Latest news with #MickeyHargitay
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Mariska Hargitay shares how she made peace with biological dad Nelson Sardelli after paternity bombshell
Mariska Hargitay revealed she recently had a sweet conversation with her biological father Nelson Sardelli. In her acclaimed documentary My Mom Jayne, the 61-year-old actress revealed the decades-old family secret that the man who raised her, Mickey Hargitay, was not her real dad. During a documentary screening at HamptonsFilm's SummerDocs on Thursday, she hosted a Q&A session in which she detailed a special Father's Day exchange she had with Sardelli, 90. She described the experience as 'magical,' telling the audience, 'He apologized and he said, "Thank you for forgiving me." And I said, "Thank you for making the choice that you made."' Mariska spoke candidly about coming to terms with her family's secret about who her biological father is. According to an account from Just Jared, she reflected, 'I spent my life feeling unworthy, not wanted, not claimed, not good enough, abandoned. 'And then I realized, "Oh, no, sweetie, you were chosen six ways from Sunday."' In the riveting documentary, Sardelli explained that he believed leaving Mariska to be raised by Hungarian bodybuilder Mickey was in her best interest. As an adult, Mariska has made peace with her family dynamic. Her siblings include sisters Tina Hargitay, 76, Jayne Marie Mansfield, 74, Mickey Hargitay Jr., 66, Zoltan Hargitay, 64, and Tony Cimber, 59. After his final split from Mansfield, Hargitay married Ellen Siano in 1967. 'Now I feel like I have two mothers, I have two fathers,' Mariska said at the screening. 'I think the reason I made this movie now is because I was ready to make it now,' the Law & Order: SVU star told Stephen Colbert of her decision to produce the documentary 58 years after her mom's tragic death. Appearing on the now-cancelled late night show in June, she said, 'In a way I feel like I've been preparing my entire life to make it.' In June Hargitay paid tribute to her late mother, who died in a car accident in 1967, by wearing a similar look worn by the movie star at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958. In her acclaimed documentary My Mom Jayne, the 61-year-old actress revealed the decades-old family secret that the man who raised her, Mickey Hargitay, was not her real dad She went on to say that she discovered boxes of fan letters pertaining to her mom during the covid-19 pandemic. 'I had the time to sit with each letter and people had sent me things that were truly a gift,' Hargitay said of finding the trove of personal stories and playbills. 'So, I said, "I think I wanna dig in here,"' she added about feeling inspired to create the film. Mariska had previously spoken about her mom during her own appearance at the Cannes Film Festival this year, telling Deadline: 'The photos of her, in Cannes in particular, were always so meaningful to me because of how free and happy and in love she was with my father.' She said the striking black and white images 'seared this emotional place' in her mind.
Daily Mail
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: Hollywood starlet's legacy of sadness, regret... and one final shocking twist
Jayne Mansfield was born into the wrong era. She wanted to be another Marilyn Monroe, when really she was a smarter, more talented prototype of Katie Price. Most people, if they recognise her at all today, know Jayne only from a single photograph, as the blonde in the low-cut dress, under the withering sidelong gaze of a contemptuous Sophia Loren. My Mom Jayne, a biographical portrait by her daughter Mariska Hargitay, with the help of her numerous half-siblings, was a reminder that, for a few years around 1960, the starlet was a mega-celebrity — bringing up her family in a pink Beverly Hills mansion with its own zoo and jungle in the grounds. Today, there's literally nothing left of her fame. Mariska's two-hour film opened amid bulldozed rubble. The house, sold to pay Jayne's debts after her death aged 34 in 1967, has been demolished. Even the heart-shaped swimming pool is gone. Her second husband, Mickey, a Hungarian circus performer and bodybuilder, adored her. But she carved a trail of wreckage through the lives of everyone she loved, and the predominant mood of the recollections was not of celebration but of sadness, regret and loss. Three of her children — including Mariska, who was fortunately too young to remember it — were in the back seat of Jayne's car when she was killed in a head-on collision with a truck. Her latest boyfriend, the lawyer who handled her third divorce, died with her. Mariska, herself a successful actress and star of the long-running Law And Order: Special Victims Unit crime serial, insisted she'd spent her life avoiding lurid gossip about her mother's life. But Jayne was addicted to the lurid, revelling in it. As a 21-year-old hopeful in Hollywood, she realised her dreams of serious acting were holding her back when she auditioned as Joan of Arc for the head of casting at Paramount Studios. Mariska Hargitay at the 'My Mom Jayne: A Film By Mariska Hargitay' premiere during the 2025 Tribeca Festival at Carnegie Hall last month in New York City 'He just seemed to think that I was wasting my 'obvious talents',' she giggled, and soon she was posing topless for Playboy. Success did come, with a Broadway stage role and a couple of hit movies. But when her career hit the skids, she was willing to do anything to stay in the public eye — including nude scenes and seedy nightclub shows. This two-hour biography didn't attempt to analyse why Jayne so craved attention. Her father died when she was three, which helps to explain why she first married at 17, but patently she was trying to fill a deeper void. In the final half-hour, the film took a shocking twist as Mariska revealed that Mickey Hargitay wasn't her biological father. In fact, she was born after Jayne's brief fling with a Vegas crooner, Nelson Sardelli. Mariska confronted her mother's former press secretary, 99-year-old Rusty Strait, implying he has exploited her memory. But surely Jayne wouldn't have it any other way.
The Guardian
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My Mom Jayne review – the beautiful, touching tale of a film star, by the daughter who lost her aged three
I was braced, I must say. My love for Olivia Benson and all 26 seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that she has carried on her formidable shoulders knows no bounds. When I grow up I want to be just like her, especially if I can have the season nine haircut. But the prospect of Mariska Hargitay, the actor who plays her, directing and presenting a documentary about Hargitay's late mother, the troubled film star Jayne Mansfield, who was killed in a car accident when her daughter was three? The spirit has to quail within, does it not? There are very few children and even fewer children-cum-actors who should be allowed to do this. The likelihood of a schmaltzy, hagiographic spectacle is in fact not a likelihood at all – it is a virtual certainty. But My Mom Jayne is tender rather than schmaltzy, compassionate rather than hagiographic and an evident labour of love for all involved. Hargitay works pretty much chronologically, and – having only a memory of her mother touching her hair as she walked past while she was eating cereal – begins by eliciting some from her older siblings: Jayne Marie (her half-sister by Jayne's first husband, Paul Mansfield); Mickey Jr (named after their adored father, and Mansfield's second and best husband by far, the Hungarian actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay, who brought them up); and Zoltan. All are articulate, thoughtful and – nearly 60 years after their mother's death – still emotional. 'Can you cut for a minute?' Zoltan asks his sister after the first question. 'It feels more like I remember an essence, a nuance of the person, if that makes sense,' says Mickey. 'I remember her presence and some of the feelings of that time … the feeling was good in those early days.' Whenever any of them talks about Mansfield, the shock and grief still write themselves across their faces. It is a powerful reminder of how deep some losses go. Through a combination of Jayne Marie's reminiscences and archive footage of her mother's films and interviews, Mariska pieces together Mansfield's early days. Pregnant at 16, she left Paul – a churchgoing Texan who did not approve of his young wife's ambitions – a few years later, and took the little girl with her on all her jobs and auditions as she tried to make it in Hollywood. Intervention by Paramount talent scout Milton Lewis put her on the road to success as a sex symbol. He told her, according to Mansfield, that 'I was wasting my obvious talents. He lightened my hair and tightened my dresses, and this is the result!' Hargitay and her siblings are interesting and honest about how hard it was to listen to the fake, kittenish voice Mansfield used professionally and – in Hargitay's case – how long it took her to forgive her mother for going down the 'dumb blond' route. After Mansfield's initial success, she tried to parlay it into the kind she really wanted. We see footage of her in a dramatic role – wholly convincing – and of her giving a violin and piano concert; she was an accomplished musician. Sitting down at the piano, she likens the situation to Samuel Johnson's comment about a dog walking on its hind legs: 'Which also goes to prove I don't just play the piano but that I know who Dr Johnson is,' she says, with just enough bite to let the audience know she's on to them without destroying the mood. It is a consummate performance in more ways than one, and makes you reflect on the incalculable number and depths of female talents that have been denied over generations. Hargitay covers the rest of her mother's career, depression, broken marriages and eventually death, but she does not linger on the fact that she too was in the car, trapped and unseen until Zoltan asked in the ambulance where she was. We move (briskly) on to Hargitay's real paternity, where My Mom Jayne becomes that rarest of things: a testimony to decency. There is Mickey Sr, who took Hargitay absolutely as his own when Mansfield returned to him after an affair. There is her biological father, Nelson Sardelli, who stayed away from her thereafter. ('She has a father who loves her just like I love you,' he explained to his daughters, born later, when they found out. She was safe, he said, and he would not disturb a child who had just lost her mother and needed the good father she knew.) Hargitay has a loving relationship with them all. None of the Sardellis has ever said a word to the press. And there is Mickey Sr's third wife, Ellen, who is open but generous about Mansfield and Mickey's love, which in many ways endured. It is a sad but oddly beautiful story, and unexpectedly beautifully told. My Mom Jayne aired on Sky Documentaries and is on Now
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mariska Hargitay Revealed Her Sister's Lasting First Reaction to Her Documentary, 'My Mom Jayne'
Longtime Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay is letting fans see a whole new side of her in her new documentary, My Mom Jayne. The movie, which also marks Hargitay's feature film directorial debut, follows the actress as she remembers her late mother, Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield, and uncovers secrets of her family along the way. Among the revelations in the movie, as revealed by early reviewers at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, is that Hargitay's dad, Mickey Hargitay, who passed away in 2006, isn't her biological father. More from SheKnows Mariska Hargitay & Peter Hermann Colorfully Coordinated With Their 3 Kids in a Super-Rare Family Outing In a chat with Entertainment Tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of the doc, Hargitay talked about how her family reacted to the big reveal. 'I showed my family the film and when I did, we all held each other for an hour [and] 45 [minutes], and we didn't let go,' she remembered. 'And they were so happy.' As a reminder, Hargitay has five siblings: brothers Mickey Jr., Zoltán, and Tony, and sister Jayne Marie. Hargitay then revealed what her sister said after their embrace. 'My sister said, 'I feel like we are four people, with one beating heart,'' she remembered. 'And if no one ever saw the movie, it felt like my job was done,' Hargitay reflected, getting teary-eyed. 'And after that night, that's all I cared about, it's what they thought. So it was gorgeous.' Overall, it seems Hargitay is thrilled for her new project, which hits theatres later this month on June 20. 'I'm so happy, I feel like this whole process has been such a gift,' Hargitay said. 'When you're doing a documentary, you're going so much into the unknown, and the unknown was very beautiful, and what happened among my family was beautiful.' 'I feel free and I feel integrated and I feel like I have a beautiful movie that I can't wait to share,' she said. As a reminder, Mansfield tragically passed away on June 29, 1967, in Biloxi, Mississippi, in a car crash. At the time, Hargitay was only three years old. Now, she's uncovering her family's passed, and connecting with her mom, perhaps more than ever of SheKnows All of Chris Martin's Confirmed & Rumored Relationships Over the Years 13 Times Meghan Markle Reminded Us So Much of Princess Diana 24 Times Kate Middleton Perfectly Recreated Princess Diana's Iconic Fashion
Fox News
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Mariska Hargitay shares the surprising way she discovered her biological father's identity
Print Close By Brie Stimson Published June 28, 2025 The Mariska Hargitay-directed documentary "My Mom Jayne" covers a lot of ground about actress Jayne Mansfield's life and about Hargitay's attempts to reconnect with the memory of her mother. The film had its share of bombshells, most notably that Hargitay found out as an adult that the man who raised her wasn't her biological father and that, in the chaos of the car crash that killed her mother, Hargitay was left behind at the scene as a 3-year-old. The documentary also reveals that Mansfield hungered to be a serious actress despite her "dumb blonde" image. Mariska found out that Mickey Hargitay wasn't her biological father Hargitay revealed for the first time in the documentary that Mickey Hargitay wasn't her biological father as she believed her entire childhood. MARISKA HARGITAY STUNS IN CANNES AFTER REVEALING SHOCKING FAMILY SECRET When she was 25, she said she was talking with the head of Jayne Mansfield's fan club, Sabin Gray, and he inadvertently told her about her biological father. "He's showing me all these photos," the "Law & Order: SVU" star told Alex Cooper this week on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast. "He's showing me whatever it is, dresses that she had that he'd collected, earrings that she wore, things from movies from the movie set, props or whatever, and then he says to me, 'Do you want to see a picture of Nelson?'" She added, "I just looked at him, and this jolt went through my body, and I said, 'Who's Nelson?' And then I knew in one second." She said in the documentary, "That's when like I think the blood just drained out of his face and he sort of went white as a ghost and he looked at me panicked and he said, 'Well, it's probably not true,'" adding that he then showed her pictures of a man who "looked like the male version of me." She told Cooper, "And I think that (Gray) couldn't believe that I didn't know. I was 25, how could I not know?" She said in the film, "It was like the floor fell out from underneath me. Just the bottom dropped out of everything. It was like my infrastructure dissolved and life as I knew it was irrevocably changed." She told Cooper that she felt like she was going to crash her car after she left Sabin's house "because I was so not present. I was totally dissociated and out of my body, and I got to my brother's house. I didn't even know how I got there, but I knew that I shouldn't be driving. It was crazy." After that, she said she then confronted her father, asking him, "Why didn't you tell me you're not my father? You lied to me." 'LAW & ORDER: SVU' STAR MARISKA HARGITAY'S REAL-LIFE HERO MOMENT ON LIVE TV But he told her that was "bulls---." "I was in so much pain," she said in the documentary, "but I could see his pain was almost worse, so I decided I would never talk about it again, and I would never bring it up to him again, and I never did," she said. "But the fact is I had bad years after that." She said she didn't tell anyone, and would just go to bed crying every night for a long time. Hargitay had an identity crisis over the revelation. "Who was I related to? Who did I belong to? And then, on top of it, I was born out of some affair like some illegitimate, sinful mistake? I was so angry at my mother for leaving me in this mess and for hurting my father and for leaving me feeling so alone and untethered," she admitted. She said for her own survival she "disowned the part of myself that was my mother's daughter." Meeting her biological father When she was 30, she decided to go see her biological father, Nelson Sardelli, who was performing in Atlantic City at the time. "And after the show he came out and I said, 'Hi, Nelson, my name is Mariska Hargitay. I understand you knew my mother,'" she said. He burst into tears and told her "'I've been waiting 30 years for this moment,'" she said, adding that they stayed up until 5 in the morning talking that night, and he told her what had happened. SOPHIA LOREN AND JAYNE MANSFIELD: THE STORY BEHIND THAT INFAMOUS SNAP "That was 30 years ago, and I've kept it a secret ever since," she added. Sardelli said he met Mansfield in Atlanta, and she asked him to see her show. When the show was over, she asked to go for a ride in his car. He said that at the time Mansfield and Hargitay weren't talking to each other, and she and Sardelli began publicly dating, and he was even introduced to her kids. They performed together, made a movie together and went all over Europe together. He found out Mansfield was pregnant with his child while they were in Europe. Hargitay read a letter in the documentary that Mansfield wrote to her mother talking about "going through perhaps the most trying time" of her life while she was pregnant with Hargitay and having "the love of two men – a very deep love from each of them. I hope God shows me the way soon because I have really been depressed as of late." Sardelli said in the documentary that he broke up with her in Europe, and they never spoke again, which he called the "biggest shame" of his life, acknowledging "a lot of people paid the price for this love affair that we had." "I can't imagine what your father felt, but I am grateful to him," he said. He told Hargitay after Mansfield died, her grandmother wanted him to "rock the boat and claim you or something but by that time Mickey was the father you knew, and your siblings they were your siblings. What would I be accomplishing that would be beneficial to you?" JAYNE MANSFIELD'S FATAL CAR CRASH CHANGED ELAINE STEVENS' LIFE FOREVER Years later, he said he talked to Mickey once and Hargitay told him, "'Nelson, nobody has to tell me who's the father of my child,' and I said to him, 'I will not embarrass you in any way. Never.'" Hargitay's stepmom told her that if Sardelli ever came up in conversation, he would only tell her, "I'm her father, period." "Mickey was a great father, and he was so full of love for you, but I think Mickey was quite capable of shutting out pain, which I think he did a lot with Jayne, so he said Mariska's my daughter, and he said that until the day he passed," she added. Hargitay said she spent 30 years trying to hide her story "to honor my dad, but something that I've also realized is that sometimes keeping a secret doesn't honor anyone." Reacting to the truth being revealed for the first time in her documentary, Sardelli said it felt like a "stronger, higher power is forgiving me. There is nothing I can change, but I regret having extricated myself from your mother's life because I think certain things would not have happened to her." He added that he'd like to be able to have one more conversation with Mickey and apologize to him, "because I'm sure I was part of his suffering." Hargitay added, "I've spent most of my life feeling ashamed of my mother, a person who I had no memory of, a person whose voice I didn't want to hear, a person's whose career made me want to do it differently, a person who made her share of problematic choices and left me with loss and secrets, but at 60 years old I feel different." Hargitay also met her half-siblings Giovanna and Pietra Sardelli, who kept the secret as well. Giovanna said she once confronted her father as a child after finding a secret letter he'd kept written from Mansfield's mother, telling him he had an "amazing child that's yours," but he told Giovanna that Hargitay is a "little girl, has a father who loves her like I love you. This little girl is safe." Pietra interjected, "'And if she is OK, she just lost her mother. You cannot take the only family she knows,' and that was their decision and that's why they stayed quiet." MARISKA HARGITAY OPENS UP ABOUT LOSING HER MOM JAYNE MANSFIELD AS A CHILD: 'THERE'S NO GUARANTEES' "And that made sense to me and I tucked that away." Giovanna said, adding that she remembered coming years later to Mariska's birthday party and telling Katie Couric when the journalist asked, that they weren't related, they were just family friends. "My need to honor Mickey was so huge, but the fact is I was wrong, because you guys had to live all these years with the secret, and you were so generous, so generous to me," Hargitay told her sisters. Hargitay was left behind after deadly crash While the documentary doesn't go into a lot of detail about the Mississippi crash that killed Mansfield and two others, Hargitay's brother Zolton Hargitay, who was 6 at the time, said he remembered his mother had been sitting in the back seat with the children before moving into the front seat. He said she had been arguing with her boyfriend, then she got out of the car and called their father before she moved into the front seat. Zoltan remembered her comforting him before the crash, "telling me I was going to be fine, 20 minutes later, half an hour, whatever, I heard her scream so loud, and that was it – just silence." The car had crashed into a tractor trailer that had slowed down around 2 in the morning on June 29, 1967, killing Mansfield, her boyfriend and the driver of the car. Mariska, Zoltan and Mickey Hargitay, Jr. were in the back seat at the time and survived. "I often think about why she didn't just stay in the back seat with us," Zolton said through tears. Zoltan said he remembered being in a car on the way to the hospital and looking around before saying, "Where's Maria?" referring to Mariska. "And they said 'Who's Maria,' so then we doubled back." Ellen Hargitay, Mariska's stepmom, said when they went back, she was found "lodged underneath the passenger seat with a head injury and – thank God, thank God Zolie woke up." Mansfield had no will when she died at 34 Mansfield didn't have a will at the time of her death at 34 years old in 1967, "So the state sold off her belongings to pay her debts and there were just a handful of items that my siblings and I were able to keep," Hargitay explained in the doc. She added, "For me, a lot of this is about reclaiming what was lost. Even physical things." Hargitay finally went through the family storage unit, which she said hadn't been opened since 1969, two years after her mother's death. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER A poignant moment near the end of the film showed Hargitay's husband, Peter Hermann, surprising her with Mansfield's piano. The actress was both a pianist and violinist. Mickey wasn't over Mansfield when he married Hargitay's stepmom Hargitay's stepmom, Ellen Hargitay, said she's sure Mansfield's widower was "not over her" when they met and started dating. "Because she passed away June 29, 1967, and Mickey and I got married in April of 1968. But you always have them with you," she said. "There's no way when you love somebody that they ever leave your heart. I don't care who, I don't care how angry you are, I don't care anything. If you really love somebody they remain in there." Mansfield's oldest child, Jayne Marie Mansfield, said: "It was love at first sight with Mickey [Hargitay]. It really was, and he was just such a nice man, you could just see that she was so happy." Hargitay and Mansfield divorced in 1963, four years before her death. Her daughter Jayne said she believes her mom became depressed shortly before her divorce from Hargitay. "Her career wasn't going well, so she went back to these parts for dumb blondes," Mansfield explained. "I don't think it was easy for her. But I don't think it was easy for Mickey either. She was completely absorbed in negativity because she wasn't doing the kind of work she dreamed of doing, and I believe she became a victim of depression. You know you're never yourself when you're depressed." LIKE WHAT YOU'RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS Ellen said Mansfield started meeting other men and "the marriage fell apart. I think Mickey was hurt deeply by Jayne. I think she blew it when she divorced Mickey." "Mickey was the most positive influence in her life and even though he might have felt a lot of pain, he loved her. He always loved her even after they were divorced," she added. Mansfield came back to him many times after their divorce, and they were together again for a few months around the time she was pregnant with Mariska, Jayne said. Mansfield personified a 'dumb blonde' character Hargitay said her mother's baby whisper voice used to annoy her, and she would try not to listen to it when she heard her. "She didn't always talk like that," Hargitay said, adding that her mother had copied Marilyn Monroe in that way. Her former publicist Rusty Strait said she personified that character because it was what the studio wanted at the time. But at home, her daughter Jayne said she "didn't put on any of those airs," and wore her hair in a scarf and no makeup. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "But she was also very eloquent. She spoke French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, and she wanted us to be exposed to more [in life]," she added. Her son, Zoltan, said he "kind of looked the other way" when his mom did her "public voice. Because I knew she was really, really smart." Jayne said her mother told her she wanted to be a serious actress but "the parts didn't come in so she did what she had to do." She said Mansfield had "great admiration" for Marilyn Monroe, but eventually realized "that blonde persona is a box," adding that her mom told her around the time of Monroe's death in 1962 that "she wanted to reverse that image." "My Mom Jayne" premiered on HBO on Friday and is streaming on Max. Print Close URL
