Mariska Hargitay’s Dad on Being Married to Her Mom Jayne Mansfield
The famous parents of the Law & Order: SVU divorced soon after her birth in 1964.
Law & Order: SVU star and My Mom Jayne director Mariska Hargitay may have only had three years with mom Jayne Mansfield, but luckily she was raised by a dad like Mickey Hargitay.
The Hungarian bodybuilder met actress Mansfield when he was performing in Mae West's Las Vegas show in 1956, and she spotted him from the audience. "I'll have a steak and the tall man on the left," was was famously reported to have said. They were married in 1958 and had three children, but they divorced after Mariska Hargitay was born in 1964. Mansfield was killed in a car accident in 1967 at the age of 34.
Though they were no longer together, Mickey Hargitay spoke highly of his ex-wife and their three children years later.
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Mickey Hargitay said being Jayne Mansfield's husband was "one of the greatest experiences"
In a 1988 interview at his home in Beverly Hills, Mickey Hargitay said, "It was one of the greatest experiences of my life to be married to her. She was one of the greatest ladies in my life I've ever known."
A few months after Mansfield's death, Hargitay married Ellen Siano, who he remained married to until his death in 2006.
"Fortunately, not to change the subject, but I'm married to another greatest lady for 20 years," he said of Siano. "I'll tell you, she raised Jayne's children — I would call them her children today—for 20 years and I think if Jayne would see us, she would be very happy, and I'm sure she probably has."
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Jayne Mansfield was more than the public image she portrayed
Hargitay went on to explain why it's "so hard" to share his own feelings and experiences with Mansfield when she was such a public figure.
"You must remember that there is so many books written, so many articles have been written [about Jayne]," he said. "If I would say anything about Jayne, it would be so contradictive for anything else that has ever been said. I lived with her for eight years, and I met her in 1956, and to me she was entirely different than what people say about her and write about her. She was a great lady, and I'm very pleased to have have had this great experience."
Mariska Hargitay has also spoken about the differences between the public perception of her mother and what Mansfield was actually like.
“My mother was this amazing, beautiful, glamorous sex symbol — but people didn’t know that she played the violin and had a 160 IQ and had five kids and loved dogs,” Hargitay told People in a 2018 interview. “She was just so ahead of her time. She was an inspiration, she had this appetite for life, and I think I share that with her.”
Mariska Hargitay revealed in 2025 that Mickey Hargitay is not her biological father
Mariska Hargitay learned that Mickey was not her biological father at the age of 25, but didn't reveal the story publicly until 2025. Her biological father was singer Nelson Sardelli, but the actress and producer told Vanity Fair that that knowledge changed nothing when it came to her relationship with Mickey Hargitay.
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"He was everything, my idol," she said. "He loved me so much, and I knew it. I also knew something else — I just didn't know what I knew."
"I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me," she continued. "I'm Mickey Hargitay's daughter—that is not a lie. [My Mom Jayne] is kind of a love letter to him, because there's no one that I was closer to on this planet."
