Jayne Mansfield Opens Up About Fame in This Rare Footage from Mariska Hargitay's Doc
The SVU star's late mother had a great answer when comedian Groucho Marx said he knew she wasn't really a "dumb blonde."
Jayne Mansfield is back in the spotlight, thanks to her daughter Mariska Hargitay. The real Jayne Mansfield, that is.
The Law & Order: SVU star produced a new documentary called My Mom Jayne, which premieres June 27, which explores the life and early death of the mother she barely got to know. The film features footage of the 1950s and '60s star that really puts her bubbly blonde persona into perspective. And when Hargitay visited Late Night with Seth Meyers on June 26, she shared a clip of Mansfield deftly handling some pretty rude questions from TV personality Groucho Marx during a 1962 appearance on his show Tell It to Groucho.
"You're actually, and I've told this to other people, you're not the dumb blonde that you pretend to be. And I think the people ought to know that you're really a bright, sentimental, and understanding person," says Marx, with a cigar in hand. "This is a whole facade of yours that isn't based on what you actually are. I think you're aware of that, Jayne. This is a kind of an act you do, isn't it?"
"Well, that's sweet of you. Thank you so much," Mansfield tells Marx. "I think that it's like this: the public pays money at the box office to see me in a certain way. So I think it's just all part—it's a role I'm playing as an actress."
Mansfield was killed in a car accident in 1967, with her children in the backseat. Hargitay was only 3 years old, so she never really got to know her famous mom until she dug deep into her life for My Mom Jayne.
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Mariska Hargitay described My Mom Jayne as "getting to do a movie with my mom"
"I think the thing that's most exciting, besides the actually getting to know my mom, [is] getting to do a movie with my mom," she told Meyers. "She certainly got to be seen as a three-dimensional person, which she was, and to learn about all the different facets of her—her musical ability, how serious of an actor she wanted to be, and the fact that she navigated five children and a career and the glamour of it all. I mean, it's hard getting it together, guys!"
Meyers — who said he cried at his desk watching the documentary — pointed out that the film reveals that Mansfield was "very funny."
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"That's something that made me so happy," Hargitay said. "The gift of making this movie was that there was so much archival [footage]. That was the gift, for a filmmaker but also when you're looking to know your mom and seeing these sacred, candid moments of her and these expressions that I never got to see, because so much of it was a pose and being a sex symbol and an icon and playing "the dumb blonde," which, you know, I was not a fan of growing up."
It's not that Mansfield needed an "image rehabilitation," Meyers said, but this is definitely a "new way" to look at the star.
"I do a good makeover," Hargitay quipped.
