Mariska Hargitay Went ‘Full Olivia Benson’ When She Met Her Biological Father

Olivia Benson isn’t the only one who can uncover family secrets. Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay reveals in her new documentary, My Mom Jayne, that Hungarian actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay is not her biological father. Hargitay’s mother, the iconic Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield, briefly separated from Mickey from 1963–64, during which time she met the Italian entertainer Nelson Sardelli, who, Mariska confirms in the doc, is her biological father. Mansfield died when Mariska was just 3 years old, so Mariska had to find out about her parentage on her own . After seeing a photo of of Sardelli, she immediately knew he was her father. “It was like the floor fell out from underneath me,” she says in the documentary, per Vanity Fair. “Like my infrastructure dissolved.”

Mariska met Sardelli for the first time after seeing one of his performances, but she wasn’t ready for a relationship at the time.” I went full Olivia Benson on him,” she told VF. “I was like, ‘I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything from you … I have a dad.’” She has since become close with Sardelli and his two daughters, though this is the first time she’s publicly acknowledged their relationship. “These two women that I love so much — I made them secrets! It’s so heartbreaking to me,” Mariska told VF, adding that she “made this movie to unburden all of us.”

My Mom Jayne premiered on May 17 at the Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Cannes Classics section. “Tonight I’m celebrating the power that film has for me to remember somebody I didn’t have the good fortune to know or grow up with,” Mariska said at the premiere, per Variety. The documentary dives into Mariska’s relationship with the specter of her mother’s bombshell, sex-symbol image in Hollywood. “I found myself being embarrassed by her,” she told Deadline on May 19. “Just wanting a normal mom.” She additionally told Deadline that the film was an “excavation,” saying “I look at it as an archaeological dig, an emotional archaeological dig.” My Mom Jayne premieres on HBO on June 27 — two days before the anniversary of Mansfield’s death.

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