In ‘My Mom Jayne,’ Mariska Hargitay Explores the Mother She Didn’t Know

My Mom Jayne

At the age of 3, she, along with two of her brothers, survived the car accident that claimed the life of their mother, the iconic film star Jayne Mansfield. The children were asleep in the back seat; the three adults in the front—Mansfield, her companion at the time, and the vehicle’s driver—perished instantly. Mariska’s two injured brothers were removed from the scene. It was only later that six-year-old Zoltan realized Mariska was missing; she was trapped beneath the passenger seat, having sustained a head injury. Had Zoltan not spoken up, Mariska might not have been discovered in time.

This incident is just one of the revelations in Hargitay’s moving documentary My Mom Jayne, where the 61-year-old actor gathers fragments of facts and memories to construct a clearer picture of her own identity, thereby finding peace with the mother she never truly knew. Hargitay has been aware since her twenties that the man who raised her and loved her deeply—actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay—was not her biological father. Only now is she confronting the full scope of that truth. My Mom Jayne traverses Mansfield’s early life and career: she became a mother at 16, living in Texas with her young daughter and first husband until her overwhelming desire for stardom drew her to Hollywood, where she initially secured small film roles. Then, in 1955, she landed a starring role on Broadway in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? This opened doors to more prominent film parts, but much like the star she evidently admired, Marilyn Monroe, Mansfield earnestly sought recognition as a serious actress. With her distinctive platinum hair and exaggerated, breathy speaking voice—which her children recalled as odd and upsetting, so different from the mother they knew at home—she somewhat reluctantly accepted her status as a voluptuous sex symbol.

Hargitay, who would forge her own acting career on TV’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, consistently felt uncomfortable with both her mother’s public persona and her life decisions. Mansfield was only 34 when she died in 1967. She and Mickey had divorced shortly after Mariska’s birth, though he and his subsequent wife, Ellen Siano, would ultimately raise Hargitay and two of her brothers after Mansfield’s death. (Hargitay’s two other half-siblings also appear in the documentary, helping to bridge some gaps her research couldn’t fill.)

While Hargitay emphasizes that the life her father and stepmother provided for the family was a happy one, she also explains her lifelong sense of disquiet, struggling to comprehend her mother’s motivations and feeling resentment over concealed truths. Yet, by the conclusion of My Mom Jayne—a point where we also meet Hargitay’s biological father, former Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli, in a sequence likely to bring tears—Hargitay achieves a profound catharsis. When Hargitay finally, and tenderly, tells her mother, “I see myself in you for the first time,” we, too, gain a deeper understanding of this charming, ambitious performer whose star never shone as brightly as she had hoped. She wasn’t our mother. But her intricate secrets reflect the difficult realities often hidden within our own family histories. Families are composed of imperfect individuals. That is both their tragedy and their glory.