Latest news with #OliviaBenson
News.com.au
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Truth behind Hollywood's most tragic stars
Marilyn Monroe. Jayne Mansfield. Anna Nicole Smith. Hollywood has a long and sad history of churning out blonde bombshells who live fast and die young. Until recently, Mariska Hargitay had spent her whole life trying to distance herself from one of those famous sex symbols: her mother, Jayne Mansfield. Playing detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for more than 26 years, Hargitay has forged a career breaking down stereotypes about sex and sexuality on screen, not playing up to them. 'I just wanted my mum to be like the other mums!' Hargitay told Vanity Fair ahead of the release of her new documentary My Mum Jayne. 'Like, 'Why are you always in a bathing suit? Why so much breast?' I just wanted a maternal mother image. I was embarrassed by the choices that she made.' One of the most famous images of Mansfield was taken at a 1957 dinner while seated next to Sophia Loren. As the blonde starlet's cleavage threatened to escape from her dress, Loren was snapped giving Mansfield some serious side-eye. Hargitay hated the iconic shot, explaining in her doco: 'To see another woman look at your mum like that was excruciating for me as a little girl.' In My Mum Jayne, the actor shares rare archival footage and interviews her older siblings to get better insight into the woman behind the myth, painting a picture of a talented musician who could speak multiple languages. 'Her career made me want to do it differently, but I want to understand her now,' Hargitay explains in her documentary, as she faces the truth about her own paternity and her mother's death in 1967. Like Monroe before her, Mansfield was eager to be taken seriously as an actor and grew frustrated by the voluptuous, sexed-up image that had made her a household name. And like Monroe, Mansfield died young and in terribly tragic circumstances. Five years after Monroe's overdose, Mansfield, 34, was killed instantly when the car she was travelling in slammed into the trailer of a truck. Hargitay, who was in the backseat with her two brothers, survived the accident. Before her death, Mansfield admitted that Monroe had been an inspiration to herself and other aspiring actors such as Mamie Van Doren. 'I've always thought, since I was a little girl, that she was the most beautiful woman in the world,' Mansfield said. 'You know, I really don't look like her at all. You can take practically any fairly shaped girl, bleach her hair, wet her lips, put her into a tight dress and have her walk a little wiggly and – well, we all look a little alike.' The archetype blonde bombshell, Monroe inspired Elton John's song 'Candle In The Wind' and an Andy Warhol pop art series, as well as movies and TV shows. For Michelle Williams (who was Oscar-nominated for playing Monroe in the 2011 film My Week With Marilyn), the iconic star had a childlike vulnerability that made you want to take care of her. And to prepare for playing the much-copied Monroe, Williams devoured countless biographies. As soon as you're done with one book, you can pick up another, she told Vogue. Everything I could get my hands on. Footage, clips. I mean honestly, I did feel a tremendous amount of responsibility to the memory of somebody and the way that the person lives on in the world and in the people that admire them. Ana de Armas also earned an Oscar nod for her confronting portrayal of the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes star in the 2022 Netflix film Blonde. She was living in a nightmare, de Armas said of Monroe's sexy image, during an interview at the Venice Film Festival. This character was like a prison for her, de Armas said in a later interview. She was the most famous and desired woman in the world. At the same time, she was completely unseen for who she was. She felt like she couldn't show herself to people because that's not what they wanted from her. And she learned that very quickly. I could not imagine something worse to happen to someone, not to be able to be yourself. Art sadly imitated life for one of Monroe's most famous imitators, Nicole Smith. The Texan Playboy playmate made no secret of her Monroe obsession, telling Extra: The way she talked, so poised, so beautiful, so sad. She was all around me. Smith even lived in Monroe's house for a time and said she'd seen her ghost wandering the halls. According to Smith's limo driver Todd Bernstein, Smith told him she would have liked to die like Marilyn, young and beautiful. And in a sad twist of fate, she did, dying in 2007 from an accidental overdose. She was 39. Anna Nicole Smith: Singer turned actor and reality star Willa Ford plays the tabloid darling in this 2007 biopic tracing Smith's journey from waitress to Guess model. T he W ild, Wild World Of Jayne Mansfield: This 1968 posthumous quasi-documentary mashes together real footage of Mansfield travelling through Europe and the US, overlaid with narration by a Mansfield sound-alike. Blonde: This 2001 miniseries is a fictional account of Monroe's life, featuring Australian-born actor Poppy Montgomery as Monroe, alongside Kirstie Alley, Patrick Dempsey and fellow Aussie Richard Roxburgh.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mariska Hargitay Thinks Benson and Stabler Should Get Together in SVU's Last Episode — Respectfully? Nope.
Mariska Hargitay knows Capt. Olivia Benson better than any of us ever can or will. She has played Law & Order: SVU's big-hearted, badassed sex-crimes cop since 1999. She has seen showrunners and scene partners come, go and come back again; she has stayed the course. From the character's layered gold necklaces to her sensible-yet-stylish boots, Hargitay is Benson, and she's earned the right to have her opinions about all things SVU treated as sacrosanct. Except for one that she puts forth in a podcast interview released today. That nonsense is way off. (Sorry, queen!) Let's talk about it. More from TVLine Casting News: Chicago Fire Adds On Call's Brandon Larracuente, Shane Gillis to Host ESPYS and More AGT Shocker: Vanderpump Rules Star Tom Sandoval Auditions for Season 20 - and He's Actually Good! Watch Video In Survival Mode, Everyday People Revisit Extraordinary Disasters - Get NBC Premiere Date, First Teaser Hargitay is Alex Cooper's guest on this week's episode of Call Her Daddy, an interview in which the Emmy-winner promotes her feature film directorial debut: My Mom Jayne, a documentary about Hargitay's late mother, actress Jayne Mansfield. Eventually, of course, the conversation comes around to cover Hargitay's tenure at her long-running NBC procedural. After Hargitay throws some flowers Chris Meloni's way ('We are just connected. We are so close… We are so comfortable with each other. We deeply trust each other. We know, like, whatever he needs, I will always be there for him, and that's mutual'), Cooper asks about the chance of Benson and Meloni's Det. Elliot Stabler ever getting together romantically on the show. And that's when Hargitay chooses violence. 'Maybe on the last episode,' she says. 'I think that's when they should be together.' She later adds that a Liv-El relationship should only happen 'if it's right. We'll see when we get there. We are soulmates, in a way. We are. And I think that, I mean, Chris has had a profound impact on my life, my artistry. I think we've had a big impact on each other. And so Olivia and Elliot are… but let's see where the story takes us, you know?' (Listen to the podcast here, or scroll to the bottom of this post to see the video.) With all due respect to the woman who is the heart, soul and Gloria Steinem glasses of this operation, I'm going to make like Carisi here and object so hard that my vest pops one of its dapper buttons. Wait until SVU's series finale to get Benson and Stabler together?! Nope, nope, nope. This is not about my being an 'EO' 'shipper — though I am one. The show itself, as well as Peacock's Meloni-led Law & Order: Organized Crime, has spent seasons flirting with the idea of Elliot and Olivia being a couple. Since Meloni returned to the franchise in 2021, we've seen plenty of episodes hinting at a mutual attraction. His letter! The aftermath of the diner shooting! Liv Love Laugh! Good God, that scene in Olivia's kitchen alone! Second, even as a 'shipper, I was not on board with their hooking up immediately after Stabler returned to the Dick Wolfpack. It wouldn't have made sense in the story. Meloni's character was grieving the murder of his wife and making some very bad, wildly unhealthy decisions. Even as recently as the aforementioned moment up against Liv's fridge, Benson made it clear that her desire to kiss him was dwarfed by her fear about what would happen if things between them didn't work out. 'I want to, but I can't,' she said, physically swaying as though her blood sugar were crashing — woman, a sweet treat was RIGHT THERE! Meloni brought up the scene during his TVLine Spotlight conversation earlier this year. After telling me that he had 'no idea' where his character and Hargitay's are headed, smoochily speaking, he talked about how the close moment hadn't achieved what he and Hargitay had intended. '[We are] doing the best we can to make it honest, not make it bait. If we do bait, at least for me, I always do it with a wink,' he said at the time. 'I think it's good-natured, but maybe you guys are over that. And that's valid.' I'd argue that it doesn't have to be bait, especially given how much the two characters have grown since we first met them. A blend of age, perspective and lots of therapy has sanded down their sharper edges and made them more vulnerable, both to the world and each other. Why not try to see if those edges now fit together nicely? But I've sung that song before. My biggest current gripe concerns this folly of pushing a Stabler/Benson relationship to the show's ultimate end: When, then, are we to BASK? Why not give interested fans the enjoyment of watching the day-to-day of a life partnership decades in the making? I'm not saying devote entire episodes to their arguing over the electric bill or anything, but a little tenderness in between the shootouts and human trafficking busts wouldn't go amiss. Law & Order: SVU Season 27: Everything We Know So Far View List Time is a precious commodity, and who knows how much longer we've got in the Law & Orderverse? (Probably decades. This show walked among the dinosaurs and will outlive us all.) Still, it's like Billy Crystal said at the end of When Harry Met Sally…: When you realize you want two beaten-down NYPD officers with serious emotional baggage to spend the rest of their lives with each other, you want to rest of their lives to start as soon as possible. Oh, and before I go? GOD, men and women don't always HAVE to hook up in TV shows! People can be PLATONIC friends! Why are you so obsessed with this stupid point! Get a life! If those two become a couple, I'm never watching their shows/reading TVLine/going on the Internet ever again. (I don't agree with any of that, but I figured I'd do some of you a solid and give you a paragraph you can cut and paste into the comments below. I live to serve!) What's your take on saving 'EO' until the end, if ever? Hit the comments and let us know! Best of TVLine 20+ Age-Defying Parent-Child Castings From Blue Bloods, ER, Ginny & Georgia, Golden Girls, Supernatural and More Young Sheldon Easter Eggs: Every Nod to The Big Bang Theory (and Every Future Reveal) Across 7 Seasons Weirdest TV Crossovers: Always Sunny Meets Abbott, Family Guy vs. Simpsons, Nine-Nine Recruits New Girl and More
New York Times
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘My Mom Jayne' Review: An Exceptional Family Tale
When Mariska Hargitay was three years old, her mother, the Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield, was killed in a car accident. Hargitay was seated beside her brothers in the back of the vehicle, and was lodged under a seat during the crash. She was almost left behind by rescuers, until her brother asked about her. In her moving documentary 'My Mom Jayne,' Hargitay relays this past trauma with a mixture of sorrow and gratitude. Best known for starring as Olivia Benson, the dogged detective in 'Law & Order: SVU,' Hargitay begins the film — her feature directorial debut — by explaining that she set out to learn about Mansfield, the mother she hardly knew. But instead of the typical biographical approach of interviewing historians and writers, Hargitay sits down for intimate conversations with her three elder siblings, whose testimonies she pairs with archival material depicting Mansfield's life in the public eye. As Hargitay shows, the grainy footage tells one story while the family's recollections tell another. Over her career, Mansfield curated an image of a ditsy coquette. She affected a Minnie Mouse speaking voice and received leering men with a genial giggle. This performance of vacuity belied Mansfield's profound intellect and talents as a classically trained violinist, but it was an easier sell in Hollywood, and so she used the persona as a stepladder to climb to the top. For much of her life, Hargitay judged her mother for these acts, and although she doesn't draw a line from Mansfield's work as an actress to her own, it's tempting to wonder whether Hargitay's powerhouse role in 'SVU' was a disavowal of the blonde bimbo archetype. It's this tension that makes 'My Mom Jayne' as much an experiment in autobiography as in biography, closer in kind to Sarah Polley's 'Stories We Tell' than the polished or salacious celebrity profiles clogging up streaming platforms. Like that predecessor, 'My Mom Jayne' eventually builds to a brave personal disclosure where Hargitay shows how the mysteries encircling her mother's life complicated her own identity as a daughter and sister. She makes the revelation with gentle courage, in a spirit of honesty and appreciation for the small ring of people who loved her family enough to avoid sharing the information. Folded into the project are questions about what defines a person's legacy. Is it the face one puts on for the world or the private one shared with kin? Since Hargitay has little memory of Mansfield, how does she reconcile her mother's many selves? Hargitay explores these ideas in voice-over, and settles on a generous understanding of Mansfield that centers on her talent for music. These efforts offer a clean conclusion, but it is the exquisitely relatable messiness of this exceptional family tale that lingers. My Mom JayneNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Max.
Wall Street Journal
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘My Mom Jayne' Review: Mariska Hargitay's Personal Production on HBO
It might be argued that Hollywood sex symbol Jayne Mansfield is more famous now for being the mother of Mariska Hargitay than for her own status as a prototypical '50s bombshell and star of such films as 'The Girl Can't Help It.' Ms. Hargitay's tenure as Olivia Benson on 'Law and Order: SVU,' after all, has lasted twice as long as her mother's entire film career. But Mansfield, who died in a violent car crash in 1967, does occupy a singular if amorphous place in the pop-culture pantheon, and Ms. Hargitay's mission as director and producer of 'My Mom Jayne' is multifold: rehabilitate her mother's reputation as one of the 'dumb blondes' who rode the wake of Marilyn Monroe (Diana Dors and Mamie Van Doren were others); examine Mansfield as an example of manufactured Hollywood product; and come to grips with her own trauma concerning parentage and inheritance. It is a very personal documentary, a designation that can connote the good, the not-so-bad and the distinctly uncomfortable. 'My Mom Jayne' has it all, including a puzzle that Ms. Hargitay pursues throughout.
Straits Times
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Actress Mariska Hargitay comes to terms with a lifetime of family secrets
American actress Mariska Hargitay is releasing a documentary that unpacks her personal history and that of her mother, Jayne Mansfield. PHOTO: KOBE WAGSTAFF/NYTIMES NEW YORK – Mariska Hargitay was at home and she was sprinting up the stairs, bounding between the corners of her very full lif e. The American actress, 61, checked in with her oldest son – home from his first year at Princeton University – and supervised the set-up of an engagement party she was hosting for her god-daughter. Gardeners buzzed about the terraces of her Manhattan penthouse. She apologised for the noise. Her latest obsession, a family heirloom grand piano, dominated the living room, with a custom 'M'-shaped bench, courtesy of her husband, 57-year-old actor Peter Hermann (Younger, 2015 to 2021). 'That's my next thing. I'm going to learn to play soon,' Hargitay vowed. Another dash and she was on the floor below – a warren of cosy offices painted in jewel tones, with overstuffed couches and muscular art by American photographer Annie Leibovitz . Tucked on a bookshelf were some of Hargitay's awards. She has earned Emmys for playing Olivia Benson, the beloved Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 to present) hard-a**, and for producing the 2017 documentary I Am Evidence, about the backlog of rape kits. This is where Hargitay had conceived, edited and shot some of her newest and perhaps most life-altering project, the documentary My Mom Jayne. It is at once an unflinching portrait of her mother, the 1950s star and pin-up Jayne Mansfield, who died when Mariska was three; an homage to her father, bodybuilder-actor Mickey Hargitay; and an investigation into her own clouded and secretive origins. Directing the film, which will air on June 27 on HBO, and proclaiming her story have unlocked something profound for Hargitay. 'I am so clear now about the truth,' she said. 'This big haze came off – a veil of fear. And now I just feel so much at peace. It's like a miracle to me to feel this way.' 'You know, there's so much pain left in the unsaid. And I just wanted to say it,' she added. 'I'm not scared. I can be more Olivia Benson now.' Documentary unearths family mysteries The documentary turns the lens on what Hargitay called her 'bumpy ride' as she unpacks her history. Almost in real time, she unearths family mysteries and constructs a relationship with a parent she has no memory of, even as Mansfield's traumatic end – a fatal car crash that Hargitay and two brothers survived – and foiled Hollywood ambitions defined her daughter's path. Figuring out how to be a woman in the public eye; grappling with celebrity, industry and motherhood; fighting expectations; facing the shame and release that overlaid, somehow, with her portrayal of Olivia Benson and her work as an advocate for survivors – all of that ended up on-screen. She wove it into a Law & Order-esque narrative that ends with the public revelation that Mickey, who died in 2006, is not her biological father. 'Sometimes keeping a secret doesn't honour anyone,' she says in the documentary. Hargitay has known Nelson Sardelli, a singer whose brief relationship with her mother led to her birth, for some 30 years. But she had never asked him the kind of pointed questions she did in her very first interview for the film. More than a touch of Captain Benson's steely jawed scowl comes out on-screen, when she asks him: Why didn't you acknowledge me when I was a child? Benson is the longest-running character on the longest-running prime-time drama in TV history. Since she first appeared on the procedural in 1999, as a detective who is driven to seek justice for victims of sexual violence, women have sought out Hargitay to share their own experiences of abuse and assault. For so many, the character has stood as a source of strength. That Hargitay's performance was based in her own shadows is a bombshell, too. In 2024, she disclosed that a man had raped her when she was in her 30s – a fact that took her years to acknowledge, even to herself. 'We portray finding the truth and going to these dark places,' said American actor Christopher Meloni, who played her SVU partner Elliot Stabler. Deep discoveries happen 'when you're close to the flame. And it's a real flame for her'. Hargitay did not learn the truth about her parentage until she was an adult. But growing up, she said, 'I just always knew something was up'. Mansfield, who was only 34 when she died in 1967, had five children from three marriages. The most notable husband was Mickey, a Hungary-born athlete. In their heyday, they were an accessible 'it' couple, frequently performing together. How her parents shaped her Mansfield was a classically trained musician, spoke four languages and studied acting before her breakout role on Broadway in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She reprised it for the 1957 movie and went on to a few more high-wattage parts. But her acting talents were overshadowed by the entertainment world's interest in her buxom figure. She was marketed as a Marilyn Monroe dupe, eventually making her living with a sometimes tawdry nightclub act. After Mansfield's death, her family rarely told casual stories about her, Hargitay said. Mostly, what her father imparted was that Mansfield 'listened to the wrong people and that they tried to mould her and make her', Hargitay said. She absorbed that lesson fully. 'The reason that I'm, like, the way I am is because I learnt from her,' Hargitay said of her mother. 'I learnt what not to do. I learnt to not let anyone tell me – that I decide.' Her steely will also came from Mickey. 'He's the one that taught me about perseverance,' she said. Her parents had split before she was conceived, then reconciled when Mansfield was pregnant, then split again. When Mansfield died, Mickey and his wife, Ellen Siano, raised her, alongside her older brothers Mickey Jr and Zoltan, his biological children with Mansfield. Mansfield's relationship with Sardelli was public in the 1960s, and some of her siblings were aware of her split parentage, Hargitay said. But they never discussed it. She and Sardelli are now close. They spent Father's Day together, and he wept as Hargitay told him she was ultimately grateful for the choices he had made decades ago. And she still refers to Mickey as her father. She initially worried that making the documentary would be betraying him, she said. Then she realised: 'This is the biggest thank you. This is saying, 'I am your daughter.' I'm screaming it from the rooftops that you are the best dad and I'm loved. And everything that's strong and good and moral about me, it's because of him.' SVU's toll and impact Of her siblings, Hargitay is the only one who found her career in front of the camera. 'It's connection for me,' she said. 'That's what SVU is. It's not just a show, it's a conversation.' But the intense scripts and the onslaught of other people's stories took a toll. 'I've had my fair share of secondary trauma,' she said. She also felt, she added, a responsibility to help. She trained to be a rape crisis counsellor and, in 2004, started the Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports survivors. Her friend, feminist icon Gloria Steinem, said: 'I always cite her as an example of a woman who inspires by her public role and presence.' Another friend, journalist Diane Sawyer, was struck by Hargitay's bravery. 'She just makes everything possible, because she's strong and generous,' she said. Perhaps more than at any other moment in her life, Hargitay feels empowered and free. Her attitude is, 'I can't wait to see what I do next'. That was one more thing that welded her to her mother, she realised – their appetite for a big, uncompromising life. 'She was amazing,' Hargitay said. 'That's been the gift: I got to see her. I got to have so many moments with her. And we got to make a movie together.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
