Inside Mariska Hargitay’s Childhood With Jayne Mansfield: See the Rare Family Photos
Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay‘s family story has never been easy. Decades after the 1967 car crash that killed her famous mother, big-screen sex goddess Jayne Mansfield, but left toddler Mariska unharmed, her world was rocked again when Mariska learned that Mickey Hargitay wasn’t her biological father. That revelation, and the weight of keeping family secrets, eventually inspired Mariska to explore who Mansfield really was — without the heels, the makeup and the sexy, stylized voice. The result is her new HBO documentary My Mom Jayne, which Mariska said gave her agency over years of hard feelings.
“I wanted to know about ‘what made your heart sing, what made you laugh, what made you cry ..what pain did you carry?’” she told TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. And at the film’s premiere, Mariska told extratv, “I was told that she was a different person behind that voice, and that’s what I wanted to get to know … and I did.”
Though Mariska reveals in the doc that she doesn’t really remember her mother, there are a number of photos of the two during the three short years they had together.
Check out these photos of earlier times for in the Hargitay/Mansfield clan.
Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay with two-day-old Mariska, January 1964
Jayne and a six-week-old Mariska, March 1964
Jayne gives birth to her fifth child, October 1965
Jayne shortly after giving birth to her fifth child, Tony Cimber, with third husband Matt Cimber. Her older children, from left: Zoltan Hargitay, Jayne Marie Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay, Jr., and Mariska Hargitay,
Jayne with her fifth child, October 1965
Jayne and the kids reunite with Mickey Hargitay, 1966
Mickey and Jayne reunite, two years after their divorce, alongside their children Zoltan, Miklos, Mariska and Jayne Marie
Jayne celebrates her birthday, 1966
Mariska (bottom right) and her siblings celebrate mom Jayne’s birthday on the set of the movie Single Room Furnished, which would be her final film.
Jayne with her kids, 1967
Jayne with her kids, March 1967
Just three short months before her tragic death at age 34, Jayne was photographed playing with her children in Hollywood, California.
Jayne and Mariska
An undated photo of the mother and daughter that appears in My Mom Jayne.