Warning: this story contains spoilers from My Mom Jayne.
NEED TO KNOW
Mariska Hargitay got the perfect gift when she turned 60 in January 2024.
In My Mom Jayne, Hargitay’s documentary about the life and legacy of her late mother, Jayne Mansfield, Hargitay’s husband, Peter Hermann, surprises her with her mother’s white grand piano.
The scene, which comes at the end of the film, features Hargitay arriving at a storage unit in Los Angeles where she ultimately finds the refurbished piano, her husband and their three children waiting.
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Hargitay quickly asks Hermann if the instrument, which she’d been trying to track down herself, finally belongs to them.
“Happy birthday,” confirms Hermann.
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The Tribeca Festival premiere of My Mom Jayne on June 13 was held at New York City’s Carnegie Hall — a venue Mansfield had always dreamed of playing. She was a talented pianist and violinist before her death at the age of 34 in 1967, when Hargitay was just 3 years old.
The documentary follows Hargitay, now 61, as she seeks to understand the mother she hardly knew, and part of her process included collecting whatever memorabilia or possessions of Mansfield’s that she could find.
Singer Engelbert Humperdinck had purchased Mansfield’s Los Angeles mansion and ultimately hung onto her piano, and Hargitay had always been hoping that he’d be willing to part with it. She’d been in contact with Humperdinck’s daughter Louise for months to try and work something out.
While PEOPLE was at the film’s international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Hargitay shared the backstory of her husband’s surprise with the audience.
“It was my first day of shooting and Peter calls me — he took the kids home. He was flying back to New York with the kids and he said, ‘Get in the car right now. I have an Uber outside waiting for you.’ I said, ‘are you drunk?'” she recalled, explaining to her husband that she was headed to interview her brother Zoltan as per the schedule.
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But, after eventually acquiescing to Hermann’s insistent wishes, Hargitay rode inside the Uber, unsure of her final destination.
“Peter wouldn’t answer the phone. August, my kids, nobody would answer the phone. And then I pulled up to that storage facility and Peter had called [producer] Trish [Adlesic]. And so my DP and my camera crew that was supposed to be at my brother’s house was there waiting,” she said. “So I had no idea that the piano was going to be in the movie. It was a total surprise, and it was pure magic.”
My Mom Jayne premieres June 27 on HBO and Max.
