Jayne Mansfield would never see better days on the Strip than her first two visits to the Tropicana. She had just divorced Paul Mansfield, whom she had married as a Southern Methodist University teen, to marry the six-foot, three-inch Hargitay, a former Mr. Universe who could provide the male yang to her pulchritudinal yin. Perhaps recognizing the limited talents -- mostly squeaks and squeals -- of his curvaceous commodity, Tropicana producer Monte Proser surrounded Jayne with specialty acts for his "Tropicana Holiday," and launched the revue with a big benefit dinner show that raised $20,000 for the March of Dimes in February 1958.
The benefit money wouldn't have quite paid for the evening's showpiece, a gold mesh metallic gown that weighed more than 12 pounds and cost a full $25,000 week's salary for Jayne as it reflected light from hundreds of tiny gold discs. But that wasn't the whole show. Audiences were treated to the sight of Mickey tossing and twirling his wife around like a sack of flour, threatening to make some man on the back row very happy.
When Jayne and Mickey returned to the Tropicana in May 1959, she had delivered son Miklos only four months prior. Yet her figure had rebounded in time for her to make her entrance in a sheer nylon gown that outdid the gold mesh. Except for the petticoats below the knees, only a few discretely placed spangles came between her and full nudity. "I wanted to be completely covered," she explained to a newspaper reporter of the self-designed gown. "If I had tried to compete with the nudes (from the French topless revues) on their own grounds, it would have been bad taste. And besides, those girls are not as healthy as I. They have been through a war and all that hardship."
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