Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Variety reports:
Mariska Hargitay will be telling the story of her late mother, Jayne Mansfield, in a new HBO documentary, “My Mom Jayne.” The doc is Hargitay’s feature film directorial debut, marking the first time she publicly dives into Mansfield’s story and legacy, nearly sixty years after her death.
“This movie is a labor of love and longing. It’s a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I’d never owned, and a reclaiming of my mother’s story and my own truth,” Hargitay says.
Mansfield tragically died in a car accident at 34 when Hargitay was only 3 years old; she and her two brothers were in the backseat of the car.
Auto Week reports:
You probably have seen one of those reflector-tape adorned bars hanging below the tractor-trailer in front of you at a red light or out on the highway. Turns out it’s known as a Mansfield bar, and it didn’t used to appear on truck trailers. On June 28th, 1967, actress Jayne Mansfield, her driver, her lawyer and three of her kids were driving to New Orleans for an interview after an appearance in Mississippi.
While cruising along the highway at two o’clock in the morning, the driver didn’t see a semi-truck that had slowed because of a mosquito fogging truck ahead and Mansfield’s driver couldn’t react in time. The car slid under the semi-trailer and Mansfield and the other adults didn’t survive. Following her death, the U.S. government mandated trailers have a rear bumper to help prevent similar deaths.
Hargitay has played Olivia Benson for 26 years.
Mariska Hargitay to Direct HBO Doc About Mom Jayne Mansfield: ‘It’s the Search for a Mother I Never Knew’ https://t.co/DzB6w9fNAR
— Variety (@Variety) April 8, 2025