June 17 (UPI) — Law & Order: SVU actress Mariska Hargitay says creating a documentary about her mother, late Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield, was a “cathartic” experience.
The actress discussed My Mom Jayne, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Monday.
“I feel like I’ve been preparing, my entire life, to make it,” she told Colbert. “But I was ready, and during COVID, I — you know, we all had some down time and I found these boxes of fan letters that I’d received from fans that were all pertaining to my mom, whether they were, you know, people that had met her or had a story to share with me or a playbill, or something special.”
“I had the time to sit with each letter and people had sent me things that were truly, like, a gift, because it felt like pieces of her, and so I said, ‘I think I want to dig in here,'” she added. “…It’s been such a joy to go on this archaeological dig, really, about her. It’s been just an exquisite and rewarding and cathartic and extraordinary journey.”
Hargitay, 61, was three years old when her mother died at age 37 in 1967.
In addition to sorting through letters, photographs and her late mother’s belongings, Hargitay interviewed her half-siblings to create a more complete picture of Mansfield.
The documentary also shares that Hungarian bodybuilder and actor Mickey Hargitay is not Hargitay’s biological father. The actress learned in her 20s that Nelson Sardelli, an Italian singer, is her birth father.
My Mom Jayne is set to air on HBO and stream on Max June 27.
