Mariska Hargitay had her siblings’ blessings to tell the story of their mom, Jayne Mansfield, in a new HBO documentary — and the family cried when they all first watched it together.
Appearing on the Thursday, June 26, episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, Hargitay shared new details about how she approached her siblings with her plans to create her doc, My Mom Jayne, about their late mother.
“Well, first of all, it was very sweet, because I flew out to L.A. to go meet with them and say, ‘I want to do this. You know, I want your blessing. I don’t want to do it without your blessing,’” Hargitay, 61, recalled to Meyers, 51. “And of course, they were all hesitant and reticent and were like, ‘I don’t know what this means.’”
She continued: “None of them are in … you know, they don’t make movies. They’re not actors, they’re not in show business at all. But they ended it with, ‘We trust you,’ which was pretty an extraordinary thing to hear from your siblings.”
Mariska Hargitay Seeks Truth About Parents in ‘My Mom Jayne’ Trailer
The late 1950s-era actress had five children in total: Jayne Marie Mansfield was born in 1950 and shared with first husband Paul Mansfield. Sons Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay Jr. and Zoltán Hargitay as well as daughter Mariska were born in 1958, 1960 and 1964, respectively, and shared with second husband Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay. Jayne and third husband Antonio “Tony” Cimber welcomed Antonio “Tony” Cimber in 1965.
Mansfield was just 34 when she died in a car crash in 1967. Hargitay, who was 3 at the time, was pulled from the wreckage of the fatal crash. Her brothers Mickey Jr. and Zoltán were also traveling in the car during the incident.
The Law & Order SVU star also shared with Meyers that once the documentary was finished, she gathered her siblings again to experience a “private, intimate” showing of the finished product.
“I again, flew out just to show it to them, and we had this private screening. And it was one of the highlights of my life, really,” she said on the talk show.
Mariska Hargitay’s Heartwarming Quotes About Late Mom Jayne Mansfield
The actress added, “And there were four seats across, and so with one brother, then my sister, me and my other brother, and within 10 minutes in, the four of us were sitting in two seats. We held hands through the entire film, and it was just really beautiful. And we all cried, and my sister said, which was so moving to me, ‘I feel like we’re four people with one beating heart.’”