Mariska Hargitay Gifted Mom Jayne Mansfield’s Piano in ‘My Mom Jayne’

Nearly 60 years after losing her mother, Mariska Hargitay gained one of Jayne Mansfield’s most meaningful belongings.

At the end of “My Mom Jayne,” a documentary Hargitay directed and produced about Mansfield, the “Law & Order: SVU” star receives the gift of a lifetime for her 60th birthday: her mother’s grand piano.

Mansfield played piano and violin and spoke multiple languages, in addition to her acting career. She died in a car accident when Hargitay, who was in the back seat at the time with two of her brothers, was just 3 years old.

Early in the film, Hargitay explains she reached out to the family of singer Engelbert Humperdinck, who was one of the owners of Mansfield’s “Pink Palace” home after her death, about getting the piano from him.

In the end, it’s Hargitay’s husband, Peter Hermann, who pulls through. Hargitay, who’s in Los Angeles at the time, stands in front of the door of a unit at a storage facility. Once the door lifts, she sees her mother’s piano.

Overcome with emotion, Hargitay walks toward the piano and touches it, saying, “Oh my God.”

Hermann appears and confirms they now own the piano, wishing her a happy birthday.

Their three kids run over and wrap their arms around their parents in a group hug.

“I can’t believe you did this,” Hargitay whispers, wiping away tears.

Hargitay, who turned 60 in January 2024, shared more details about this story with the audience at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where she premiered the film for the first time.

She told the crowd she had been trying to get the piano from Humperdinck’s daughter for “six or eight months,” according to Deadline, and was preparing to film for the doc with one of her brothers when Hermann called her.

“It was my first day of shooting, and Peter calls me because he took the kids home, he was flying back to New York with the kids, and he said, ‘Mariska, get in the car right now. I have an Uber outside waiting for you,’” she recalled of the story her husband cooked up to throw her off while in LA.

She said her calls from the car to Hermann and their kids went unanswered until she arrived at the storage facility, where she saw not just her family, but the documentary’s crew, whom Hargitay later learned Hermann had called to film the moment.

“I had no idea the piano was going to be in the movie,” she said. “It was a total surprise.”

The piano is carefully lifted by a crane from the streets of New York into Hargitay’s home at the end of “My Mom Jayne.”

She told the Los Angeles Times moving the piano into her home was the “happiest day” of her life.

“It felt like I was reclaiming something. I was actually getting a piece of my mother back,” she said.

She also expressed her love for her husband for helping her obtain this precious gift.

“Then there was another part of me that was like, ‘Who did I marry? What kind of awesome human being did I sign up for? I can’t even comprehend that I was first in line when God was handing out the husbands,’” she said.

Hargitay also expressed interest in an interview with The New York Times about wanting to play the piano.

“That’s my next thing — I’m going to learn to play soon,” Hargitay said to the publication, which also reported a custom “M” bench from Hermann accompanied the piano.

“My Mom Jayne” airs June 27 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO and will stream on Max.