Was Jayne Mansfield really supposed to play Judy?
Boston and Philly love to slander us, but they don t have as many fans as us
Was she a first choice? I know she was considered or maybe did a screen test. As well as Debbie Reynolds and Margaret O'Brian amongst others
shareThis is what I'm getting from Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel's book about "Rebel":
In fact, Ray continued to test other actresses for the part of Judy, including blond bombshell Jayne Mansfield, one of the other women he was dating at the time. 'I didn't even put any film in the camera for her screen test,' Ray said of Mansfield. 'That was just an hallucination of the casting department.' However [Dennis] Hopper, who read with Mansfield, thought it was a serious test. Faye Nuell Mayo believes that Ray wanted Mansfield because he envisioned Judy as a 'real trashy girl' at the time, though in later versions of the script the characters would evolve into someone softer and more complex, someone closer to Wood.
'It all sounded pretty monotone to me,' says Mitzi McCall, who red the part of a carhop that was then given to Jayne Mansfield, before being completely cut from the film.