Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
March 1957 is a historically specific and culturally charged moment in the careers of the three women at the center of this Photoplay issue's most significant feature, and the "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo, Who Will be the First to Go?" article by Laura Lane is a primary document of one of Hollywood's most fascinating mid-century celebrity competitions. Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Kim Novak were, in early 1957, the three biggest blonde sex symbol stars in Hollywood simultaneously — a competitive dynamic so unusual and so commercially charged that the fan press was actively speculating about which of them would dominate or be displaced. Monroe was at her career peak following Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl, and was simultaneously the most famous actress in the world and one of the most publicly embattled — her marriage to Arthur Miller in 1956 had generated enormous press attention, and her production company's battles with Warner Bros. were ongoing. Jayne Mansfield had made her breakthrough in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in 1956 and was being marketed by Fox as a Monroe replacement or competitor, her physical resemblance to Monroe a deliberate and commercially calculated studio strategy. Kim Novak had emerged from Columbia Pictures' aggressive promotional machinery to become one of the most talked-about new stars of 1956 following Picnic. A Photoplay feature engaging all three simultaneously in March 1957 is a primary document of that specific competitive celebrity dynamic at its most publicly charged moment. For collectors building an archive of Jayne Mansfield magazine features from her peak publicity era, this March 1957 Photoplay is a precisely dated primary source of her positioning in that competition at its most commercially intense phase.
The Photoplay Award Winners announcement by Ernst Jacobi on page 18 adds a significant fan press historical dimension to this issue. Photoplay's annual awards were among the most commercially significant celebrity popularity polls in Hollywood — they measured genuine fan engagement rather than industry peer judgment, and their results were taken seriously by studios as evidence of commercial star power. A March 1957 Photoplay announcing the 1956-57 award winners constitutes a primary document of fan-press celebrity ranking at a specific moment in Hollywood history, providing the names and commercial hierarchy of the fan audience's most valued stars in an era when that hierarchy was itself a form of industry data. The Rock Hudson Story Part II by Joe Hyams and the Montgomery Clift "Flight from Fear" condensation by Richard Gehman are both primary documents of two of the most personally complex and publicly guarded stars of the fifties at specific biographical moments — Hudson's closeted public identity was already being carefully managed by his studio, and Clift's post-car accident career and personal struggles were the subject of sustained fan press concern. The Cary Grant "He'll Never Win an Oscar" feature by Charles Desmond reflects a specific critical narrative about Grant that was active in the late fifties and that seems both prescient and ironic from a retrospective vantage point. Collectors researching Photoplay magazine issues from the mid-fifties will find this March 1957 edition a documentary record of unusual celebrity historical depth. Collectors researching Hollywood and fan magazines from 1957 will find this issue a primary source of the specific celebrity competitive landscape of the mid-fifties at one of its most commercially interesting moments.
The full-color stars section on page 46 documents an extraordinary roster for a single Photoplay issue: Montgomery Clift, Jack Lemmon, Tony Perkins, Elaine Aiken, Lana Turner, Lex Barker, Jean Simmons, Stewart Granger, Van Johnson, Marlene Dietrich, Mel Ferrer, Audrey Hepburn, Glenn Ford, Bob Wagner, Joan Collins, and Dolores Gray. The Audrey Hepburn color portrait alone — published in March 1957, just after her Roman Holiday Oscar and before Funny Face's April release — is a primary document of her at a specific and historically significant career moment. The Marlene Dietrich portrait documents a veteran of the studio system still active and visible in the fan press at sixty-plus. The Joan Collins inclusion is an early documented fan press appearance for a figure whose American career was still in its early stages. The Natalie Wood beauty feature and the Debra Paget profile round out an issue whose roster of named subjects constitutes one of the more comprehensive single-issue celebrity archives in the Photoplay back-catalog from this period.
About the Publication
Photoplay was founded in 1911 and by March 1957 had been publishing for forty-six years as one of the most widely read and commercially significant fan magazines in the history of American entertainment journalism. Its editorial format combined celebrity profiles, studio-access interviews, fan award announcements, beauty and fashion features, and the gossip column tradition that had defined the fan press since the silent era — all addressed to a readership of predominantly female movie fans whose engagement with Hollywood celebrity was one of the defining features of American popular culture through the studio system's peak decades. By 1957 it was navigating the specific challenge of covering a Hollywood that was being reshaped by television, the breakdown of the studio contract system, and the specific cultural changes that were making mid-century celebrity more complex and more personally revealing than the studio-managed public images of the classic era had allowed. The March 1957 issue's combination of Monroe-Mansfield-Novak competition journalism, Rock Hudson profiling, and Montgomery Clift biographical condensation reflects the fan press beginning to engage the more complicated celebrity narratives of the post-studio era while maintaining the access-journalism format that had sustained Photoplay's commercial identity for nearly half a century.
Key Highlights Inside
- "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo, Who Will be the First to Go?" by Laura Lane — a primary document of the Marilyn Monroe-Jayne Mansfield-Kim Novak blonde sex symbol competition at its March 1957 peak, constituting one of the most historically specific fan press engagements with that celebrity dynamic and capturing the specific studio promotional machinery, competitive press coverage, and public spectacle of three major stars being simultaneously positioned against each other in the commercial Hollywood marketplace.
- Photoplay Award Winners of 1956-57 announcement by Ernst Jacobi — a primary document of the fan press's annual commercial popularity ranking, providing the names and hierarchy of the most fan-valued Hollywood stars in early 1957 and constituting the specific kind of fan-engagement data that studios used as commercial evidence of star power.
- "Flight from Fear" (Montgomery Clift), Part I — a book condensation by Richard Gehman, representing one of the more substantive biographical engagements with Clift's complex personal and professional history in the fan press of this period, published in the specific post-car-accident chapter of his career when his personal struggles were a matter of sustained fan press concern.
- "The Rock Hudson Story, Part II" by Joe Hyams — a serialized profile of one of the most commercially successful and personally closeted stars of the decade, representing the specific fan press treatment of a celebrity whose public and private identities were among the most carefully managed in Hollywood and whose profile in a March 1957 Photoplay is a primary document of how that management operated in the fan press.
- Full-color star portraits including Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Lana Turner, Joan Collins, Jean Simmons, Tony Perkins, Jack Lemmon, and nine additional stars — a documented roster of sixteen Hollywood personalities in a single issue's color section, with the Hepburn portrait constituting a primary document of her specific March 1957 career moment between Roman Holiday and Funny Face.
- "He'll Never Win an Oscar" (Cary Grant) by Charles Desmond, "Beauty Begins in the Boudoir" (Natalie Wood), and "Half Saint—Half Siren" (Debra Paget) — the supporting celebrity and beauty journalism range of a March 1957 Photoplay documented with the attribution specificity that makes this table of contents an unusually complete research resource for the mid-fifties fan press archive.
Condition & Rarity
Photoplay Magazine issues from March 1957 are approaching their sixty-ninth year of existence, and the condition landscape for surviving copies from this specific issue reflects both the general attrition of that age and the consistent collecting pressure that a Monroe-Mansfield-Novak feature cover generates across multiple overlapping communities. Good condition with moderate signs of age and wear, corner creases, and light surface wear is an honest and transparent assessment for a sixty-eight-year-old monthly fan magazine — it describes a complete copy that retains structural integrity and readable content while carrying the authentic physical evidence of nearly seven decades of existence. The confirmed completeness of the copy is the most important condition positive for a publication from this period and format, as Photoplay issues from the fifties are subject to page removal, color portrait removal, and pattern section extraction that affect the majority of surviving examples from active readership. The plastic protective sleeve provides ongoing archival protection. Collectors evaluating surviving examples of this issue should prioritize the completeness of the Monroe-Mansfield-Novak feature, the award winners section, and the full-color star portrait pages as the primary condition criteria most directly relevant to this issue's collector value.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
A complete Good-condition copy of Photoplay March 1957 with the Monroe-Mansfield-Novak competition feature, the Photoplay Award Winners announcement, and the full sixteen-star color portrait section is a specifically documented mid-fifties fan press primary source that attracts consistent interest from collectors across multiple overlapping subjects simultaneously. If this issue is no longer available, the Jayne Mansfield magazine collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most focused resource for other cover appearances and features from her peak publicity era across publications and years. The full Photoplay collection offers surviving issues from across the publication's history for collectors building a broader archive of its mid-century celebrity journalism, and the 1957 magazine collection brings together issues from across that year's major fan and entertainment publications for collectors interested in the full range of Hollywood celebrity journalism during one of the most commercially and culturally complex years of the studio system's transition era.