On This Day

Wednesday 30th September 1959

60 years ago

US actress Jayne Mansfield clutching a pair of gold scissors opened the Chiswick flyover – a short elevated section of the M4 motorway in west London. Wearing a skintight crimson dress this ‘blond temptress’ had driven down from MGM Studios in Boreham Wood where she making “Too Hot to Handle” with Christopher Lee and Leo Genn. To a chorus of wolf whistles from the gathered workmen Miss Mansfield cut the official red ribbon, patted ‘Humble’ engineer of the flyover, Mr J. E Dayton’s 7 year old bulldog on the head -“Sweet!” she said – and then clambered into a car described in one report as a ‘beat up old crock’ for a brief tour of the concrete megalith. The Chiswick Flyover was officially open! Letters to the Brentford and Chiswick Times published on October 2nd criticized the use of an American film star. “Surely a suitable British one would have been more appropriate for the opening of this wonderful piece of British engineering” was the general drift of complaint. Mr. J. E Dayton replied in the same edition that his company had approached both Donald Campbell and Stirling Moss, celebrities as stiff upper lipped and ‘appropriate’ as they come, but they were unavailable. “We felt… that 30 months work and the completion of Britain’s first flyover deserved a little celebration”, he explained. “We could see no reason why any politician or fuddy-duddy should be invited. We feel that Miss Mansfield did a first-class job in a very charming manner”…which was one in the eye for politicians and fuddy duddies like Messrs Adams and Watkinson. David Webster , the MP for Weston Super Mere agreed with him. In Parliament on 3rd Nov. 1959 he said… “I welcome … all that is being done in the development of transport and the building of roads…It is, I consider, altogether a good thing that Miss Jayne Mansfield opened the Chiswick flyover. It gave the occasion a bit of publicity and introduced a controversial note.”