What Happened to Mariska Hargitay’s Mom, Jayne Mansfield?

Award-winning actress, producer, director, and filmmaker Mariska Hargitay will take center stage as host of the 78th Emmy Awards on September 14. Best known for her decades-long role as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Hargitay has become one of television’s most enduring stars, earning an Emmy and a Golden Globe along the way. But long before she became one of television’s most recognizable stars, Hargitay was the daughter of a Hollywood icon.

Her mother, Jayne Mansfield, was one of the most famous women of the 1950s and ’60s, a Hollywood bombshell whose movies, publicity stunts, and larger-than-life persona made her a household name. Behind that carefully crafted image, however, was a woman whose remarkable life would come to a sudden and tragic end when Hargitay was still a young child.