Martha Mansfield: The Actress Who Burned to Death in Her Costume on a Movie Set

Martha Mansfield belongs to some quite exclusive company. She was one of several entertainers known as the "Ziegfield Girls" to die young and tragically. One of the Ziegfield Girls committed suicide by poison in Paris; another defenestrated herself into the afterlife, and at least one died in a brutal fight inside a bar. But it is Martha Mansfield's story that may be the most horrific. Mansfield was an up and coming young silent film starlet who fulfilled Norma Desmond's claims that they had faces then. Such was the allure of Martha's face that she was approached to become a model for photographers and artists. Her dark eyes almost seem to pop out and although today's movie audiences might not consider her remarkably attractive (then again, considering today's alleged sex symbols, they just might), at the time she was thought to be quite the hottie. Martha Mansfield worked in the reverse mode of how it's done today; she was an actress turned model, having made her Broadway debut as a teenager. Although quite successful as a stage actress, this was the heady period in American entertainment history when what would eventually become the most successful medium of all time was just beginning to take shape. And it was a gimme that producers would come calling on a girl like Mansfield.

After co-starring in a series of comedies with actor-director Max Linder, Mansfield finally got the break every actress looks for, and how: starring alongside the most famous actor in the world at the time, John Barrymore. Barrymore made one of the earliest, and still one of the best, versions of Jekyll and Hyde and Mansfield was to play the good girl to Nita Naldi's bad girl. (It's about duality, man.) Naldi got the showier part, but Mansfield received more screen time and it was clear a star was in the making. Martha would go on to sign a contract with David O. Selznick, the man who would make stars of such later actresses as Joan Fontaine and Vivien Leigh. Unfortunately, Selznick had no intention of doing the same for Mansfield and contracted her out to other producers. She began to build a respectable resume, but not in movies or parts of quite the caliber as Jekyll and Hyde. But then came the role that seemed destined to finally make Martha Mansfield the star that it seemed everybody but David O. Selznick due she was destined to become.

Mansfield was picked to play the fascinating role of a young woman of the Confederacy who happened to be engaged to a Union soldier. Filming was taking place in Texas when one day Mansfield was on a break from filming, sitting in a car dressed her in immaculately detailed period dress complete with petticoat and ruffles. A group of people were standing idly by and one of them decided to take a smoke. He lit his match and, as careless smokers often do, tossed the still burning match away without thinking. It landed on Martha Mansfield and that incredibly flammable Civil War dress went up in flames. Martha was trapped inside due to the bulk of her costume. Nevertheless, co-star Wilfred Lytell valiantly dove in to do his level best to smother the flames and save Martha. He managed to retrieve Mansfield before the fire reached her head, but her body was badly burned and she had to be rushed to the hospital.

She died the next day.