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Buzz Feed
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Mariska Hargitay Biological Father Jayne Mansfield Explained
It's no secret that Mariska Hargitay is one of the most beloved actors. She's been starring as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU for over 25 years, and she continues to be just one of the best people behind the scenes, too. And while Mariska has been in all of our living rooms for decades, some might not realize that she's the daughter of Jayne Mansfield. Nicknamed Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde," she was an actor best known for her role in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on Broadway and in the film adaptation. She was also considered a sex symbol and one of the most talked about Hollywood stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. Sadly, Jayne died in 1967 at the age of 34 when she was involved in a car crash in Mississippi alongside her attorney and then-partner, Sam Brody, a 19-year-old driver, and three of her children. Jayne, Sam, and the driver died at the scene, but her children, including Mariska, who was only 3 years old, survived. Mariska's brother, Zoltan, who was 6 years old at the time of the accident, recently revealed that after he was extracted from the car and on the way to the hospital, he noticed that Mariska wasn't with them. She was lodged under the passenger seat of the car and wasn't found right away. Now, 58 years after her sudden death, Mariska decided to really explore who her mother truly was with the HBO documentary My Mom Jayne. The film depicts Jayne's quick rise to fame and her romantic relationships, which were the center of Hollywood gossip back then. Most notably, Jayne was married to Mickey Hargitay, a Mr. Universe winner and bodybuilder. The duo got married in 1958 and had three children together: Mickey Jr., Zoltan, and Mariska, with Mariska being born shortly after they decided to get divorced. Jayne also had two children from other relationships. Her oldest, Jayne Marie, was with Paul Mansfield, with Jayne notably having her when she was only 17. Following her divorce from Mickey in 1964, Jayne married Matt Cimber, with whom they share one son, Tony, born in 1965. "Mickey was the most positive influence in her life, and even though he might've felt a lot of pain, he loved her. He always loved her. Even after they were divorced," Ellen Siano, Mickey's second wife and Mariska's stepmom, explained in My Mom Jayne. "She did come back to Mickey many times after that. They were together again for a few months around the time Jayne was pregnant with [Mariska]." Mariska added, "By the time I came along, I think there was a lot going on. And so there's a sense to me in some of the photos, it just seems like she wasn't holding me a lot. Like, she was off doing something else, and I just had to handle it. So I don't know if I had that attachment time with her." Following Jayne's death, Mickey Jr., Zoltan, and Mariska lived with Mickey and Ellen, with Mariska describing it as, "the best times" and her earliest memories from childhood. And then, this is where My Mom Jayne dives into something that has not been publicly confirmed or discussed until right now. The fact that Mariska was not Mickey's biological daughter. "One time, when I was 12, I was [with my grandmother, Jayne's mother] and I was talking about my dad so reverently like I always did, and she looked at me with the strangest expression and said, 'I'm all you have.' And I knew it meant something, but I didn't know what," Mariska says in the documentary. Mariska explains that when she was 21 years old, she was invited to a fan event by the head of the Jayne Mansfield fan club. She attended, and then a few years later, when she was 25, she was invited to hang out with the head of the fan club again, where he asked her, "Do you want to see a picture of Nelson?" "I said, 'Who's Nelson?' and that's when 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,'" Mariska recalled. "He went around the corner and he pulled out this book and opened the page and he showed it to me, and I just, like, couldn't believe what I was seeing because it looked like the male version of me." "Life as I knew it was irrevocably changed," she added. Mariska explained that she confronted Mickey, asking why he lied to her, and he got "more upset" than Mariska was. "I was in so much pain, but I could see his pain was almost worse," she said. "So, I decided I wouldn't talk about it again and I would never bring it up to him again, and I never did." Mickey died in 2006 at the age of 80. Following this confrontation, Mariska said she had an identity crisis, adding, "I mean, 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 continued, saying, "So, for me to survive, I excised, disowned the part of myself that was my mother's daughter." When Mariska was 30 years old, she attended Nelson Sardelli's concert in Atlantic City, and she confronted him afterwards. She said, "He looked at me and basically burst into tears, and he grabbed my ear, and he said, 'I've been waiting 30 years for this moment.'" Mariska added, "That was 30 years ago, and I've kept it a secret ever since." In 1974, Jayne's longtime friend and press agent, Raymond Strait, published a biography about Jayne where he alleged that Nelson was Mariska's biological father. But Mariska had never read the book, at the behest of Mickey, who told her to not read any books about her My Mom Jayne, Mariska interviews Raymond, who said he thought it was his right to tell the story of Mariska's biological father, and he didn't think about how it would impact her family. While performing in Atlanta in 1963, Nelson met Jayne in a club. Afterwards, Nelson said they went "every place together" and began performing together. He was even introduced to her children and attended her divorce proceedings from Mickey, with it being reported that Nelson and Jayne, "Hope to marry in the near future." They spent months traveling Europe together, where Nelson and Jayne learned that she was pregnant. However, they decided to part ways, with Jayne unable to make up her mind about whether to stay with Nelson or go back to Mickey, who she also loved. "I say this with the biggest shame of my life, I was wrong," Nelson tells Mariska in My Mom Jayne. He also said he and Jayne never spoke again."I can't imagine what your father felt, but I am grateful to him," he added. Speaking about why he never tried to contact Mariska following Jayne's death, Nelson tearfully explained, "Your grandmother Vera wanted me 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? And as the years went by, I had a chance to talk to Mickey Hargitay one time, and he said to me, 'Nelson, nobody has to tell me who is the father of my child.' And I said to him, 'I will not embarrass you in any way. Never.'" Mariska's half sisters, Giovanna and Pietra Sardelli, recalled that Nelson and their mother made the decision to "stay quiet" and not reveal Mariska's true parentage, with Nelson telling them, "This little girl has a father who loves her like I love you. This little girl is safe. And if she's okay, she has just lost her mother, you cannot take away the only family she knows." Giovanna also shared that Nelson kept a locked drawer in his desk, which contained a letter from Vera talking about Mariska, and she opened it one day, and discovered that she had a sister she didn't know kept the secret for so long as a family that Giovanna even remembered meeting Katie Couric at a birthday party for Mariska years later, and when Katie asked how she was related to Mariska, she said that they were just family friends. "My need was so big. My need for this, to honor Mickey, was so huge. But the fact is, I was wrong. Because you guys had to live all these years with this secret, and you were so generous, so generous to me. So, thank you," Mariska tells her two sisters in the documentary. The whole documentary is honestly a beautiful love letter to Jayne Mansfield, and it's astonishing watching Mariska connect with her mother and accept things about her life. You can watch My Mom Jayne on HBO Max now. Do you love all things TV and movies? Subscribe to the Screen Time newsletter to get your weekly dose of what to watch next and what everyone is flailing over from someone who watches everything!
Time Magazine
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
In My Mom Jayne, Mariska Hargitay Seeks Answers About Her Mother
When Mariska Hargitay was 3, she and two of her brothers survived the car accident that killed their mother, bombshell movie star Jayne Mansfield. The kids were asleep in the back seat; the three adults in the front—Mansfield, her companion at the time, and the car's driver—were killed instantly. Mariska's two brothers, injured, were carried away from the scene. It wasn't until later that one of them, 6-year-old Zoltan, realized Mariska wasn't with them: she was pinned beneath the passenger seat, with a head injury. If Zoltan hadn't spoken up, Mariska might not have been found until it was too late. That's just one of the details revealed in Hargitay's touching documentary My Mom Jayne, in which the actor, now 61, summons scraps of facts and remembrances to piece together the truth about her own identity, and in the process make peace with the mother she never knew. Hargitay has known since her 20s that the man who raised her, and loved her deeply—actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay—was not her real father. Only now is she reckoning with the scope of that truth. My Mom Jayne hopscotches through Mansfield's early life and career: She became a mother at age 16, and lived in Texas with her young daughter and her first husband until she could stand it no longer—she wanted to be a movie star so badly that she was drawn to Hollywood, where she eked out a living with small film parts. Then, in 1955, she landed a starring role on Broadway, in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? That opened the door to bigger film roles, but like the star she obviously emulated, Marilyn Monroe, Mansfield wanted desperately to be considered a serious actor. With her moonbeam-colored hair and exaggerated, breathy speaking voice—which her children recall as seeming strange and upsetting, so different from the mom they knew at home—she settled, somewhat unhappily, for being a curvaceous sex symbol. Hargitay, who would build her own career as an actor on TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, never felt comfortable with either her mother's persona or her life choices. Mansfield was only 34 at the time of her death, in 1967. She and Mickey had divorced shortly after Mariska was born, though he and the woman he married after the divorce, Ellen Siano, would end up raising Hargitay and two of her brothers after Mansfield's death. (Hargitay's two other half-siblings also appear in the documentary, helping her cover some gaps that her research couldn't fill.) Though Hargitay makes it clear that the life her father and stepmother made for the family was a happy one, she also explains how unsettled she had felt for most of her life, unable to comprehend her mother's motivations and feeling resentment about truths that were hidden from her. Yet by the end of My Mom Jayne—by which time we've also met Hargitay's biological father, onetime Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli, in a sequence that's not likely to leave a dry eye in the house—Hargitay's catharsis is complete. When Hargitay finally, and tenderly, tells her mother, 'I see myself in you for the first time,' we, too, know more about this charming, ambitious performer whose star never burned as brightly as she'd hoped. She wasn't our mom. But her unruly secrets reflect the uncomfortable truths that are so often hidden in our own histories. Families are made of fallible humans. That's their tragedy, and their glory.
Los Angeles Times
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘My Mom Jayne,' Mariska Hargitay grapples with a secret and her mother's choices
That Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Jayne Mansfield is one of those things everyone who knows anything about either of them seems to know — in some cases maybe the only thing. Even Hargitay — who was only 3 years old when, in 1967, her mother died in a road accident, which she and two brothers survived — had much to learn about her, and she spent most of her life not learning it. Now, in her inquisitive 60s, she has put that belated search 'to know her not as the sex symbol Jayne Mansfield but just as Jayne, my mom, Jayne' into a sad, sweet, generous documentary film, appropriately titled 'My Mom Jayne,' which comes to HBO Friday. Other than a few photos and contextless clips, Hargitay does not turn a spotlight on her own career, perhaps assuming that 26 seasons of 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' speak for themselves. (In 2024, she was the highest-paid actress in television.) A quarter of the way through the 21st century, Mansfield will be mostly known to connoisseurs of mid-century tabloid culture and fans of Frank Tashlin, who directed her in the relatively big-budget films 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?,' in which she had appeared on Broadway, and 'The Girl Can't Help It,' from which Paul McCartney learned Eddie Cochran's 'Twenty Flight Rock,' impressing John Lennon enough to let him into his group. Many will have seen a much-reproduced photograph of Sophia Loren giving side-eye to Mansfield pouring out of a dress at a Hollywood function without being able to identify either of them. Such are the sorrows of passing time. Documentaries in which the director uses film as a way to approach some unknown aspect of family history are not uncommon. There are, for example, Sarah Polley's 'Stories We Tell,' which, like 'My Mom Jayne' deals with late-discovered questions of parentage; Carl Colby's 'The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby'; 'Bright Leaves,' Ross McElwee's film about his family's involvement in the tobacco business; and '2 or 3 Things I Know About Him,' in which German director Malte Ludin unpacks the story of a high-ranking Nazi father. There's nothing that dark in Hargitay's family history, but there is trauma and tragedy: for the actor, who wanted to be taken seriously, and did try, finally, to course-correct her image; for the person, who suffered from what was probably depression, turned to alcohol and pills, made some bad choices in men and died young, at 34; and for the children she left behind, trying to make real a person they barely knew, or don't remember at all — to fill 'this little hole in my heart,' says Hargitay. Mansfield, who moved from Texas to Hollywood in hopes of becoming a dramatic actor was instead remade in the image of Marilyn Monroe, the age's signature big-breasted blond bombshell. Auditioning for Paramount casting head Milton Lewis, she said, 'He just seemed to think that I was wasting, as he said, my obvious talents. And he lightened my hair and tightened my dresses, and this is the result.' A willingness to pose for cheesecake pictures, at a time when movie magazines proliferated and men's magazines were coming on, sealed that deal: 'I used my pinup-type publicity to get my foot in the door. … I use it as a means to an end.' That she was more than a pinup was not even then a secret — a Life magazine cover story at the time of 'Rock Hunter' called her 'Broadway's smartest dumb blonde.' Appearing on Groucho Marx's TV show 'Tell It to Groucho,' the host — who had appeared in the film of 'Rock Hunter,' says, 'You're not the dumb blond that you pretend to be. I think that people ought to know that you're really a bright, sentimental and understanding person. This is a whole facade of yours that isn't based on what you actually are. This is a kind of act that you do, isn't it?' And yet it didn't matter whether she was smarter than the characters she played, or the character she played in public, or that she spoke multiple languages and could play the piano and the violin. ('Who cares? Kiss me!' said Jack Paar, interrupting her as she played the latter.) It made her seem like a contradiction in terms, a performing seal, rather than a complex human being. As to her daughter: 'At a certain point I began to carry a lot of shame about her image as a sex symbol and all the choices that came with that. So I pushed the idea of my mom further and further away from my life.' She decided that her own career would look very different. Mariska was born near the end of Mansfield's marriage to Mickey Hargitay, a Hungarian athlete and adagio dancer, who became Mr. Universe after moving to America; it seems to have been a loving relationship, even after their divorce. But in her 20s, Mariska became aware, independently, that her biological father was an Italian nightclub entertainer named Nelson Sardelli. She was angry, she says, at her dead mother 'for leaving me in this mess. And for hurting my father. And for leaving me feeling so alone and untethered.' At the same time, she wondered whether her biological father knew about her, and if he did, 'Why didn't he claim me?' At 30, she went to Atlantic City where he was performing, and said, 'I understand you knew my mother.' She told Mickey about the meeting — he was aware of the facts, which he had kept secret — and he was so upset that she never brought it up again. ('Don't read the books about your mother,' he had told her earlier. They're 'full of lies.') Ironically, her mother's wayward romantic life left Hargitay with a passel of siblings, all of whom are present here, and with whom she seems fairly to very close: older sister Jayne Marie Mansfield, from Mansfield's first marriage; brothers Zoltan Hargitay and Mickey Hargitay Jr., with whom she grew up; Tony Cimber, Jayne's son from her brief third marriage, to director Matt Cimber, when the family temporarily became 'Italian' and Mariska became Maria; and sisters Giovanna and Pietra Sardelli, from her biological father's marriage. ('I don't know how the hell you got me to do this,' says Mickey Jr., sitting for his interview.) Stepmother Ellen Hargitay fills in a lot of holes, without claiming to know everything about everything. (Mickey Hargitay — 'my rock' — died in 2006.) Although the substance of the film is not manufactured, there is art in the presentation. Clips representing Mansfield's rise to fame are scored darkly, as if to say, this was not the way to go. Because the director is an actor, she knows how to be on camera; her siblings are less … professional, but make strong individual impressions. Hargitay is careful to let everyone have their own say, or keep silent, but these discussions, seemingly had for the first time, are inevitably dramatic and often very moving. There are a few visual effects, to indicate hazy memories, and a through line built around a white piano decorated with cherubim, which ends the film on a happy note. One of Hargitay's themes is the toxicity of fame, especially when it's awarded not for your accomplishments but your attributes. (Edward R. Murrow describes Mansfield as 'the most photographed woman in show business,' a superlative she certainly encouraged.) But we get glimpses of a woman who, like her daughter, we'd like to know more of. Jayne Marie remembers accompanying her to visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed hospital. She's great in the Tashlin comedies, playing off her public image, but also providing glimpses of the person inside it, while a scene from 'The Wayward Bus,' based on a John Steinbeck novel, demonstrates that given the chance, she could handle straight drama. With better management, or being born into a different time — actors nowadays indulge in cheesecake without being defined by it, as the talk shows and red carpets repeatedly demonstrate — she might have been taken as seriously as she had hoped to be. But that's a story for a different universe.
New York Post
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Mariska Hargitay was accidentally left at the scene of the car crash that killed her mother: doc
At age three, a wounded Mariska Hargitay was nearly abandoned at the scene of the car crash that killed her famous mother Jayne Mansfield, a new documentary reveals. In 'My Mom Jayne,' Hargitay's personal project that had its US premiere Friday at Carnegie Hall as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, the 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' star, 61, sheds new light on the tragic night of June 29, 1967. 'I often think about why she didn't just sit in the backseat with us,' Mariska's brother Zoltan Hargitay says of their late mother in the doc. Advertisement 4 Mariska Hargitay attends the premiere of her new documentary 'My Mom Jayne.' WireImage Mansfield, the 34-year-old Hollywood star of the movie 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?,' was traveling from Biloxi, Mississippi, where she had been performing at a club, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Also in the Buick Electra were driver Ronald Harrison, Mansfield's boyfriend and lawyer Samuel Brody and her three children with ex-husband Mickey Hargitay: three-year-old Mariska (then nicknamed Maria), six-year-old Zoltan and eight-year-old Mickey. Advertisement The adults were seated up front, while the children were asleep in the back. As they were driving on US Route 90, the Buick slammed into the back of a trailer truck, killing Mansfield, Brody and Stevens. The three young siblings were injured and unconscious. 4 The New York Post's late edition front page the day Jayne Mansfield died. After the survivors were picked up by authorities and driven away to the hospital, Zoltan cracked open his eyes. Advertisement 'Where's Maria?,' the boy said of his little sister. Mariska wasn't in the car with them. The toddler was so small that officers at first didn't see her in the wreckage, and left the site without her. 'You were lodged underneath the passenger seat with a head injury,' Mariska's stepmother Ellen Hargitay tells her in the film. Advertisement 'Thank God Zoli woke up.' 4 Actress Jayne Mansfield with a six-week-old Mariska Hargitay. Getty Images 4 Mansfield was the star of the film 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?,' among others. Getty Images In 'My Mom Jayne,' Hargitay explores the life of Mansfield, who's often only remembered as a glamorous bombshell. The Emmy Award winner also opens up about her long-held secret: that her biological father is not Mickey Hargitay, but 90-year-old Brazilian-Italian entertainer Nelson Sardelli. 'I just wanted to find out what happened, and sort of what happened is so meaningful,' Mariska said onstage at Carnegie Hall Friday of learning more about her mother's past with Sardelli. 'Was it hard? Yeah. Has it been an incredibly bumpy road? Yes! And guess what? It's f–king glorious now.' 'My Mom Jayne' streams on Max starting June 27.
Express Tribune
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Mariska Hargitay reveals biological father's identity during Cannes premiere of ‘My Mom Jayne'
Mariska Hargitay made an emotional appearance at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for the premiere of her HBO documentary My Mom Jayne. The documentary, which marks Hargitay's directorial debut, honours the life of her late mother, Jayne Mansfield. The screening concluded with a four-minute standing ovation, underscoring the film's emotional impact. In a personal moment, Hargitay revealed that her biological father is Italian singer Nelson Sardelli, not Mickey Hargitay, the man who raised her and was married to Mansfield. This is the first time Hargitay has publicly addressed her parentage. 'Tonight I'm celebrating the power that film has for me to remember somebody I didn't have the good fortune to know or grow up with,' Hargitay said during her introduction to the film. Jayne Mansfield, a Hollywood star of the 1950s, was known for roles in The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Beyond her image as a glamorous screen icon, Mansfield was a talented and intelligent performer who later found success as a nightclub act. Hargitay was three years old when Mansfield died in a tragic car crash. The accident also involved Hargitay and her brothers, who survived. These early life experiences have shaped Hargitay's long-standing advocacy work. As Olivia Benson in Law & Order: SVU, she has portrayed a committed advocate for survivors for more than 550 episodes. My Mom Jayne offers a fresh view of Mansfield's life and legacy through Hargitay's perspective as both daughter and director. The film adds depth to the public understanding of Mansfield's life, celebrating her not just as a celebrity but as a woman and mother.
