On Screen: “My Mom, Jayne”
My Mom, Jayne
Many families have skeletons in their closet, secrets that are only whispered and rarely acknowledged, which is why it took so long for Mariska Hargitay to unearth the truth about her mother, 1950s ‘blonde bombshell’ Jayne Mansfield, and the kind man she thought was her father, Hungarian bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay.
Mariska conceived, directed and edited the documentary “My Mom, Jayne,” which recently completed a one-week theatrical run in North Hollywood before streaming in order to qualify for the 2026 Academy Awards.
The film chronicles not only Jayne’s brief life (she was 34 when she died) and career but also how her horrific decapitation in a June 1967, car crash in Louisiana impacted her children, three of whom, including three-year-old Mariska, were also in the vehicle at the time and survived.
“I don’t have any memories of my mother,” Mariska admits. “But I experienced a sense of shame seeing my mother as a sex symbol.”
What Mariska discovered was that ambitious Jayne had cultivated that curvaceous, sexually suggestive ‘bimbo’ image, along with an exaggerated, breathy speaking voice, to further her career. In real life, Jayne was a bright, classically trained pianist and violinist who spoke several languages.
Never acknowledged until now, the ‘secret’ Mariska unearths is that her biological father is Brazilian-Italian singer Nelson Sardelli, who had an affair with Jayne during a period when she and Mickey Hargitay were separated. After her mother’s death, Mariska was raised by Mickey and his wife, Ellen Siano, alongside her brothers Mickey Jr. and Zoltan.
“I just always knew something was up,” she recalls, since she didn’t resemble her siblings or Mickey, and she always had a fear of “not belonging anywhere.”
Like the determined detective she plays on “Law & Order: SVU,” Mariska’s detailed interviews with her brothers and sisters delve into their memories and help put the fragmented pieces of the Jayne Mansfield puzzle together.
“Sometimes keeping a secret doesn’t honor anyone,” Mariska concludes. “And it took me a very long time to figure that out.”
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “My Mom, Jayne” is an enlightening, empathetic 8 — streaming on HBO Max.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.