A hidden family secret!

My Mom Jayne (2025)

Produced and Directed: Marishka Hargitay

https://www.hbo.com/movies/my-mom-jayne-a-film-by-mariska-hargitay

I thought it would be one of those soap operas about a daughter losing her mother too soon and how she had an incomplete life growing up without her mother. True, it covers all of that, but it also encompasses much more.

To begin, this documentary was presented by Mariska Hargitay, who is closely associated with the long-running TV police procedural drama 'Law & Order: SVU'. (For Mike Myers fans, she is also remembered in 'The Love Guru' as Myers' obsession).

Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Jayne Mansfield, the sultry star of 1960s Hollywood, and her second husband, Mickey Hargitay, a Hungarian-born bodybuilder. Jayne was married three times and had a few affairs in between. In 1967, she was killed in a car accident when the vehicle she was travelling in collided with the back of a truck. She was accompanied by three of her children and her solicitor, with whom she was dating. The crash was severe, with the car sliced at the top as it went under the truck, leading to rumours that Mansfield was decapitated. She was not. The children, including Mariska, who were travelling with her, survived. The three adults lost their lives. It is believed that after their tragic accident, Americans made it compulsory for tractor-trailers to be fitted with 'Mansfield Bars', underride guards designed to prevent cars from sliding underneath in collisions.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/11/story-behind-
infamous-sophia-loren-jayne-mansfield-photo

By that time, Jayne was already divorced from her second husband, Mickey Hargitay, as well as her third husband. Mickey and his new wife took in all the children as their own. Mariska was especially close to her father, Mickey. Mariska, the fourth child, was three when her mother died and naturally has no recollection of the times spent with her mother. Because of the press's constant gossip, rumours, and vilification of Jayne Mansfield's life and accident, Mickey forbade the children from reading anything about their mother. Any information Mariska received about their mother was through her elder sister (#1), who was fourteen years her senior.

 

Mariska revealed a secret she had kept close to her heart for 30 years in this documentary. That is indeed what draws the crowd to the show. When she was 25, she was invited by a Jayne Mansfield fan to view his collection of pictures. It was here that she was aware of the circulating rumour that Mariska could be Nelson Sardelli's daughter. During the tail-end of Mansfield's marriage to Mickey, she was having an open affair with a stage entertainer. Their affair ended soon after she became pregnant, and she returned to Mickey. 

https://koolfmabilene.com/the-story-behind-these-safety-
bars-on-semi-trucks-ties-into-a-famous-actress/

Hariska met Sardelli, and finally, the cat was out of the bag. Sardelli was indeed the father, and Mickey filled in the gap. The rest of the documentary is about an outpouring of emotions upon meeting a lost father, appreciating the magnanimity of Hargitay, and trying to understand the mind of her mother, who has gone through a lot, juggling motherhood with succeeding as a successful, yet somewhat stereotypical, blonde on screen. For the record, Mansfield was no dumb blonde. She is said to have an IQ of between 149 and 163. She could also play the violin and the piano at a high performance level.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It was always burning!

Have I Got Something To Tell You
Author: Malachi Edwin Vethamani

Listen
Do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell?
Whoa, oh, oh
Closer
Let me whisper in your ear
Say the words you long to hear
I'm in love with you
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh ooh…

Not too long ago, that was how it used to be. Now it is 'on your face'. Personal liberty, self-expression, and space availability have led to this. We didn't start the fire; it was always burning… just that it has found mainstream. 

Take the movies South Pacific and Ben Hur, which were made around the late 1950s. Movie connoisseurs would agree that those films had many not-so-subtle references to homoerotism. Nobody raised a red flag then, even though the American Motion Pictures Production Code (Hays Code) was quite clear about its guidelines regarding romance, gay issues, exposure of flesh and cleavage. The filmmakers tried to make South Pacific a feel-good war movie. Aside from the lush jungles, sunsets and beaches, it showed half-naked happy sailors dancing away into the evening. Ben Hur was marketed as a religious epic; again, these unspoken subtexts were buried in the story. The classic scene which did not raise an eyebrow then (but it does now) was when Ben-Hur and Messala drank wine from their chalices in an interlocked arm position, staring into each other's eyes. 

Both created little fanfare, then. … but it was always burning. 

Stories like these were also whispered in the hush in a profoundly conservative society like ours. Things were left to be heard and acted on the sly. Instead, people wore blinkers or buried their heads in the sand rather than accepted reality. 

Malachi Edwin Vethamani's 'Have I Got Something To Tell You' is a collection of stories that may be close to our hearts. It reminds us of the extraordinary journey that we, the citizens of Malaysia, experience in our daily lives. Challenges with race, religion, governmental policies, societal discrimination, and adolescent challenges are all too familiar.

South Pacific

Ben Hur

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.