Former cartoonist who entered features as a comedy writer ("The Paleface" 1948, etc.) and turned to directing with "The First Time" (1952), bringing his exuberant, exhilarating comic-strip style with him. Besides his eight films with the appropriately cast Jerry Lewis, Tashlin's name is chiefly connected with Jayne Mansfield, whose only notable films--"The Girl Can't Help It" (1955) and the brilliant satire of the advertising business, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1956)--he engineered.

Tashlin tried to repeat similar formulas with Anita Ekberg and Doris Day, but their personae did not lend themselves to parody as readily as Mansfield's. He was in later years praised for his inventiveness and sharp satirical edge by several French critics, particularly Godard and Truffaut.