While attending The University of Texas at Austin, Mansfield won several beauty contests, including Miss Photoflash, Miss Magnesium Lamp, and Miss Fire Prevention Week. Jayne commonly said that the only title she refused was Miss Roquefort Cheese, because she believed it "just didn't sound right". Jayne later also rejected "Miss Prime Rib" in 1957. In 1952, while in Dallas, she and Paul Mansfield participated in small local-theater productions of "The Slaves of Demon Rum" and "Ten Nights in a Barroom", and "Anything Goes" in Camp Gordon, Georgia. After he left for military service, she made her first notable stage appearance in a production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" on October 22, 1953, with the players of the Knox Street Theater, headed by Lumet. While at UCLA, she entered the Miss California contest (hiding her marital status), and won the local round before withdrawing.