[CAUTION: this review contains spoilers.]
If all you know about Jayne Mansfield is that photo where Sophia Loren sneaks a side-eye glance at her rival’s ample cleavage, you need to check out My Mom Jayne.
The HBO documentary, which opened to glowing reviews in Cannes in May, offers a sympathetic and compelling portrait of the former Playboy model and so-called “blonde bombshell.” Raising the stakes beyond that of simply another movie star biography, the film is also a voyage of discovery for the director, Mansfield’s daughter, long-time Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit star Mariska Hargitay.
In June of 1967, Mansfield met a tragic end in a horrendous car accident while riding with her driver, another adult, four Chihuahuas, and three of her children — including then three-year-old Mariska. Mansfield and the rest of her front seat passengers, including the dogs, were killed. That the children survived is miraculous given photos of the mangled wreck of the car.
Hargitay was then raised by her father — former Mr. Universae and Mansfield’s husband No, 2, Mickey Hargitay — and his third wife, Ellen Siano. That led to a happy childhood, and Hargitay admits she spent years ignoring her biological mom’s movie star pedigree. She was embarrassed during her Catholic school upbringing by the cheesecake photos of Mansfield, groomed by her studio as the next Marilyn Monroe. It wasn’t until the COVID pandemic that Hargitay, while tossing away items in boxes in the basement of her house, stumbled upon some genuinely moving fan letters sent to her mother. These piqued her interest and set her on this documentary of discovery.
The film shows that there was so much more to Mansfield than what Loren and others spotted at first glance. Mansfield was an accomplished pianist and violynist, for example, performing both instruments on TV talk and variety shows in the late 1950s. She gained fame on Broadway as well as the big screen opposite Walter Matthau in “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” and also in the rock ‘n’ roll-themed “The Girl Can’t Help It” in 1956.
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There is also a fascinating clip from the quiz series Tell it to Groucho where Groucho Marx, who hads a bit part in “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?”, tells Mansfield that “you’re not the dumb blond that you pretend to be. I think people ought to know that you’re a really bright, sentimental and understanding person.”
Groucho saying the secret word should have helped any career. Mansfield’s own adventurous romantic life , combined by the tabloids of the time, was a lot to overcome. Manfield, who died at 34, had three marriages and at least five children. The Playboy connection both helped and hurt her career. As blonde bombshells fell out of fashion by the end of the ’50s, 20th Century Fox started loaning her out to foreign studios to make cheap, exploitation flicks.
Mansfield was with husband No. 2, Mickey Hargitay, when Mariska was born in 1964. By then, Mansfield was pretty much locked into exploiting her own sexy image at personal appearances and club reviews.
The documentary becomes more about Mariska in the second half, although the director never gets in the way of rediscovering and rehabilitating her mother’s reputation. Among the startling revelations in the second half is that Mickey Hargitay was not really her father. Mariska learns at 25, after a happy childhood being raised by Mickey and his third wife, that she was the result of an affair between her mother and a Vegas crooner named Nelson Sardelli.
This did not provoke sympathy toward her mother and also cast doubts upon the trust she had enjoyed with the man who had raised her. Whe she was 30, Hargitay travelled to Vegas and, after a show, confronted her biological father. Miraculously, that went really well with talks lasting through the night. Feelings of abandonment were addressed. Hargitay was not looking for a father figure; she already had one in Mickey, and they remained close right up to his death in 2007.
Sardelli was the first one interviewed by Hargitay for the documentary, a process that went so well and without judgement that it set the tone for subsequent interviews. He talks not of a tawdry affair but a true love match. Hargitay was thrilled to learn that she had a whole family of half brothers and sisters, most of whom are also featured in the film and are just as cool as their dad.
The eventual take away is that the little girl who survived a horrible car accident and lost her mother at three discovers in her sixties that, despite some crazy twists and turns, she was always loved. My Mom Jayne turns a notorious tabloid queen and a victim of a violent death into an accomplished working woman and mother to be admired for more than her measurements. Thanks to a daughter who took the long view, what Groucho tried to explain in 1961 is made clear in 2025. The secret word is “feel-good.”
My Mom Jayne can be streamed now on demand on HBO Max and on Crave.
