After 30 years of secrecy, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay has revealed who her biological father was—and it was not Mickey Hargitay, the man she has celebrated as her hero.
The actress had known for decades and even met her biological father as an adult, but in not acknowledging it publicly Hargitay felt she was “living a lie,” she told Vanity Fair in an interview ahead of the premier of her documentary, “My Mom Jayne,” about the mother she lost at age 3.
Mansfield filed for divorce from Mickey Hargitay in 1963, five years after their 1958 marriage, and launched into a flashy fling with Italian Las Vegas-based entertainer Nelson Sardelli. A few months before Mariska was born in 1964, Mansfield reconciled with ex-husband Hargitay. Three years later, Mansfield was killed in a car accident at age 34, with Mariska and her two brothers in the backseat.
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Jayne Mansfield in 1958. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
It was Mickey Hargitay who raised Mariska and her brothers after Mansfield was killed, and though she knew she was loved, “I also knew something else—I just didn’t know what I knew,” she told Vanity Fair.
Hartigay had the nagging sensation that something set her apart from her siblings. The reason snapped into focus when she was 25 and someone showed her a photo of Sardelli, with its unmistakable resemblance. But when she asked Mickey Hargitay, he denied Sardelli had fathered her, so she never spoke of it again.
Five years later, Hargitay, then 30, went to see Sardelli in Atlantic City and introduced herself after his performance.
“I’ve been waiting 30 years for this moment,” the teary-eyed Sardelli said, according to Vanity Fair. Out of loyalty to Mickey, Hargitay went “full Olivia Benson” on Sardelli, presaging the “SVU” detective she has since portrayed for 26 years to forcefully state that she already had a dad and wanted nothing from Sardelli.
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Singer and comedian Nelson Sardelli in 1972. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Mariska Hargitay gradually forged relationships with Sardelli and her two half-sisters as she slowly came to embrace the truth. But it took another 30 years from the day she met him for the now 61-year-old Hargitay to go public. She now understands why her childhood played out as it did.
“I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me,” she told Vanity Fair. “I’m Mickey Hargitay’s daughter — that is not a lie.”
Both sets of siblings and Sardelli participated in the documentary, which ultimately brings to life the mother that Hargitay never got to know, and got a four-minute standing ovation when it premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. It will also screen at next month’s Tribeca Film Festival before streaming on HBO starting in late June.
