne Mansfield.

She must have
the night off or something.

I think the exciting thing
about Jayne Mansfield

is that you really sort of,
on first look,

accept this idea
that she put out there

that she was another dumb blond

and that she was sexy
and silly and kind of a dingbat.

My father
photographed Jayne

more than
any other photographer.

I always remember my father saying
how intelligent a woman she was

and she had one of the highest
IQs of any woman he ever met.

If there was ever the dumb
blond, she was the dumb genius blond.

Well, I went to Southern Methodist
University in Dallas and also UCLA.

Even earning a grade of A
in a philosophy course

I have that album Jayne
Mansfield Reads Shakespeare...

"I arise from dreams of thee

"In the first
sweet sleep of night..."

and I remember she used to be on
the jack Benny show playing the violin.

If you come in with a bu...

She spoke
five languages fluently.

Yes, that's Spanish
for "Happy Hanukkah".

Is that true?

Yes.

She spoke five languages.

I didn't know that.

- Do you speak Dutch? No.
- A little bit.

- Little bit? Little bit German?
- Mm-hmm.

Oh, wonderful.

Pig Latin...

Well, because she was
an exaggeration

and she was
such a ludicrous woman,

that she wasn't offended if
you made her more exaggerated.

If you can't laugh at yourself
then you, you may as well stop.

If you ever start
taking yourself too seriously,

then you,
you may as well give up.

She needed to be noticed

like a junkie needs drugs.

She had to have publicity.

And that influenced
the.

When Divine was posing for
pictures and shooting up her eyeliner,

that's all from Jayne Mansfield.

Oh! Model! Model!

I always said Divine was

Jayne Mansfield and Godzilla
put together to scare hippies.

Whether they were talking
about her in a good way or a bad way,

she was absolutely
always talked about.

You can see why for
Kenneth Anger the first Hollywood Babylon

had to have Jayne Mansfield
on the cover.

She has it all going on.

She has the excess,
she has the shamelessness,

she has the kind of
Luciferian rebellion happening

through her self promotion,

but she already has, of course,
already incipient in her,

this gory, morbid end

that in some ways is the end
point of that kind of limitlessness,

that insistence upon fame
at any cost.

There's a euphonious connection

between the three syllables
in Hollywood

and three syllables in Babylon.

And they kind of rock together.

I feel that a star
owes it her public

to, to bring the public
into her life.

They, they feel...

The fans feel that
they kind of own you

and if you, if you kept
your life a complete secret,

it wouldn't be fair to them.

I heard that Jayne Mansfield
has been in a car accident.

Well, there've been
several near misses.

I've heard she's got nine lives.

I've heard she's
got nine children.

And she's seen with all these
different men...

Different ones
every single night.

All of those girls,
completely naked,

riding around on one of

- I think it's disgusting.
- Utterly disgusting.

To me, she was like
the first reality star.

She lived publicly,

she did everything she could
for the public to know her.

She had children,

maybe like four.

No, five, having the fifth.

Ex-husbands.

And then
she was married to

a beautiful hunk
named Mickey Hargitay.

Mickey Hargitay
certainly was the love of her life

and he was the male her.

The studio doesn't
want me to marry Mickey.

Marrying him could
end my contract.

But I can't help it.

The studio keeps telling me it
will spoil everything if I marry him.

Mickey's so in love with me.

He's so physically exciting.

I just have to marry him...

career, or no career.

She got offered
a part in a movie

and was pregnant,

so Kim Novak got it.

She had
three children by Mickey.

She wanted to be a mom and
kind of pulled back from it a little bit.

When she did that,
Fox dropped her.

So, right now,

mm-mm, it's, it's, it's
not a healthy spot to be,

I don't think, mentally.

You know, it's great that
you're having a couple kids,

but you know what,

who knows how you really
are paying the bills at this point.

After '59, '60-'61,

things started to turn
sour for her.

There's a TV offer
that comes in,

but Jayne's a movie star.

But the TV offers to play
a girl on a deserted island.

Jayne turns it down.
How big could it be?

Probably the worst mistake
of her life.

So, she's having children,

she's getting fat and fatter.

She's maturing, she's getting
older. She's taking diet pills.

And if you get
caught up in that,

you start trying to compete
with your own image of yourself.

As the '60s progressed,

she looks
more and more constrained.

She's like the fruit
that's just bursting.

And that amazing tension

is what you want
with Jayne Mansfield,

which is so much about the '50s.

That terrible feeling of
tension or something

just about to break through
and go bleargh.

That is the '60s.

And that
engulfs Jayne Mansfield.

She tried very hard
to stay youthful

and glamorous and hip.

And it was hard to pull off.

The new LA scene at the time

and actresses like Sharon Tate and
Faye Dunaway coming on the scene.

In my estimation, that type
of a sex symbol is really gone.

You know, it's more imagination.

Sexiness, to me, is
a part of every movement.

It's... You don't see the big,
low-cut dresses anymore.

The male gaze objectified you,

and that was
explicitly dis-empowering.

Every woman I know,

and every group discussion
we ever had,

we talked about
what that line was

between empowerment
and exploitation.

Women were either idols
like Jayne Mansfield,

or something that women were
not allowed to be,

someone who could say
whatever she liked,

somebody who wasn't
following a mold

and presenting it perfectly.

In other words, if women
were supposed to do this,

fine, I'll do the opposite.

Jayne Mansfield
was the embodiment

of all of the things that feminism
at that time stood against.

In 1963, Jayne does

the first nude scene for an
actress in Hollywood ever.

She does a nude scene
in Promises, Promises!

Actually, it was one scene that
kept replaying every few minutes,

but essentially, she's the
first actress to be nude on film.

It wasn't about the nudity,

it was the sexuality
that really reflects the times.

It was such a time where everybody
was trying to make up a difference

and make a statement
in the '60s.

I know that's why
I did it, so...

I was the first English playmate
in 1966.

May 1966.

Look it up.

And in those days,
they only showed the boobs.

And I had pretty good boobs.

Are you still there?
Yes.

Here I am, Miss December, and
I was the first jewish centerfold

in front of a Christmas tree
who was a virgin.

The '50s is trying to hang
on to a life, a perfect life.

Mom gets a dishwasher,
Dad can fuck who he likes.

Then you go into the '60s

and, uh, you know,

mom can maybe
fuck who she likes.

That's real...

As she walks into culture
in the early '60s,

and trying to find a role
or a place in it,

in the cinema's that are being
birthed in this time period,

she didn't have a place in that.

So in 1966,

I did Chelsea Girls.

And in 1966

Jayne Mansfield did The Las
Vegas Hillbillys or something.

She was too smart
to be doing what she was doing.

She had a hard time
making a change.

It wasn't Nat King Cole anymore,
it's Euros.

It's The Doors coming
and hanging out a the Whiskey.

So Jayne would take her pink
Cadillac out of the pink palace

and drive down Sunset Strip
and hit, like, the Whisky A Go Go.

I mean, how cool is that?

When someone
is... so gorgeous to the public,

they've got everything.

What they really want
is to be loved.

And people think,
"They don't need anything.

"Look, if I could
only look like them."

We really wanted
to look like her.

We bought the kind of
dresses she wore,

if we could afford them,

and we wanted her look.

Someone you want to be.

What a great woman!

When the Beatles
came into town,

they asked the guys "What
do you wanna do in America?"

And Paul said, "We want
to meet Jayne Mansfield."

So they all go out to the Whisky
A Go Go on Sunset Boulevard.

Uh, across the room
was Mamie Van Doren.

Jayne is sitting there,
then all The Beatles were there.

Jayne really believed,
"This is the pinnacle.

"I mean, I've made it. I mean, I'm on
the Sunset Strip, I'm with The Beatles,

"Life's gonna get great."

But as we find out,
life starts to go downhill.

That made the front page.

The men that came
aboard her ship

had to have some kind of promise

that they could deliver
celebrity or media attention.

And when that didn't happen,
as often as she liked,

they were kind of cast aside.

But then she had
all those bad husbands.

All those ones who seemed like
they would beat her and were abusive.

I don't think
it was a very happy,

um, relationship
with Matt Cimber.

He made her a lot of promises
that he never kept.

She had just had a baby.

The thing that hurt
the most about Matt Cimber,

when they had their trouble,
he kidnaps the baby.

So, Matt kidnapping the child

developed into a,
just an over the top calamity.

Things started taking a turn
for the worst after that.

Not only does she
get away from him,

she then finds another man
to get the baby back

and obviously, ends up
falling in that man's hands.

Jayne essentially had
to take responsibility for everything

since she's 14 years old.

Along comes Sam Brody.

And to be fair, he comes from
a pretty good pedigree.

He works with Melvin Belli on
the defense team for jack Ruby.

He comes into her life and basically
tells her, "Your problems are solved.

"I'll take care of everything.
I'll get you back on top."

So, what's a girl to think?

This guy, who's a lawyer,

who, on the surface,

looks like he'd be
a good person for her,

ends up being
the worst thing for her.

It just seemed very unhealthy

and very abusive,

very drug-fueled.

For... just dark.

It's, like, very dark.

Sam Brody really is when
her life pivots out of control,

when it really
hits oily streaks.

Jayne's big downfall
was her addiction to attention.

When she began
to experience disappointment,

she turned to drinking.

And, unfortunately,

the alcoholism,
it's another addiction.

And you can
use the word addiction

and not quite realize that

what that means is
you lose choice.

So, you really get trapped.

Let's face it, before, before
Sam, she's not drinking as much.

She's certainly not doing the
drugs she was doing with Sam.

There was no LSD in her life.

Jayne did drugs, yeah.

I don't know which ones she did.

She was caving
in to the addiction.

And it may be
that the devil made her do it.

Her whole life
became just chaos

and, and drug use,

and, and alcoholism,

child neglect,

but she's definitely
glamor and tragedy

all wrapped up in one being.

She was barely
been holding on

without the drugs.

So you start adding
all of that, it's like... Ugh.

The pivot point for
the whole thing going downhill

is Sam Brody
taking Jayne Mansfield

to the 1966
San Francisco Film Festival.

Well, first of all, she,
she did not get brung up.

She brought herself.
She was uninvited.

And very quickly

made a persona non grata
of herself.

The programmer, Albert Johnson,

knew a lot of people
in Hollywood.

And everybody's there.

Every weirdo, every hot shot.

And by 1966, it was
just fantastic, the roster of people.

Jack Nicholson was here.

Throw into the mix
Roman Polanski,

who was on the verge of making a
deal in Hollywood to do Rosemary's Baby.

I think
she quickly finds out

and then Sam quickly finds out.

They're in
a different neighborhood.

This could either be
very good for her

or it could be
very devastatingly bad.

Jayne's picture
was in the papers several times.

So, she was on the verge of a
wardrobe malfunction at any moment.

So she was asked to leave
after the first few days

because she was
just crashing parties

and kind of drawing the
attention with her antics

away from everything else
that was going on.

She was making more
of a spectacle of herself

than the festival
events themselves,

which you want the publicity
to be about, the work.

Leave and walk out on
all this publicity? No.

So she's scheming for a
way to steal the spotlight away.

You know, what better way to
do that than to go visit Dracula

and call all the newspapers.

Oh, the Anton thing,
the devil thing,

I never really believed
she was that much of a Satanist.

She just did that
for the photo op.

That explains it.

It's not so much the
film festival Jayne wants to crash.

There's many more characters
there in San Francisco.

One character in particular
is Anton LaVey.

And in the 1960s,
he's gaining a lot of notoriety.

He's the founder and high
priest of the first Church of Satan,

Anton Szandor LaVey.

Oh, his name sounds
very influential.

He uses a somewhat
of a creed or this timeless quote,

"Remember, 'evil'
spelled backwards is 'live'."

He was a musician,
a police photographer.

He had been a lion tamer.

And he was very good
with animals.

And he had this lion in
the basement for a while.

- You live with a lion at home?
- Yes, I do.

Now, is that just
a publicity stunt?

No, he sleeps with me
every night in the bedroom.

- How much does he weigh?
- Five hundred pounds.

Has he
been de-fanged and de-clawed?

No.

- He's got full power.
- Have you?

No, not yet.

He was a lot of things
you don't necessarily need to be

before you become
the leader of a Church of Satan.

I'm assuming Anton LaVey
was tall from all accounts

and very, very sexy
with dark eyebrows and a goatee.

And there was a part of him

that was obviously playing
the part and very sinister.

Girls always like bad boys,
don't they?

But he also
exuded sexiness

that you either have
or you don't.

Danger is like
the forbidden fruit.

Anton is very, uh...

forbidden.

Crackers, you are cute.

On Walpurgis Night of 1966,

he ritualistically
shaves his head

in the style of old executioners

and declares 1966 as Year 1

in the Age of Satan.

To 1966,

the Year 1!

He aesthetically
draws inspiration from

horror films, from The Munsters,

from The Addams Family,

from things that already entered
the cultural imaginary,

that people associated with
the macabre aesthetic.

Did you ever hear of Satanism,
the worship of the devil?

What kind of a girl
do you think I am?

When people started
making movies

that dared to actually show the
devil in any sort of serious way,

it terrified audiences

in a way now,
that we can understand.

Anton's trying
to looks like a Satanist.

And the image he gets
of a Satanist

has to come from Hollywood.

It's such a problem because so
much depends on your taste in devils.

I mean,

mm, the earliest
is George Melies,

the famous cinematic pioneer

and he truly is
wearing an Anton LaVey outfit.

I mean, he's got the,
the magician's outfit.

That kind of cape formal wear,

the little horns,
the widow's peak.

Satiny cap, little goatee.

His house on California Street
was painted black

and the living room
was turned into a temple.

And there was a way to get

through the fireplace
from the basement,

like a sliding panel
or something.

He wanted attention

he wanted to freak people out

He, you know, he forms, uh,
the Church of Satan Incorporated

with a publicist.

Former New York socialite,
Judith Case and john Raymond

are joined by Satan
in unholy wedlock

before a live altar,
a nude redhead.

Self-ordained sorcerer
and minister, Anton LaVey,

presided at the
San Francisco ceremony

and the blessings of Lucifer
and Beelzebub are invoked.

The elaborate rites
smacked of publicity

because next day, the bride and groom
secured a conventional wedding license.

He was already
doing a show...

What I call a show.

Nude on his altar...

That's the classic theme

with the Satanic masques.

On the spectrum of evil,

visually, I think, he's more
related to like, Count Chocula

than, you know, Charles Manson.

Count Chocula has
chocolate sweeties.

Around '60s

or say even later in the '70s

the whole devil thing
was out there.

Just out there, like, for fun.
It was light.

That whole "Bewitched" phenomena

which was so delightful.
Wonderful show.

Hepzibah.
What a lovely name.

- Biblical?
- Hardly.

There was Flip Wilson
on his show,

as Geraldine he would go,
you know...

"The devil made me do it".

I didn't want to buy this dress.

The devil made me buy it.

Whoo!

He was hilarious. You
just, you just crack up at it.

You put a woman up on the altar,

what do you get?
Rosemary's Baby.

Yeah, Rosemary's Baby,
of course, being

a film that's usually credited with
inaugurating the so called satanic panic,

a huge gout of
Satan orientated movies,

you know, most of it very,
you know, trashy or B picture,

very borderline, lot of porn.

Abby was my favorite. It was
the black rip off of the Exorcist

where she was, uh,

fringed African-American
marriage counselor

and then all of a sudden the devil would
get her and she'd be counseling people

and she'll say...
She'll try this...

"Fuck the shit out of them!"
And her head would spin around.

-Just fuck the shit out of them
-Abby!

That's what I'm gonna do.

So, the rumor is that Anton LaVey
was a consultant on Rosemary's Baby.

And the more wonderful part
of the rumor is

that he actually plays the devil in
those very close held shots of the devil

where she is focusing
on his eyes,

um, that that's Anton LaVey impregnating
Mia Farrow as Rosemary.

This is no dream,
this is really happening!

And it's such a wonderful rumor
that we hang on to it and we love it.

We want to believe It.

And even though many would argue,
who cares? It's complete horseshit.

Very insulting.

Anton was not a liar.

He wouldn't make it up
if it didn't happen.

But there's no question.
Yes, he was

eagerly a part of as much films

as he could get, he could
get himself involved with.

The special participation
of Anton LaVey,

high priest of
the Church of Satan...

The Devil's Rain.

Then suddenly working
with Kenneth Anger

on, um,
Invocation of My Demon Brother

you have him emerging in his
patented little Halloween costume.

Well, see,
Anton was a showman

and his concept of satanism
was show business.

It was just part of
the San Francisco scene.

I think, back on this period
in the '60s,

where The Cockettes
were over in North Beach

creating insane
midnight movie experiences

and a few years later, Charles Manson
would end up in the Haight, Ashbury.

You know, black power movement,

queer cultures exploding
and being defined,

there's this booming outside of the
image of what America was representing.

And what is your wish?

I would like Satan to arise
an insatiable desire

in the heart of
that lovely young bank teller

who's just moved in
to my neighborhood.

He said his name was Roger.

Insatiable desire

shall follow Roger

and lust shall reign supreme.

In America, Satanism is
sensationalized and kind of misunderstood.

And people associate it
with worshiping the devil

and things like that.

But it's really a philosophy
about, uh,

individuality
and self-preservation.

It's about, uh,

you know, being your own god.

This is a very selfish religion.

We believe in greed,
we believe in selfishness,

we believe in all of the lustful
thoughts that motivate men...

His version of Satanism
is a kind of

inflammatory inversion
of Christian doctrine.

So if Christianity is saying

you know, "Live without sin", he's
saying, "All the sins are awesome.

"Do 'em all the time."

If you're gonna be a sinner,
be the best sinner on the block.

If you're going to do something
that's, uh, naughty, do it

and realize that you're doing
something naughty and enjoy it.

The devil has been the guy that's kept the
church in business for many, many years.

Without him
and the concept of evil,

where would the church be?

Oh, God!

God is dead!

Satan lives!

Truth is starting to be revealed
in what our iconography is

and it's a scary thing to see
something outside of that.

Probably, Anton represented
some sort of answer.

Well, that's it for that part.

I don't think
that Jayne Mansfield

would think much of
going to the Church of Satan.

I'm sure she was into
checking everything out

if there was something there

that would kind of
shed a little light on her.

So, stranger,

do we have anything
to talk about?

Sexual freedom is something
we feel is very important.

You know, when you
talk about a satanist,

you have to put it in context
of Christianity.

The Satan part of Christianity
was the denigration of sexuality,

especially women's sexuality,

and did a lot of things
to make it a taboo,

to express that sexuality,

and Jayne was all about
expressing that sexuality.

Catholicism is like,
"You can look, but don't touch.

"You can touch, but don't taste.

"You can taste, but whatever
you do, do not swallow."

It's like, "Well, why put it in your
fucking mouth in the first place?"

You know, what am I here for?
I'm not allowed have any sensory

involvement with the world.

Jayne was drawn to it, so
was Susan Atkins of the Manson family.

He's developing
a Hollywood crowd.

Sammy Davis jr., Tuesday
Weld, Keenan Wynn.

She's always liked
that dark side of things.

She always wants to investigate
the dark side of everything.

What do you expect me to be,
a nun?

She wants to be
photographed at the Church of Satan

and doing whatever
they do there.

This is a way
for her to go into that.

This is a way for her to explore
her kind of concept of being black

and what a great way
that blackness is represented

within the kind of culture
of Satan,

the culture of darkness, the culture of
something that's sort of unexplainable,

but spiritual in a way, too.

And so,

the idea of her with the chalice

and Anton...

Anton liked publicity, too.

Well, they were a perfect pair.

I mean, here's a
sex positive woman,

you know, she's been in Playboy,
she's been nude in films...

Was she really
a practicing Satanist?

I can't picture her
slaughtering goats.

I'm not under contract
to Walt Disney.

I don't think

she ever got nude on his altar.

Jayne Mansfield is
a powerful, natural witch.

Jayne was a very sensual woman.

There are so many things
we'd like to know, Ms. Mansfield.

And what do you think of
a European man?

Absolutely divine.

Oh, they're just wonderful.

European men know just
what to do with a woman.

They command
their supreme masculinity

and at the same time they have a
woman way up high on a pedestal.

Oh, with the
hand kissing you like, of course.

That's right,
that's right.

And there's no place a woman
would rather be than on a pedestal.

A part of my family's
from Transylvania.

Is it necessary to kill
you by driving a stake through your heart

or would just a knock
on the head do it?

I will never die.

They're both
visually polar opposites

Sort of like
Beauty and the Beast.

You can see why
he and Jayne Mansfield

go together so beautifully.

And they're both, frankly,
publicity whores.

The blond bombshell,
perfect kind of whiteness

and the dark, evil
satanic image,

and you put those two together
and you get... sex..

Well, Anton liked
attractive women.

And she was
a very attractive woman.

I'm sure they had an affair.

Which would be unnatural
if they didn't.

In looking at Jayne's sort
of history of playfulness and the body

and knowing who she is,

here's this guy
representing a movement

to be sex positive again
in a different way.

He really actually was
the one person in her life

who really celebrated
her exhibitionism.

The power
of her visit Anton LaVey

is you have to have
a shockable community.

You have to have
an operational patriarchy.

She has to have something to
oppose in order to be awesome.

Well, at first look, the idea of
Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey

being in a relationship together
is absurd.

And it's kind of like, just
sort of outrageous and silly

and you kind of think,
"Well, that couldn't really be.

"I mean, she's not goth.

"She's not scary.

"She's not, you know, wicked."

But then, on deeper reflection,

it actually makes perfect sense
in a lot of ways,

because both people have created
this persona for themselves.

In a lot of ways,
it's about celebrating the taboo

and really giving in
to your desires.

Kind of going against the grain,
of what, you know,

of the conservative or religious
mainstream was saying was good or bad.

Think about the pictures
that we do see of the moments

of Anton and Jayne.

In memory,
it kind of makes it seem

as though Jayne Mansfield was just hanging
out at the black house all the time.

And, you know, "This is me,
drinking my blood

from a chalice."

They're really staged and posed.

It's not like somebody
just popped them off

while they were doing something
behind the scenes or whatnot.

I mean, I think they're both very
conscious of their presentations

and having these pictures
be released to the public.

So, I don't think either of them
are playing dumb dumb

and forming an alliance and
forming a moment of media spectacle

around their relating
to each other.

I think
it's what's behind the scenes

going on between the two of them
and their friendship

is what's really interesting.

And that, she's starting
to become a confidante

of somebody who is giving her
spiritual comfort.

And, giving her solutions to some of her
storytellings and spectacles about her life

to the point where, you know,

some of the wisdom
that he gave her

and, you know, the answers that he
gave her, they came up with together

became curses
for people in her life.

If ind it hard to believe

that Anton LaVey
was a powerful enough magician

to be able to put a curse
on somebody

and actually have it kill them.

Curses, shmurses.

I, frankly, think
it's all a bunch of bullshit.

I don't go along with the idea
that you can put a curse on like that

unless you are
someone extraordinary.

The rumors of the curse,

I don't know!

After a while,
the more you read,

the more you research,
the more you learn,

a part of me
wants to believe it.

Very few celebrities,
they seem to have some ability

you'd almost swear
to make this happen,

and you just get
these crazy confluences

of impossible coincidences

that all seem to have to do
with fame, notoriety,

lurid sex, and lurid death

and these things all come
to certain stars only

and in a way
that almost makes you believe

there's some
sort of occult force.

Kenneth Anger does not give
lectures about occult subjects.

It's something that either you

are on the wavelength

and then you understand,
or you don't.

And then, if you are not on
the wavelength, forget about it.

What about bad spells?

Well, we don't... Your dad, your
father was the founder, a Mason.

He put a spell over Jayne
Mansfield and it backfired.

No, it wasn't
on Jayne Mansfield.

It's very dangerous to take a
woman into any man's house,

let alone a man
who worships the devil.

Now, you're really looking
for trouble.

Of course, it's dangerous

and rather ominous.

The implications of what
happened to people in real life.

So, Brody, like an idiot,
you know,

takes her in the house

and he kind of debunks
all of it.

He's kind of making fun
of things that they go on,

and apparently, legend has it,

he lit a skull candle
in Anton's lair.

And that pissed off LaVey.

Maybe more happened, but
apparently, because of that,

there was a curse put on him.

A matter of fact, he said he
would even die in a car accident.

It was spooky,
and I love spooky things.

You have a curse on you and
you're going to be dead within the year.

Excuse, I don't mean to be rude,

but what I want to get to,
they put a spell on Sam Brody

but, unfortunately,
she was in the car with him

so, the spell backfired.

She was told, "Distance yourself
from this guy because it's in the post,

and, if you're next to him,
you're gonna get it too."

For whatever reason, she...
Went in here and out that one.

It's difficult when someone says
you're gonna die in a car accident.

You've gotta drive.

So, every time
you get in the car,

that voice is gonna be
in your head.

You're gonna always be nervous
of a car wreck.

Evil has
visited the Earth in many forms.

Now, it returns as the car.

But, was it because
he cast a spell on Sam

or was it because Anton
cast a spell on all of them

or the car itself?
We don't know.

But, the fact is that

that... that spell
that they cast on people

can become self-fulfilling.

You can keep thinking of it
and almost make it happen.

I believe that hate is necessary
in a controlled way

just as much as love
is necessary.

The only people that I would
cast a curse or a spell on

would be people, individually, that
would, sort of, get under my skin.

Her lover,
lawyer Sam Brody,

was a decidedly
unsavory character

was the one

who brought the curse
upon himself.

There was, decidedly, a curse

marked in the presence
of other people.

Jayne was warned

constantly and periodically

in no uncertain terms

that she must avoid his company

because great harm
would befall him.

Shemhamforash!
Hail Satan!

And so, it is done.

I think there's an element
to Mansfield's story

in which she is partaking

in something that is deeper
and bigger

and is reminiscent of ourselves
and our cultural heritage.

Jayne Mansfield
is the Aphrodite woman

and in particular,
the tragic Aphrodite woman.

When you look at her
in that way,

gives you an opportunity
to really get more of a sense

of why she was such a sensation.

It isn't just
about her psychology.

It's really about her mythology.

Her beauty,
the way men fought over her,

it seems as if it's bigger
than just her.

Two issues about
the tragic Aphrodite figure.

One of them is that
she can't get old.

Beauty dies.

There's another dark side
to Aphrodite.

And that is that she
may engender that feeling

of you being very special.

But, she also, is going to be
looking for who the next person is,

or next man is, that
she can attract to herself.

And, that is really
a big problem

because if men think
they're very special to her,

and then she can
kind of just move right on,

which is what Jayne did.

She really moved on

depending on, you know, what
her feeling was for somebody.

Not necessarily
what their feeling was for her.

Anton was not fond of Brody.

In fact, he wanted
Jayne to leave Brody.

And he told Jayne, "You are with
a bad guy. This is not a good guy."

Sam Brody still went out,

because he just
couldn't disconnect.

But, maybe if she had, maybe if
she had listened to Anton LaVey,

things would have been
totally different.

It gets even crazier because,

you know, the kids see pictures
of Anton's house,

they see pictures
of Anton's lion, Togare.

Anton LaVey got him as a cub

and raised him in San Francisco.

And, I saw the damn lion
in the basement.

A lion is not a pussy cat.

How tame can a lion be?

It's a wild animal.

It could respect you
as a human being

and it's another species still

which, ordinarily, it would eat.

They're apex predators.

They have no business
being in people's homes.

I don't know. They say
he makes too much noise.

I never really hear him.

I heard him.

He does make a little noise.

I heard him one time
when I was walking past

but I don't think,

I don't really think
he's that noisy.

It became impossible for the
lion to be living in San Francisco.

Surprise, surprise.

So, he came to us

with beautiful Alice,
who was his lioness.

All we really knew about Togare

was that he lived with a man
who practiced black magic.

Which, of course,
gave it an aura of mystique

and he was the terror
of the Shambala Preserve.

You know, he really had
a great reputation.

A wonderful reputation.

What did the lion learn
from this man, Anton LaVey?

And, it was beautiful.

Physically, very beautiful.

Roar.

And, one day, we found out
that Alice was pregnant.

And, she had a little cub.

And, we named him
after Bill Blatty

who was the author
of The Exorcist.

We were introduced
to Bill Blatty

and as Mr. Blatty
was writing his book,

he would give me the chapters.

The upshot of that, is we
named the little cub Bill... Billy.

It's fabulous.

A black magic background,

the author who wrote
The Exorcist,

so, it all gets to be very...

interesting

to say the least.

Jayne goes back to LA and
tells her children about her experiences

and the kids, they
all want to see a lion.

Sam Brody steps in
and kind of one ups Anton

and says, "I'll take them
to the zoo.

I'll let them
meet a lion up close."

Jayne and her boyfriend,
Sam Brody,

take the kids some place
called jungle Land

where there's a lion.

Jungle Land, USA,
was a private zoo,

in Thousand Oaks,

that they housed all the animals that
worked in show business and in the movies,

like the MGM lion.

They were
breeding animals there,

and they would let people go In

and have a relationship
with the animals.

If ind the confluence
of the fact

that Anton LaVey had a pet lion

and that her child
was mauled by a lion

in a totally different setting

to be just unbelievable.

I mean, this was the kind of
thing, you can't make this stuff up.

Welcome to jungle Land, USA.

Okay, everyone, don't be scared.

Simba's an actor. He's been in
lots and lots of movies and TV shows.

Oh, he sure looks ferocious,

doesn't he, kids?

Can we pet him?

Sure, just be careful. And,
nobody move too quickly, okay?

We've told Brody.

Nobody had to go
all the way to Frisco

and shake the devil's hand

to just pet a lion.

Isn't he soft?

Alright now, it's time
for Simba to take a nap.

Please, can we play with him
some more?

I'll put him in his cage and you
can look at him as much as you want.

How's that?

That's great.

He's so cute.

Excuse me, Ms. Mansfield,

could me and the boys possibly get
some shots of you with the chimpanzee?

Oh!

Oh, I think I found
my new co-star.

She's trying to steal my scene.

Perfect.

Oh! This chimp's a bigger ham
than Mamie Van Doren

Hey, how about one of you
and the kids?

Alright. Come on kids. Gather
around me and Mrs. Banana.

Zoltan, where's Zoltan?

- Oh.
- Get him off me!

Oh! My baby. My baby!

Let go of my baby.

- Jayne, no. No, no, stay back.
- Oh, God!

The boy is alive.
Call an ambulance.

Hurry up.

Oh, my sweet angel.

Oh. Oh, I pray to you,
don't let my baby die.

Please. Please.

Please save my child.

Save, save my child.

Save my child.

Don't let my baby die.

Anton... Anton...

Jayne.

Yeah, I think everybody heard
about it.

To me, it was... Well, this is
one of the main reasons

why we should not have any
human contact with these animals

even if they are in captivity.

The kid's getting last rites,

priests are brought in.
I mean, it's over.

They're at the hospital
and Jayne doesn't know what to do.

And, she's desperate

and she calls Anton LaVey
to come and help.

She believes that this
is all part of the curse.

Legend has it, Anton LaVey

goes up to the top of Mount
Tamalpais in San Francisco.

He cast this incantation
on top, for the boy,

for Jayne's son to live.

Come forth,
oh, great spawn of the abyss,

and manifest thy presence.

Let that which bears
against the one known as Zoltan

be rendered powerless
and devoid of substance.

Restore him to power, to joy,

to unending dominion

over the reverses
that have beset him.

Fill around and within him
the exultant radiance

that will herald his emergence

from the stagnant morass
which engulfs him.

Shemhamforash.

Hail Satan!

Hail Satan.

And so, it is done.

Hours later,

the doctors at the hospital

rush out of the room to tell
Jayne and Sam he's gonna make it.

Something's occurred, he's turned a
corner, he's gonna be fine. He's back.

So, of course, this is met
with gratification from Jayne.

She's just over the moon
as anybody else would be

but, that's the kind of drama
that she brought with her.

Especially that picture,
where she's hugging her son,

in front of a Christmas tree,

who's just been released
from the hospital

from being mauled by a lion
of all mad things.

She really looks dreadful.

She looks very much
like she's old,

she's coming apart at the seams,

at the same time, you can still...
Technically, she's a young woman

and it's a very, very haunting
and troubling image.

If you ask Anton LaVey to
practice some of his black magic,

and save your son
who's about to die,

and he does,

well, you're a convert for life.

And, I think that's when she, you know,
became a witch and never turned back.

Mansfield was born
a Methodist, raised a Methodist,

and then, she considers
converting to Catholicism

and then,
she flirts with Judaism,

and then, she moves into
considering being a Satanist.

There are some folks
who believe

that Jayne, actually, was a
High Priestess in the Church,

and she'd memorized hundreds
of verses, etc., of the Satanic Bible.

Anton LaVey kind of gifts
these celebrity people

who are interested in him

with positions in the Church

as more of a, kind of,
honorary title.

Was she that brilliant?

Did she memorize that much
in the Satanic bible?

Was she, in fact,
a High Priestess?

I don't know. I don't know.

Only He knew
what was in my heart.

Only He knew
what was in my heart.

God has always been close to me.

Only He knew
what was in my heart.

And so, it is done.

Devil, Jesus, Catholicism.

Jesus. Stars were made
to suffer.

I know I have been rumored
to have cursed Jayne Mansfield,

caused her death
in that car crash.

Jayne Mansfield was a member
of the Church of Satan.

Prices of superstar crisis.

Only He knew
what was in my heart.

Only He knew
what was in my heart.

Generally, I think, most
people would read her life story

and think, "What a mess."

You know, from early on, there's
a kind of spinning movement

revolving men

that involves keeping them
in her orbit

while she's bringing in others
and then, some are spinning out

her, you know, losing
her children, getting them back,

a constant battle
revolving door of the children,

always wanting more children.

Always working
on the Pink Palace,

the kind of never-finished
Pink Palace.

There's this quality of chaos

that she seemed to want
to have around her

and, she also seemed
to have to keep expanding

in her search.

So, to bring in someone
who'll then say,

"Yeah, let's make that pact
with the devil,"

she, almost without thought,
says, "Sure, I'll take that bargain."

And then,
wants to kind of take it back.

But then wants to keep re-bargaining
and re-bargaining

With devil, God, devil, God.

So much of a part of, I think, her
ability to even navigate this world at all

is that you've got to keep
a constant, intense circuit

of desire going at all times.

I think, the worst thing that would
have happened to Jayne Mansfield

is that the chaos
would have stopped.

'Cause I don't think life would
have been worth living for her

even if she didn't have this,

more babies, more chihuahuas,

More fame,
more supermarket openings,

she just never wanted them
to get off the merry go round.

You get a lot
of those kind of damp readings,

of "if only she could have
settled down..."

If she could have settled down, she
wouldn't have been Jayne Mansfield.

Put yourself in Jayne's shoes.

What really, I think,
kind of sucks Jayne

into the whole world
of Anton LaVey

is that, you know,
more than anything else,

we know that she was
a great and doting mother.

And, she wanted her baby
with Matt back.

Baby Tony was somebody
she wanted back in a hurry.

Anton said
he could deliver that.

And then he cast the spell or does whatever
he does inside the Church of Satan,

and lo and behold,
Jayne has baby Tony back

miraculously,
or maybe not so much.

He comes back because Sam
Brody brings the child back.

So, now, Jayne is torn.

Does she go on, then, to believe
everything Anton says

and does she think every promise
he makes is gonna be made good?

I mean, Sam's in her life.
Sam's in her house.

She's in a bad position.

Does she feel good that
Sam's back with the baby?

That's a blessing.
But, is Sam a blessing

since he, kind of, has this
whole spell cast on him by Anton?

At this point,
bad things began to happen.

A matter of fact, Anton would warn
Jayne, "Don't get in the car with him."

One of the things I find
impossible that comes out of the legend

that Sam Brody was cursed
by Anton LaVey

is the legend of seven
different car accidents.

In Sunset Strip,
people drove really fast.

Up and down the road,
it was very, very windy

and she lived
at the windy section

close to Dead Man's Curve.

And, that's what the song
was written about

where Jan crashed and died.

Very close
to Jayne Mansfield's house.

Her boyfriend Brody
had a lot of car accidents

probably because of that road.

Because, Sunset Strip, they're
coming home late at night.

And, probably
some late night drinking

and, you know,
that's what happens.

Some minor,
some a little more than minor,

but in essence,
it was proving true,

that the spell that Anton cast,
maybe there was some truth to it.

She's banked everything
on her ability to stop the room

and it's her flesh
that stops the room

That's the deal she's stuck in.

Seems to me,
at the end of her life,

she's struggling

trying to figure out what other deal
she can cut now, with the cosmos.

Only he knew
what was in my heart.

Only he knew
what was in my heart.

One day, Sam,
he leaves the house

and gets in the car makes
a left on Sunset, I believe

and he gets broadsided, there's
a huge accident on the street

and he falls out of the car
with a terribly injured leg.

And that even makes her
feel more sorry for Sam

because, again, is Anton
really the cause of all this?

Sam, call him what you will,
lawyer of course,

but he's many other things
beside that.

And, he was actually handling a
career through at that point.

I have no intention
of ever marrying him.

But, he's got all my business.

Everything in his briefcase,

and he won't give them back.

He promised he'd get her
back on her feet,

and really make her the
huge star she wanted to be.

But, it doesn't work
that way at all.

The great push me, pull you
effect with Jayne Mansfield

really is most evident
toward the end of her life

when Sam Brody promises her
USO tour overseas.

He delivers on that.

And, at this point,
she's so thrilled

that she can get work, that
she kind of takes him back in.

Ms. Mansfield,
you've been quoted as saying

you wouldn't mind entertaining
for the Viet Cong.

Would you explain that, please?

What I actually said was this,

is that I feel that
the Viet Cong soldiers,

soldiers here,

all over the world,
in every branch of service,

all these soldiers are carrying
out the orders of their superiors.

We have wars

when we don't need them,
like Vietnam.

Vietnam is
an enormous sacrifice,

we're killing boys,

left and right, and we're also
killing a lot of Vietnamese.

And, we are excited

because we are aggressive again.

And, then, we're embarrassed

so, we slip it under the rug.

I will do whatever is necessary

to... to...

to extend world peace,
to provide, to help

and to establish world peace.

Because, I believe war
is a foolish, childish,

animalistic, unthinking,

unintelligent way of trying
to accomplish a purpose.

It really is just,
you just take lives,

and, and, destroy
beautiful property.

Why?

It's ridiculous. It's sad.

You bring a sex pot
like Jayne Mansfield overseas

to a bunch of guys who
haven't seen a woman,

or been near a woman
in a long time,

there's gonna be trouble.

And, this was like a scene
out of Apocalypse Now.

The USO tour

she so badly wanted
ends up being a disaster.

She's not herself.
She's out of it.

She's loaded, or whatever.

The way she acted,

maybe it was the liquor.

Whatever it was,
it spelled trouble.

The boys got rowdy.

It got so rowdy to the point
that it was a bad scene,

they had to break it up and
Jayne had to get out of there.

But, it wasn't a successful
USO trip at all.

There's no front line
at Vietnam, you know?

The fighting is everywhere.
Everywhere.

Everywhere that I was,

there was, there were
people, you know, brought in,

dead, or half dead...

Either right before,
or during, or right after,

there were mortar attacks
in the Viet Cong,

or the Northern Vietnamese,

And, it's just an experience
where you just...

If you feel
that you'd make some...

anyone happy. Add
something, you know?

You feel... You feel good.

But, I... I really, I got
very broken

very broken up about this.

They're lying there
without limbs.

And, there's no one.

There's no one there
to hold their hand

and say I love you,
everything's gonna be fine.

This one person in particular,

he just got to me.

He lost his leg, you know?

And, he was very beautiful,

was 25 years,
they're all beautiful,

but he was 25 years old,
and, and...

the thing...

That upset me most
is that the thing...

that none of them...

They're
so proud of what they did.

There's no bitterness at all,
you know?

At some point, there's a
breaking point and it's like,

you either break

or you go, "No, no,
I'm not doing that."

Everything is becoming
increasingly constricted

in her later life

where she's exhausted
the possibilities

and Anton LaVey hasn't been
able to come through with her.

Satanism is not going
to work for her either.

And also, those spells
that Anton cast,

that she still remembers
over her head.

I mean, to the point where even
her lawyer believed he was cursed

and actually, had to eat crow,

and go and apologize.

There are pictures
of Anton in his Satanist suit

with the children,
with Sam and Jayne

and this seems to me to be,
he's getting a tour of the house

and they're being photographed.
It's as if he's a family friend.

The assumption that she
is a High Priestess of Satan

and has been incorporated
into his Church of Satan

and that he is
the jealous lover,

they're playing with each other.

They're making use of each other

is what I get
from the implication

that they're together in 1967
in her house.

So 1967,

Jayne and Brody went
with Anton to La Scala

to basically, ask him to
take this curse off of them.

So, if they're having
a big argument,

I'm sure everybody is seeing it
and would hear it.

The night
that they left La Scala,

after they asked Anton to
take the curse off of them,

he's going on Sunset Strip with
Jayne and he crashes into a tree.

So, I guess the curse
was not lifted.

But, she still wanted to work.

When Jayne was showing her ass, she
was really, she needed to make that money.

You seem to be concentrating
more now on cabaret than films,

does this mean your career
has moved into a new phase?

No, I just finished
two very important films.

Two very important films.

One, Guide for the Married Man
with Terry Thomas,

with 20th Century Fox

in Hollywood which will be
released within two or three months.

The biggest film this year,

and Single Room Furnished.

Uh, we had to stop,
unfortunately, for a flat tire,

in one of your towns,
prior to reaching Tralee

and there were three
or four hundred people

that crowded around the car,

that Jayne Mansfield was in

Now, this is a town
of 500 people

apparent by the reaction,
they love Jayne Mansfield.

The amount of choices she made,
the amount of time she said yes,

far outweighed
the amount of time she said no

and that's trouble in a way.

You gotta say no more often
than yes, as you get older.

The last few days of her life were
just one bad decision after another.

Jayne and Mamie Van Doren were
both on this dinner theater circuit.

North Carolina, Mississippi...

Hello, Tawny, what are you doing
out in the country?

Oh, hello, Boots darling. I thought it was
about time to get acquainted with Woody.

You two kissing cousins
enjoy yourselves.

I've got work to do.

Yeah, Mamie knew
where her career was at.

She embraced it. She
got the whole B-level thing.

Jayne thought she could take the
B-level and jump right back to A status.

You can't do that.

She needs a big Hail Mary
to get back.

And, I'm not sure dinner theater
in Biloxi will get you there.

And, Mamie innocently asked her

"Can we, kind of, switch shifts
or switch gigs?"

Which was kind of commonplace
back then.

Mamie had some other commitment,
so, Jayne was thrilled.

She wanted to use it as a
vacation, take the kids down,

she flies out there with Sam...

We always take
our children with us.

Jayne always liked to go
to the South.

It was right on the water,
within Biloxi, Mississippi.

Let's have a big round of
applause for Miss Jayne Mansfield.

She's doing a tacky show,

basically, she's sitting
on old men's laps.

Listen, Nikki. I'm on my way
to New Orleans

and I've worked out
this fabulous new act.

Really now, really wicked.
You know what I mean?

And, honey? I want you
to do it with me.

Jayne, we have been
through this before.

Sam can't drive because his leg is messed
up from the accident on Sunset Boulevard.

So, a younger person
was behind the wheel.

And, they're driving quick to make
this appointment in New Orleans

for the next morning's TV gig

That damn spraying machine's
gonna keep us here all night.

No, it's not. Jayne has to make
that talk show.

We're gonna be late.

A bulletin
has just been handed to me.

Hollywood star, the buxom and
beautiful Jayne Mansfield is dead.

She was killed instantly when the car
she was riding in collided with a truck

a few miles from New Orleans,
early this morning.

A flaming, grinding car crash

ended the bright movie career
of famed Jayne Mansfield

on June 29th, 1967.

Jayne Mansfield died
while driving to New Orleans.

At 33 years of age,

Hollywood's smartest dumb blonde

lay at the side of the road.

She died instantly

and was almost decapitated.

Her, Sam and the driver
were in the front seat,

her three kids are in the back,

laying down, sleeping.

Had they been sitting up,
they'd be dead too.

The car slides under the trailer

and essentially, just destroys
the three people in the front seat,

Jayne, Sam and the driver.

So, things get very eerie
if your Anton LaVey

because, on the morning
that Jayne dies,

he's alone, cutting up pages
of a German magazine,

of pictures of himself
laying flowers down

at Marilyn Monroe's grave.

And, as he makes the
particular cuts he's been making,

something in his body,

something in his being, he felt funny
with one of the snips of his scissors.

When he's done cutting out,

he turns the page and realizes

that on the other side of the page
was a picture of Jayne Mansfield

and that his scissors
had cut through her neck.

And, in the next moment,
they telephone him

because, of course, LaVey is
the first person they would call.

They telephone him
to tell him of her death

and he realizes he caused it.

He decapitated Jayne.

He only wanted
to kill Sam Brody.

But, inadvertently,
his great powers of Satanism,

by accident, got Jayne too.

So, what have we got?

It was at, approximately,

I'm telling you what I saw.

There was a crash and a bang,
and a load of smoke.

Now, this is all
that is left

of a 1966 Buick.

That's the car
that Jayne Mansfield,

the famous movie star,
was killed in.

Now, a lot of people

don't like to look
at dead bodies.

But, they just get up in there,
jammed up in the car.

There was, apparently,

a wig set, approximately,
just there on the dash.

And the reporters... Well,
they came, in their droves

and they couldn't get it
cleaned up before they came

and so, they saw that
and they just ran with it.

Now, a lot of people think...

that Jayne's head came right off

but, I can tell you

it was intact.

A lot of people believe that.

A lot of people
still do believe that.

But, a lot of people believe
that and still believe it.

But, she wasn't. I embalmed her.

So, I know she wasn't.

Jayne dies June 29th, 1967.

And, she's laid out in a
cemetery in Argyl, Pennsylvania

with a white marble,
heart-shaped tombstone

that says, "We live to love you
more each day."

I know that the mother
took it back, right?

'Cause she wanted the body
in Pennsylvania

which Jayne is still clawing.

I bet you're gonna hear her
trying to get out of Pennsylvania.

If you go there at night,
I bet you can hear her

clawing her way
every once in a while

to get back to Hollywood
where she belongs.

Jayne Mansfield
was a starry-eyed romantic.

She had a passion for love.

And a passion
for heart-shaped objects.

The house Jayne Mansfield
and Mickey Hargitay shared

is more rightly called
a mansion.

It is one of Hollywood's
largest homes.

Engelbert purchased it years and
years later and he was the last to own it.

And, unfortunately, he sold it
in 2002 to developers.

We saw it demolished. It was
like losing a piece of the community.

This was nothing like it.

There were no other Pink Palaces
in the neighborhood.

This building is actually,
fairly new for the neighborhood.

I believe it was built in 2008,

but, prior to that,
it was the Church of Satan.

So, apparently, he grew up here.
This was his parents' house

and he kind of came of age

and took over the house.
He turned it into a Church...

of the Devil.

So, we used to have individual
numbers for our address

that were, you know,
listed horizontally.

And they all start with six, so it
ended up having a vertical six, six, six.

Um, and they
kept getting stolen.

So, we ended up having to
get, like, one plaque, all together.

We were in escrow
and that's when I found out.

There was one little line in the
contract that said something like,

"Former Church of Satan,

"home of Anton LaVey,

"head of the Church of Satan," or something
like that, I can't remember exactly.

And I didn't know what it was, but my
parents both grew up in this neighborhood.

So, Chuck, because of
the history of the house,

every year, for Halloween... I'm
not a big dresser-upper myself,

but this is a fun neighborhood
at Halloween.

Lots of people out and about

and I dress Chuck up
like a lion.

And one, because he kind of looks like
a lion, he's got the right coloring for it.

And Anton LaVey used to have
a lion that lived in the backyard.

He did die here,
on the property.

And, in fact, I don't even think
he owned the home anymore

I think the people
that actually did own the home

just let him live out
his days there.

The death certificate says
Anton LaVey died on Halloween

and perhaps, that is fitting
for a man

who became one of San
Francisco's special characters

after he founded his own,
so called, Satanic Church.

There were nudes on the altar, a
pet lion and a house painted black.

He dies on October 29th,

and then, has
his death certificate faked

so that it reads that he died
on the morning of Halloween

which is, sort of a, you know,
beautiful ending.

With Anton's death,
the Church of Satan also died.

His house
on California Street...

Um, I think it's been torn down,
I haven't been by there recently

but someone told me it's gone.

If Kurt Cobain died
for Rock and Roll,

then, the Black House died
for Satan.

So, Anton's big black house
that he lived in

was razed in 2001.

Several months later, in 2002, Jayne's
Pink Palace is razed to the ground.

So, now,
any physical manifestation

of these two, and the
lives they led, is gone.

In a way, there is something
that is more powerful

about a thing
that doesn't exist anymore.

It's, sort of, the fantasy of what
it was like back in the olden days.

It just lights up the culture

because there's a way in which
everybody knows that story.

Everybody is tuned
into that myth

that beauty doesn't last.

The culture needs a sacrifice.

Only, that's all wiped out.

I mean, the Greeks sacrificed
all the time.

I mean, every time they had
lunch, they had to kill a cow.

But, we don't do that anymore.

What we do, is submerged,

you know, like we killed witches
in the beginnings.

If somebody who was too smart,
ahead of our time, and has a weird death,

and is connected somehow
towards devil worshiping,

it is considered a sacrifice
and the culture enjoys it.

The culture enjoys sacrifice.

When Diana died,

they called her
the people's Princess.

And, her death
was actually celebrated

as being something that was
to be mourned by the world

in a way that Jayne
did not experience.

Then, when Jayne
hit her tragic death,

people said,
"We're not surprised.

"You know,
she was taking chances.

"She was flirting
with the devil.

"It was only a matter of time."

She probably crossed
too many lines.

She took risks.

She was a pioneer
in many ways

who was testing the limits

because, she was anticipating

the destruction
of those old codes

and those prohibitions.

Jayne, in a lot of ways, isn't
given the credit that she deserves.

She was unafraid to do things
that opened doors.

But, when you're the first
to do them a lot of times,

you're the one who's, kind of,
like, spanked for it.

I never felt it was tragic,
her life.

Never did I feel it was tragic.

Even when she died in
a car accident, it was...

She would have wanted
to go like that.

With blood, and guts

and a headline on the front page
and a dead chihuahua.

That's her.

Her death was kind of the end

that old demonization

of female sexuality.

It wasn't very long after that

that the women's movement began,

that the idea of transforming
female sexuality

into something
that was a positive force

that there began
to be a celebration

of the female sexuality.

And, isn't it kind of odd
in some way

that part of her sensationalism

was to mark the end of that?

When a celebrity dies,
we, all of a sudden, have, like a...

kind of different perspective
on what they were like

as people

and usually,
it's an improvement.

You make up the story
and you pack it up with evidence.

But, if the evidence itself
is questionable,

if it's media coverage
of a Hollywood starlet,

it's really hard to know
what happened.

And, you never can be sure

what is history and fact versus
rumor and hearsay, I wish I knew.

There's this, sort of,

legacy that will,
forever, be fascinating.

We want to know more, we
want to know as much as possible.

She will always be an icon

because, she never was
a wrinkly old broad.

She will always be this
wonderful, glorious woman.

And, maybe the greatest thing she ever
pulled off, or the greatest gig she ever had

was keeping us suspended

and wondering
what happened to her

and what would have been.

Maybe, that's what
she leaves us,

for all of us to keep wondering.

And, the show kind of, goes on.

The legend of Jayne Mansfield

lives on, partially because,
like so many other legends,

you know, her life
was cut so short.

She died at 34.

And, she represented
such a wonderful beauty

and freedom of sexuality
and sassiness

and being larger than life

and living in a Pink Palace,

I mean, it really is the stuff
that legends are made of.

She was a fun lady.

We're lucky that we've had little
glimpses of wonderful creatures

like Jayne Mansfield
and Anton LaVey.

I don't care if it's true,
I like to picture that.

I like to picture it.

At a certain level, you sometimes,
have to just print the legend.

So, it is done.

How much longer do
you think you can be a sex symbol?

Forever, darling.

So, what's the mystery?

I'm just a perfectly normal
American girl.