After weeks of glamorous red carpet premieres and interviews for “My Mom Jayne,” Mariska Hargitay’s documentary about her late mother, the film will be available to watch at home.
The HBO Original project about Jayne Mansfield is directed and produced by Hargitay and features interviews the “Law & Order: SVU” star conducted with her siblings, biological father and stepmother about the mom Hargitay never got the chance to really know.
In 1967, Mansfield died in a car accident. Hargitay and two of her brothers, Mickey Jr. and Zoltan Hargitay, were in the back seat at the time of the accident, which is discussed in the film.
Using these interviews with family members and Mansfield’s memorabilia from a storage unit the family hasn’t touched in years, Mariska Hargitay was able to better understand Mansfield for who she really was beyond the blond bombshell image she portrayed to the public in the 1950s and ’60s.
She opened up to Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin June 26 on TODAY about the “very complicated” relationship she had with Mansfield.
“I think I was angry that I didn’t know the person behind the pose, if you will,” she said.
After compiling various stories and uncovering new memories about Mansfield, Mariska Hargitay described her mom as “a kind, compassionate, funny, empathetic, ambitious woman” in a conversation with TODAY.com.
“It’s so beautiful for me to see all the similarities and the things that I got from her,” she said.
She said on TODAY she believes Mansfield would be “really happy” about the film and that she’s being seen “for all her facets and not just one way.”
Mansfield loved music and played violin and piano in multiple television appearances, which are shown in the documentary.
Mariska Hargitay told TODAY.com her mom was “an artist with a whole lot of dreams and an appetite for love.”
“I think she’d be really happy that we got to make a movie together,” she said on TODAY.
How and Where to Watch ‘My Mom Jayne’
The documentary will premiere Friday, June 27, on HBO from 8 to 10 p.m. ET and stream simultaneously on Max.
What to Expect from Mariska Hargitay’s ‘My Mom Jayne’ Documentary
While the documentary focuses on Mansfield and who she was off-camera, Mariska Hargitay also shares more about her own story. She opens up for the first time about her biological father, Nelson Sardelli.
Mariska Hargitay was raised by Mickey Hargitay, who was Mansfield’s second husband, and stepmom Ellen Hargitay after Mansfield’s fatal accident. She learned at 25, after seeing a photograph of Sardelli, that he was her biological father and met him for the first time five years later. She interviews Sardelli and his two daughters in the documentary.
Mariska Hargitay also interviews siblings Jayne Marie, whom Mansfield had with first husband Paul Mansfield; Mickey Jr. and Zoltan Hargitay; and Tony Cimber, her half brother from her mother’s third marriage to director Matt Cimber.
She even speaks to Mansfield’s press secretary, Raymond “Rusty” Strait, who wrote a book in the 1970s about Mansfield after her death. In it, he shared the truth about Mariska Hargitay’s father. Despite this, that knowledge remained out of the public eye until Mariska Hargitay felt it was time to share her story in the documentary and a May interview with Vanity Fair.
“I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me,” she told the outlet.
“I’m Mickey Hargitay’s daughter — that is not a lie,” she added, noting the documentary is also “kind of a love letter to him.”
As for her interview with Strait, Mariska Hargitay told the Los Angeles Times in a conversation published June 27 she felt “a lot of feelings, a lot of anger” talking to him.
“I wanted to protect her (Mansfield) from him because he did not protect her,” she said, referencing his book.
“That (interview) was very painful to me because I never really got the response I was hoping for. It’s my job to give people the benefit of the doubt and to try to understand, and that’s what I did. But he betrayed my mother and he betrayed my family,” she said.
She was ultimately grateful the story did not become mainstream until she could share it herself.
“Yet the beauty of this is that even though it was in the world, somehow the story was protected and I got to tell it,” she said.
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