Actress has no regrets about bombshell film about movie star mum

Actress has no regrets about bombshell film about movie star mum

Actress Mariska Hargitay says she feels like a different person since making a celebrated documentary about her movie star mother Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car crash when she was 36.

Hargitay was speaking about the impact of making the film My Mom Jayne at a post-screening Q&A session this week when she made the revelation.

“I feel like a different human being since I made the film. I do,” she said. “It’s cleared a lot of space and I learned so much. It was such an extraordinary process.”

Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay says she is a different person since making a film about her mother Jayne Mansfield. (YouTube/Call Her Daddy)

The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, marked Hargitay’s feature film directorial debut.

It is described as an intimate portrait of the Hollywood actress, who died in the 1967 car crash when Hargitay, who was also in the vehicle, was three.

Hargitay said this week of the film, “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. And I think it was my life’s work in many ways.”

Critics agree, with the film nominated for Best First Documentary Feature and Best Biographical Documentary at the Critics Choice Awards that will be announced on November 9.

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Mariska Hargitay
Hargitay says she had no regrets about making the film. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Hargitay said she hoped viewers realise first and foremost that the documentary is a film about family.

“I hope that people come away with the universality of the film, and they realise it’s a family story,” she said.

“I’d like to think of it as a gentle invitation to look at our own families. And that’s what has been the biggest through line is that people have said, ‘I never thought I could, but now I think I can’.”

The documentary revealed a number of bombshells, including that Hargitay’s father was not Mickey Hargitay, who raised her, but a man named Nelson Sardelli.

Mariska Hargitay and mother Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield with a young Mariska. (hbo/instagram)

The documentary also revealed that Mariska was initially left behind in the wreckage of the car crash that killed her mother, her boyfriend and their driver, and was only discovered inside the wreck after her brother Zoltan raised the alarm.

In the documentary, Zoltan wondered if his mother would have survived had she not climbed into the front seat due to an argument with her boyfriend.

“I often think about why she didn’t just stay in the backseat with us?” he said in the film.

“But I remember her comforting me, telling me I was going to be fine.

“Twenty minutes later, half an hour, I heard her scream so loud, and that was it.”

Hargitay with a photo of her mother. (Getty)

Their elder brother Mickey also recalled in the film that he woke up in a car covered in blood and at first thought the blonde woman who helped rescue them was his mother.

It was Zoltan who then woke up in the stranger’s car, looked around and realised his little sister wasn’t there.

When he asked where she was, the good Samaritans went back to the wreck to search for her and found her lodged under the passenger seat with a head injury, according to their stepmother, Ellen Hargitay.

Mariska was left with a zigzag scar down one side of her head.

Following their mother’s death, the three children went to live full-time with Mickey Hargitay, a former Mr Universe to whom Mansfield was previously married.

Hargitay with the man who raised her, Mickey Hargitay. (Getty)

She went on to find fame as an actress after winning the role of Detective Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which has now been airing for 27 seasons.

She also had to overcome the trauma of her own sexual abuse, which she only revealed in 2024.

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Mariska publicly revealed this year she had known for the past three decades that her biological father was Italian entertainer Nelson Sardelli, with whom her mother had an affair while separated from Hargitay.

She said she first suspected he was her father after seeing a photo of him and later met with him, but Mickey Hargitay became upset when she brought it up so she never mentioned it again.

Hargitay died of cancer in 2006.

Hargitay with her biological father Nelson Sardelli at the New York premiere of My Mom Jayne. (WireImage)

Sardelli, now aged in his 90s, accompanied his daughter to the New York premiere of the film.

While some were surprised that Hargitay revealed so much in the documentary, she insisted this week she was at peace with her decision.

“I have no regrets. None,” she said.

“There’s so much love and healing from all factions of the family. I took this disjointed family, and now we’re all one.”

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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