I’m at the library, doing the half bent over but not too far bent over crouch to scan the New Non-Fiction section. I’m also in grave danger of my right arm being yanked out of the socket from a heavy library bag and somehow my wig is slightly askew from trying to fix my mask elastics caught in my glasses. My usual hot mess express self.

Then I spot a book with a L’Oreal Matte Me in Paris colored spine with big bold yet clean white letters JAYNE MANSFIELD with Eve Golden in smaller black letters. And I went from crouched beast to lunge mode because BOOK MINE NOW.

Now the average person might not know who Jayne Mansfield is. You need to be a Baby Boomer or older, a fan of the camp, 1950s/1960s Hollywood or have heard the Siouxsie and the Banshees song “Kiss Them For Me” to recognize who Jayne Mansfield is.

<insert the spouse prying himself long enough from YouTube to proclaim Superstition the worst Siouxsie and the Banshees album ever-ignore him>

Jayne Mansfield was many things in her short life-mother, actress, model, beauty queen, scandalous, wild, parodied and laughed at but she was never boring. Finding a balanced measured account of her life can be difficult because so much of her life was lived in front of cameras it’s easy to see her as just a cartoon oversized figure, the Dollar Tree/Dollar General Marilyn Monroe all white-blond hair and heaving bosoms at her tacky Pink Palace.

 It takes a special author to live up to that task and in thirty plus years of reading about Hollywood and film stars the only solid book about Jayne Mansfield was Martha Saxton’s 1975 Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties a slender volume that is sadly out of print. If you find it? Sure, buy it, my own copy has gone astray over the years and if I stumbled across it during my adventures, it’s coming home with me.

But if your library has Eve Golden’s Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It or you have a spare $34.95? Give Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It a chance. Eve Golden wrote the definitive biography of Silent Hollywood legend Theda Bara and a very fine biography of Jean Harlow so she is no stranger to being able to dig past the crazy rumors/legends and give you a look at the actual person behind the hair and makeup. Behind all that bleached hair and extreme clothing is pain and frustration along with ambition.

Now some biographers would have made an enormous focal point of a particular rumor surrounding the paternity for one of her children but Eve Golden doesn’t sink to that level. The rumor is addressed and frankly whatever the biological truth, that child has lived a life well loved and accepted.

Eve Golden doesn’t sink to that level could just be applied to the final quarter of the book. Let’s face it. If you know who Jayne Mansfield it’s pretty much because of her tragic death. It’s certainly not her acting. And because other authors <insert majorly raised heavily penciled eyebrows at a certain Kenneth Anger> sank to those levels and beyond.

Jayne Mansfield wasn’t the finest actress to ever grace the silver screen. But she was hard working and stuck to her goals even if the world was laughing at her versus with her. She was both slightly out of date even at the height of her fame and ahead of her time. And thanks to Eve Golden and Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It she is more than just a bunch of publicity photos and press clippings.