Mariska Hargitay remembers her famous mother, Jayne Mansfield
Mariska Hargitay graces the latest cover of People magazine and in the accompanying feature, she reminisced about her famous mother, Jayne Mansfield.
Mansfield was a voluptuous, blonde bombshell who was featured on the silver screen in movies like “The Girl Can’t Help It.”
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She might have been the star of "Too Hot to Handle," but she was also the wife of former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay and mother of 5 children, including her now-famous daughter Mariska -- one of the highest paid women on television for "Law & Order: SVU."
"My mother was this amazing, beautiful, glamorous sex symbol -- but people didn’t know that she played the violin and had a 160 IQ and had five kids and loved dogs," she said of Mansfield. "Someone once said about [remembering] my mother: 'All you have to do is look in the mirror.'"
See photos of Jayne Mansfield:
Mansfield tragically died in a car crash in 1967 when Hargitay was just 3 years old.
"The way I've lived with loss is to lean into it," Hargitay told People. "As the saying goes, the only way out is through. In my life, certainly I've tried to avoid pain, loss, feeling things. But I've learned instead to really lean into it, because sooner or later you have to pay the piper."
With a star right next to her mother’s on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, though, it’s clear that her mother’s influence is always there.
Hargitay was raised by her father and stepmom, Ellen. Her father died in 2006.
See photos of Mariska Hargitay and her husband:
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