Jayne Mansfield's short time in Pen Argyl created a lasting presence By Tom Coombe Of the Morning Call After the voluptuous blonde actress Jayne Mansfield died in 1967, fans began visiting her grave at Fairview Cemetery outside of Pen Argyl and taking away some of the dirt. So much dirt, in fact, that eventually the cemetery needed to bring in a pickup truck full of topsoil to replace what was lost. Or at least, that's the story that Lou Bray heard when he joined the cemetery's board of directors in the early 1990s. These days, the dirt around Mansfield's heart-shaped tombstone is untouched. Fans come to Pen Argyl -- where Mansfield spent about three years of her childhood -- to ask about the grave, but not that often. That's not to say she goes unremembered. On Friday, the 40th anniversary of Mansfield's death, a group of her fans will visit the Slate Belt to tour her gravesite, and the Pen Argyl home where she lived. They'll also visit the Slate Belt Heritage Center in Bangor, which is exhibiting Mansfield memorabilia: books, photos, dresses, personal items such as jewelry and ashtrays, even a lawn sprinkler from her Hollywood mansion. Mansfield, who became famous in the 1950s and 1960s as a blonde bombshell in the Marilyn Monroe mold, was born in 1933 in Bryn Mawr. She then moved to Phillipsburg for a time and then to Pen Argyl when she was 3, staying there until she was 6, when her mother and stepfather moved to Texas. Throughout her life, even after her career took off, she returned to Pen Argyl to visit the family members who remained. "When she'd come to town, word would spread quickly: "Jayne's in town! Jayne's in town!' " said Bray, also a member of the Heritage Center. "It seems like she never forgot her roots."
Bray didn't know Mansfield, although he says he is very distantly related to her. He encountered her just one time. He was 16, working in a gas station along Route 512 in Pen Argyl, when the actress drove in. It would have been in the mid-1960s. Bray put gas in the car, and Mansfield stayed inside the whole time, talking with her traveling companion. Between the length of time since her death, and the short amount of time she actually spent in the borough, a lot of the memories people in Pen Argyl have of Mansfield are like this: I saw her walking down the street. I saw her at Weona Park in Pen Argyl. She seemed like a nice person. "It seems like years ago, you'd talk to anyone, and they'd have a story about her," said Frank Ferruccio, head of Mansfield's online fan club. It's his collection of memorabilia on display at the Heritage Center. He also has a biography of the actress, "Diamonds to Dust: the Life and Death of Jayne Mansfield," coming out next month. Ferruccio, 34, has been a Mansfield fan for 20 years. It started when he was a movie-buff teenager, interested in Marilyn Monroe. Eventually, he turned his attention to this other actress who seemed to live in Monroe's shadow. "Every time I would look up anything about Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield's name always came up," said Ferruccio, of South Plainfield, N.J. "And it always came up in a derogatory sense, like she was an imitation, she was a B-movie actress." On some level, that's true. Mansfield never worked with director Billy Wilder, inspired an Elton John song or sang "Happy Birthday" to a president. She's gotten "the fuzzy end of the lollipop," to quote the Monroe character in Wilder's "Some Like It Hot." But Ferruccio argues that Mansfield "wasn't an imitation of Marilyn, she was a successor." He also suggests that Mansfield probably led a happier, more fulfilling life. Monroe died alone -- of a drug overdose in 1962 -- grew up poor, spent time in foster homes and an orphanage.
"Really, Jayne didn't have any hardships," Ferruccio said. He added: She grew up in a happy family, "wanted for nothing," and died with millions in the bank. She had always wanted children and had five of them when she died at 34. Ferruccio said it's the career of one of those children -- her daughter Mariska Hargitay, from her marriage to bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay -- that has won Jayne new fans. Mariska Hargitay is the Emmy-winning star of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" on NBC. "The bigger she becomes," Ferruccio said, "the more interest in her mother." Steve Ruggiero, of the Guerro and Ruggiero funeral home in Pen Argyl, said that may explain a pattern in visitors who stop into the home looking for Mansfield's grave. There were a few years when no one stopped in to ask, Ruggiero said, "and then Mariska become popular and it started up again." It's not a huge rush, mind you, only a couple of people a year, Ruggiero said. Nothing like 1967, when hundreds of people lined the main street of Pen Argyl for Mansfield's funeral."You'd think it was the Labor Day parade," said Jeannine Guerro, whose late husband, Nicholas, helped handle the funeral arrangements. Some people were paying their respects. Others were celebrity watchers, hoping to see people from Hollywood in town to mourn Mansfield. The celebrity watchers were ultimately disappointed. Guerro said that although some celebrities did call the funeral home to inquire about the services, none actually attended. She couldn't recall any names. The family expected the large turnout, and wasn't really bothered by it, although the services were private, said Douglas Milheim, a Pen Argyl native and one of Mansfield's first cousins. Forty years after her death, he is reluctant to say much about his famous relative. "I just don't like to tell stories," said Milheim, who now lives in Guilford, Conn. He did say that fame changed Mansfield.
"Of course, it can change anybody," he said, adding that in Jayne's case, it wasn't "in a bad way."