Warning: this story contains spoilers from My Mom Jayne
While making her new documentary My Mom Jayne, Mariska Hargitay had to have difficult conversations with her family members.
The film, which marks Hargitay’s feature film directorial debut, features her various siblings as well her stepmom, Ellen, and her biological father, Nelson Sardelli.
In My Mom Jayne, Hargitay, 61, also sits down with her youngest brother Tony for an emotional conversation about their mother’s relationship with his father, Matt Cimber.
“I think Matt was the worst thing that ever happened to [Jayne]” Mansfield’s former secretary Raymond “Rusty” Strait says in the film. “The only thing good that came out of that was Tony.”
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“My father, Matt, never really talked about her,” Tony says of Mansfield. “I guess it’s kind of unfortunate because I never asked. And I don’t know why.”
“But your dad, and our mother, there are things that I’ve heard that I’m always fearful to bring up with you,” Hargitay says. “Things that are really ugly.”
“Yes. And I’m sure. And I’m sure. But I don’t know those ugly things,” Tony says. “I don’t know that I want to know. Because I don’t want to carry it. Because I don’t know what good it does.”
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Hargitay, who is the daughter of Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield, is the fourth of her mother’s five children. Her older siblings include Jayne Marie Mansfield from her mother’s first marriage, to Paul Mansfield; Mickey Jr. and Zoltan Hargitay from her mother’s marriage to her father, Mickey; and Tony Cimber, from her mother’s marriage to Matt Cimber.
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Later in the film, Mickey also discusses his memories of his mother’s subsequent relationship with her divorce attorney-turned-boyfriend Sam Brody.
“I didn’t like him at all. There was a lot of fighting. I remember one time going into mom’s room in the morning, and I remember her wearing sunglasses, and I was like, you know, taken aback by that. You know, as a little boy, why would your mom be wearing sunglasses?” he recalls wondering. “But then at some point she took them off, and she had black eyes. I remember that hurt. I knew [Brody] was a bad man. I knew it, right away.”
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My Mom Jayne premieres on HBO Max at 8 p.m. ET June 27.
