December 1, 1956: "The Girl Can't Help It" Premieres

December 1, 1956: The Girl Can't Help It premieres, directed by Frank Tashlin. The girl who couldn't help it was played by Jayne Mansfield, and the film rockets her to stardom. It is often considered the best of the films to exploit the newly-emerging rock and roll.

Among the songs performed in the film are the title track, "Ready Teddy" and "She's Got It," by Little Richard; "Be-Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; "Blue Monday" by Fats Domino; "Twenty Flight Rock" by Eddie Cochran; "You'll Never, Never Know" by The Platters; "Rockin' Is Our Business" by The Treniers, the group that did "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)"; "Cry Me a River" by Julie London; and "Spread the Word" by Abbey Lincoln, better known as a jazz singer.

Like her contemporary Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield wasn't a dumb blonde, she just played one in movies. She was very bright, and was a better violinist than either Jack Benny or Henny Youngman. Unfortunately, like Marilyn, she died young, killed in a car crash in 1967. Her 4-year-old daughter survived the wreck. We know her as actress Mariska Hargitay.

This movie proved tremendously significant, because it was shown in Britain. It made Little Richard, Cochran and Vincent more popular there than in their native America. And Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," about a man whose girlfriend lives in a high-rise with the elevator broken down -- "Get to the top, I'm too tired to rock!" -- was the song that 15-year-old Liverpool native Paul McCartney played 7 months later, to convince 16-year-old John Lennon to let him into his band, the Quarry Men. And that was the beginning of The Beatles.

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December 1, 1956 was a Saturday. Among the college football games played that day were these:

* Rivalry: Number 1 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State, 53-0 at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. This was during Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak, still a college football record.

* Rivalry: Number 2 Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 27-7 at Dudley Field in Nashville.

* Number 3 Iowa, Number 7 Michigan, Number 8 Syracuse, Number 9 Michigan State and Number 10 Minnesota had all completed their regular seasons.

* Rivalry: Number 4 Georgia Tech beat Georgia, 35-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* Rivalry: Two days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, Number 5 Texas A&M beat Texas, 34-21 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas.

* Rivalry: Number 6 Miami beat Number 18 Florida, 20-7 at Florida Field (now Ben Hill Griffin Stadium) in Gainesville, Florida.

* Rivalry: Number 13 Navy and Army played to a tie, 7-7 at Municipal Stadium (now John F. Kennedy Stadium) in Philadelphia.

* Rivalry: Number 14 Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Southern Methodist University (SMU), 21-6 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* Rivalry: Number 17 University of Southern California beat Notre Dame, 28-20 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Rivalry: Holy Cross beat Boston College, 7-0 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* Rivalry: Auburn beat Alabama, 34-7 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

* Rivalry: Mississippi (Ole Miss) beat Mississippi State, 13-7 at Hemingway Stadium (now Vaught-Hemingway Stadium) in Oxford, Mississippi.

* Rivalry: Louisiana State University (LSU) beat Tulane, 7-6 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

* Rivalry: Missouri beat Kansas, 15-13 at Memorial Stadium (now Faurot Field) in Columbia, Missouri.

Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Syracuse Nationals, 117-100 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 108-93 at the Boston Garden.

* The Rochester Royals beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 95-85 at the Rochester War Memorial (now the Blue Cross Arena) in Rochester, New York.

* And the Philadelphia Warriors beat the St. Louis Hawks, 107-95 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Paul Arizin led all scorers on the day with 37 points.

There were 2 NHL games that day. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 7-0 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Arsenal were held to a draw by North-East team Sunderland, 1-1 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

June 29, 1967: The Death of Jayne Mansfield

June 29, 1967: Actress Jayne Mansfield is killed in a car crash. She was 34 years old.

Vera Jayne Palmer was born on April 19, 1933 in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Highland Park, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. She took violin lessons, and, in 1957, after becoming a star, played the violin on The Ed Sullivan Show. She was better than Henny Youngman, and better than Jack Benny pretended to be.

In 1950, she married public relations executive Paul Mansfield -- she was 17, and 3 months pregnant, and he was 20 -- and began using the stage name Jayne Mansfield. Late that year, their daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield, was born.

In 1955, she did a nude spread in Playboy magazine, starred on Broadway in the comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? By early 1957, she had starred in the film version of it, and in one of the early rock-and-roll-themed films, The Girl Can't Help It. 

Just as every record label had decided that it had to have its own version of Elvis Presley, so, too, did every film studio decide that it now needed its own version of Marilyn Monroe. 20th Century Fox had Marilyn, and, in Jayne, with her platinum-blonde hair (in her case, unlike Marilyn's, natural) and her large breasts (bigger than Marilyn's), Fox seemed to have "the next Monroe." Unfortunately, like Marilyn, she was considerably smarter than the "dumb blonde" roles the studios tended to give her.

In 1963, she appeared in the comedy Promises! Promises! This made her the 1st mainstream American actress to appear nude in a starring role. This was a key event in the breaking down of the Hays Code, although she would not live to see its complete fall. In 1964, an election year, in a play on her figure, she appeared in a pinup book titled Jayne Mansfield for President: The White House or Bust.

Another unfortunate way in which her life paralleled Marilyn's was in having her personal life be a mess. By the time she became a star, her 1st marriage was effectively over, due to infidelities on both sides, but the divorce was not finalized until 1958.

This enabled her to marry Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay, a Hungarian-born bodybuilder-turned-actor, a contemporary of Steve Reeves and a precursor to Arnold Schwarzenegger. They had 2 sons, Miklós Jr. (or "Mickey Jr.") and Zoltán; and a daughter, Mariska. But, again, the marriage was stormy, and both of them cheated. It was eventually revealed that Marsika's actual father was Nelson Sardelli, a singer that Jayne had been seeing on the side.

In 1964, soon after divorcing Hargitay, she married Matteo Ottaviano, an Italian film director using the name Matt Cimber. They had a son, Tony Cimber, but this marriage also collapsed, as Jayne couldn't stop drinking or sleeping around. She even told Matt that Sardelli was the only man who had ever made her happy.

She began an affair with her lawyer, Sam Brody. He helped jump-start her singing career, and booked her at the Gus Stevens Supper Club in the resort city of Biloxi, Mississippi in June 1967. She played 2 shows on June 28, and was due to appear on a radio show in New Orleans, 87 miles to the southwest, the next afternoon.

Jayne's last concert

Jayne, Sam, and their 20-year-old driver, Ronnie Harrison, were in the front seat of a 1966 Buick Electra 225.  Sam was in the front passenger seat. Mickey Jr. Zoltán and Mariska were in the back seat. (Jayne Jr. and Tony were living with their fathers.)

At 2:25 AM on June 29, on U.S. Route 90, about 20 miles northeast of New Orleans, the car crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer, which had slowed down to maneuver around a truck that was flashing a red light, because it was spraying insecticide. The adults were all killed. The children sustained minor injuries. Jayne was 34 -- 2 years younger than Marilyn Monroe was when she died in 1962.

An urban legend said that Jayne was decapitated. She wasn't, although it was a head injury that caused her death, instantaneously.

In 1976, Jayne Marie Mansfield became the 1st daughter of a Playboy "Playmate" to also become one. She also followed her mother into acting. So did Mariska Hargitay, who plays Detective, now Captain, Olivia Benson on the NBC crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She holds the record for the longest tenure playing a single character in the history of American prime-time television.

UPDATE: In 2025, Mariska directed a documentary, My Mom Jayne.

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June 29, 1967 was a Thursday. There were 6 baseball games played:

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0 at Shea Stadium. Jim Bunning pitched a 3-hit shutout, beating Jack Fisher. The only run came in the top of the 4th inning, when Bobby Wine singled Clay Dalrymple home.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Frank Robinson did not play.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 14-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 2-for-5. Tony Pérez went 4-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Milt Pappas, whom the Reds traded Frank Robinson for, pitched a 5-hit shutout. Don Drysdale was knocked out of the box in the 2nd inning, having allowed 8 runs.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline did not play.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 2-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Roberto Clemente went 3-for-5.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 12-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. With 9 hits, 2 walks and an error, the Giants scored 11 runs in the 1st inning, before the Cardinals even came to bat. This was with Bob Gibson as the opposing starting pitcher: They scored 7 before Gibson could even record an out. Gibson came into the game with an ERA for the season of 3.01, and left it with 3.68.

And then, in the bottom of the 1st, the Cardinals started with 4 straight hits and 2 runs off Giant starter Joe Gibbon. Manager Herman Franks pulled Gibbon, and Bobby Bolin then allowed 2 runs on 7 hits over 9 innings. Willie Mays went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

On July 15, the Cardinals lost to the Pirates, partly due to Gibson taking a Clemente line drive off his leg, resulting in a broken fibula that kept him out for nearly 2 months. At the time, the Cards led the National League, leading the Cubs and Reds by 4 games each, the Giants by 4 1/2, and the Atlanta Braves by 6. But even without Gibson, they pulled away, and ended up winning the Pennant by 10 1/2 games over the Giants.