Emmy Award-winning Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actor Mariska Hargitay was just 3 years old in 1967 when her movie star mother, Jayne Mansfield, died in a tragic car crash. Though she and her siblings were in the car at the time, Hargitay has no memory of the crash, and never had the chance to truly know her mother.
"One of the things that I grew up hearing is how smart she was, how determined she was, and what a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful sense of humor she had," Hargitay says.
But the private version of her mother that Hargitay grew up with conflicted sharply with Mansfield's public image as a hyper-sexualized, platinum blonde starlet. "As I got older and started to see sort of this public image and the photos of her, it was all very confusing, because nothing lined up with what I had heard about her," Hargitay says.
Hargitay's new documentary, My Mom Jayne, is an attempt to reconcile these two versions of Mansfield. She likens the filmmaking process to an archeological dig. Hargitay started by reading letters from her fans who brought up her mother. And that lead her to combing through storage boxes that hadn't been touched since 1969.
"It was during COVID when I had the time and space to think about all of this, and think about her, and finally face some of the letters and that people had written me over the years," she says. "I was holding treasures in my hand, these precious memories. And so what I did is I started cold-calling these people."
Throughout it all, Hargitay says she was searching for glimpses of the woman behind the Hollywood façade, the smart mother of five who spoke multiple languages and played the piano and violin.
"Finding those private moments — those were my ways into her, into her soul," she says. "I would catch an expression that I never saw or just a private thought or a private moment, and I would be like, 'there you are.'"
The documentary also unearths a complicated truth about Hargitay's own identity; she was raised believing actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay was her father, but the film reveals that her biological father is another man, Nelson Sardelli — a fact she learned in her in her 20s, but never revealed publicly.
Interview highlights
On Jayne Mansfield moving to LA to pursue acting when she was a 21-year-old mother
I am so in awe of what she did, of how fearless she was and how ambitious she was, and how undeterred she was. She had a plan and decided she was going to do it. And I just think she had so much chutzpah and I just don't know that I could have done that, that I would have moved to a different state ... with my 4-year-old or 5-year-old daughter. I just am so truly flabbergasted and in awe by what she achieved.
On the fake voice Mansfield used in her bombshell persona
I think we all felt that way in terms of my siblings. I think my sister may have understood it more because she was older and she got more alone time with my mom and she was with my Mom before ... that artificial, sort of put-on voice came into play, right? So my sister, I think, understood it. But for all of us, it was just something that I just didn't think it was real. And that, I think, is scary, right? When our parents aren't being real, or we hear some kind of false voice. For me, the tone of somebody's voice has always been like, where I go in, do I trust them or not, right? Are they authentic or not? So the lack of authenticity and the fact that she was playing this role and doing a voice was just very unsettling and unbalanced me.
On the motorcycle crash that served as a wake-up call for Hargitay
At 34, I was in a motorcycle accident. And I was on the back of a friend's motorcycle and I remember when the car hit the motorcycle, I went flying through the air and I remembered going — because it all happened in slow-mo — and I remembering going, "Oh my God, this is it, this how I'm going to die. I can't believe I'm going to die at 34 like my mother." And then I landed on the asphalt, and I said, "I'm alive, and I'm not dying." And that was my a-ha moment. … That is when I said, "this cycle is breaking now." I will not carry this with me. Her life is not my life. And I remember very cognizant of this, being very clear that this accident was somehow some kind of wake-up call to me. … This whole journey has been a long time coming.
On meeting her biological father, Nelson Sardelli, for the first time
I don't know that I have the words for it, but it was like putting in that final piece of the hardest puzzle you've ever put together. I could actually feel my cells in my body exhale. It was such an affirmation that I was right, that I knew something. … I think it was the moment too that I learned to trust myself on such a deep level because I always knew something and I was right. …
When I saw Nelson's face — that's my face! … Every single feature and everything made sense and I just felt strangely, uncomfortably home.
On how the studio system's mistreatment of her mother impacted Hargitay's approach to her own acting career
I just went in with a little bit of my own point of view and had a little bit of armor, maybe, and I wasn't as accommodating, and tried to check with myself as much as I was capable at the time, even being young, where if something didn't feel right to me, I'd push back. … I had to do this career of mine my way. And I decide — that's been my motto. If you don't tell me, I tell you. Because so many people told her what to do, and people with bad advice, and people with not the best intentions, and people that were disrespectful, and rude, and had an agenda.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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