Hargitay is overcome with emotion. She received her own Globe for NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” in 2005, nearly 50 years after her mother accepted the honor — but Mansfield wasn’t present to witness her daughter’s career milestone, as she died in a car crash when Hargitay was just 3 years old. (Hargitay and brothers Mickey Jr. and Zoltan, who were in the back seat, survived the 1967 wreck that killed Mansfield, her attorney and boyfriend Sam Brody, and their driver.) How do you relate to a parent you can’t remember? How do you uphold their legacy without ever having known who they really were?
End of carousel
These are some of the questions Hargitay grapples with in “My Mom Jayne,” a poignant HBO documentary that marks her debut as a film director. Hargitay is an incredibly forthcoming narrator, admitting at 61 that she spent much of her life embarrassed by her mother, who aspired to be a dramatic actress but instead found fame as a sex symbol in comedic projects. The first-time filmmaker turns to her siblings, who were old enough to form substantial memories of Mansfield, to help humanize the woman Life magazine once deemed “Broadway’s smartest dumb blonde.” The process of making “My Mom Jayne” unlocks a level of empathy in Hargitay that the film then encourages viewers to summon within themselves as well.
