Mariska Hargitay Just Won 2 Emmys for the Documentary She Made About Her Mother, Jayne Mansfield
by Chrissy Stockton · Thought CatalogUpdated 4 minutes ago, September 8, 2026
She was 3 years old and in the back seat of the car crash that killed her mother. Nearly 60 years later, Mariska Hargitay made the film that finally told Jayne Mansfield’s story her way — and it just won her two of the biggest awards in television.
The two wins came 20 years after Hargitay’s last Primetime Emmy, the 2006 Lead Actress trophy for “Law & Order: SVU.” This time she took Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Directing for “My Mom Jayne,” her feature directorial debut, at the Creative Arts ceremony on September 5.
The film reclaims Mansfield from the “dumb blonde” caricature and treats her as the ambitious, multilingual performer the studio system boxed in. Mansfield died at 34 in a 1967 car crash near New Orleans. Hargitay, then 3, and two of her brothers were in the back seat and survived.
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In making it, Hargitay also publicly confirmed that her biological father is Italian-Brazilian singer Nelson Sardelli, not the bodybuilder and actor Mickey Hargitay who raised her and whom she still calls Dad. She learned the truth in her 20s, from a photograph.
Accepting the documentary award, she quoted Gloria Steinem, who had died three days earlier: “Please tell your own story.” She said she “got to know my mother through telling the story, and it is a gift that is indescribable,” then dedicated the night to her mom.
The wins bring her Emmy count to four. On September 14 she hosts the main 78th Primetime Emmy Awards on NBC — the first woman to solo-host the show in 15 years.
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