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The actress and model rose to fame in the 1950s.
The Gist
- Jayne Mansfield gave birth to five children before her death at the age of 34 in 1967.
- The Old Hollywood icon welcomed Jayne Marie with her first husband Paul Mansfield.
- She shared Mickey Jr., Zoltán, and Mariska with her second husband, Mickey Hargitay.
- She welcomed a fifth child, Tony, with her third husband, Matt Cimber.
Jayne Mansfield rose to prominence in the 1950s as an actress, model, and Hollywood sex symbol, captivating audiences with roles in films like The Girl Can’t Help It, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Too Hot to Handle, and Promises! Promises!.
Outside of being a public persona, Mansfield was also a wife and mother to five children: Jayne Marie Mansfield, Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay, Jr., Zoltán Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay, and Antonio “Tony” Cimber. In 1967, the Old Hollywood icon died in a tragic car accident and was later memorialized by her daughter, Mariska, in the 2025 documentary My Mom Jayne.
“She was a kind, compassionate, funny, empathetic, ambitious woman,” Hargitay, who is her late mother’s second youngest child, said during an interview with Today. She also touched on her mom’s talents at playing violin and piano, describing her as “an artist with a whole lot of dreams and an appetite for love.”
In 1950, Mansfield and her then-husband, Paul, became parents for the first time with the arrival of her namesake, Jayne Marie Mansfield. They divorced in 1954. Four years later, Jayne married Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay and welcomed sons Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay, Jr. and Zoltán Hargitay in 1958 and 1960, respectively.
The couple briefly split up in 1963 before getting back together during Mansfield’s pregnancy with Mariska, who was born in 1964. They divorced later that same year, at which point the actress married Italian movie director Matt Cimber. Mansfield and Cimber welcomed Antonio “Tony” Cimber in 1965; they were in the process of splitting up when she passed away in 1967.
“I grew up sort of with a hole in my heart,” Mariska told Extra. “I think any child who loses a parent, or especially a mother, at that age, it’s really hard to make sense of it and integrate and understand. But, as a mother of three now, I understand so much more.”
Ahead, here’s everything you should know about Jayne Mansfield’s children: Jayne Marie Mansfield, Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay, Jr., Zoltán Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay, and Antonio “Tony” Cimber.
Their childhood home was called the “Pink Palace.”
Following Mansfield and Hargitay’s 1958 nuptials, the couple relocated to a home on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles that they quickly dubbed the “Pink Palace,” per Architectural Digest.
“Mansfield’s favorite color had been pink ever since she was a little girl in Dallas,” the publication explained. “Accordingly, the house, previously unexceptional in white stucco, was repainted in a pink mixed with a generous salting of quartz grains that sparkled in the southern California sun.”
Mansfield was with three of her kids when she died.
On June 29, 1967, Mansfield left Biloxi, Mississippi, for New Orleans, Louisiana, where she was scheduled to appear on television at noon, per the New York Times. Ronald Harrison was in the driver’s seat; Mansfield’s attorney, Samuel Brody, also sat up front. Mickey Jr., Zoltán, and Mariska Hargitay were asleep in the backseat.
The fivesome’s vehicle collided with the back of a trailer truck, killing all three adults instantly; the kids, meanwhile, suffered minor injuries. “I don’t remember the accident,” Mariska told Vanity Fair in a 2025 interview. “I don’t even remember being told that my mother had died.”
Many years later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began requiring “Mansfield Bars” to be installed on newly manufactured trailers and semi-trailers to prevent cars from sliding under large trucks. The 1998 mandate was named in honor of Mansfield.
Her daughter Mariska followed in her footsteps.
Of Mansfield’s five children, Mariska Hargitay has had the most success in Hollywood. The veteran actress has starred in Law & Order: SVU since 1999, making her character Olivia the longest-running in primetime drama history. “I could have quit a million times, but my dad drilled into me that our family doesn’t quit,” she once told Parade. “So if you don’t get it, it means you’re not ready and you have to get up and try again.”
Mariska and Mansfield also share two accolades in common: both women have a Golden Globe and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “It’s so incredible because my brother Mickey and my sister Jayne Marie were actually here, right here, when my mother got her star, so I can’t imagine what they’re feeling,” Mariska said at her 2013 ceremony. “Probably enough with the stars already.”
Mariska collects her mother’s memorabilia.
To preserve her mother’s legacy, she began collecting pictures, old film stills, and other memorabilia tied to Mansfield’s life and career. The one thing she wasn’t interested in owning, however, was books about the public persona the world famously knew.
“Why should I read those? I lived with an encyclopedia—my dad,” she told People. “And my mom [Ellen] calls me up to tell me when one of her movies is on TV. My mother was a young knockout, but she was also brilliant. She just gave the public what they wanted.”
Her eldest Jayne Marie graced the pages of ‘Playboy.’
Of course, Mariska wasn’t the only member of Mansfield’s kids to follow in her footsteps. The Promises! Promises! actress frequently appeared in Playboy through the 1960s and ‘70s, and her eldest daughter soon followed suit. Jayne Marie posed for the magazine for the first time in 1976. She was the first daughter of a Playmate to do so.
Zoltán also works in the film industry.
Like his sister Mariska, Zoltán has also pursued a career in Hollywood, albeit behind the scenes. He was a set designer on The Morning Show in 2021 and has worked on a variety of projects since the mid-1990s.
Zoltán was seriously injured in an accident at the zoo as a child.
In 1966, Zoltán was 6 years old when he suffered serious injuries after being attacked by a lion at Jungleland U.S.A, a private zoo in Sherman Oaks, California. According to the Associated Press, Mansfield was posing for pictures when the lion attacked her son from behind, biting his neck and head.
After undergoing brain surgery, Zoltán made a full recovery, and Jungleland U.S.A. shut down shortly afterward.
Mickey Jr. and Tony aren’t interested in Hollywood.
Unlike his little sister and brother, Mickey Jr. did not pursue a career on the silver screen. Instead, the entrepreneur opened Mickey Hargitay’s Plants in 1980. He later opened up about his decision to avoid the spotlight in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“[My family] made decisions to reach for the stars and I’ve wanted to keep my feet on the ground,” he told the publication. “I’ve wanted to do something that seems more grounded and is more real.”
Tony, for his part, is a real estate agent in Las Vegas, according to his LinkedIn.
All five kids appeared in ‘My Mom Jayne.’
In 2025, Mariska directed and produced a documentary about her mother’s life titled My Mom Jayne. The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the documentary prize L’Œil d’or. All five of Mansfield’s children participated in the project.
“Being in Cannes with the family was kind of like tectonic plates shifting,” Hargitay told InStyle. “It was so beautiful, and to see my children proud of me was…I don’t have the word for it but [it was] deeply meaningful.”
Another central theme of the movie was Mariska’s parentage. When she was 25, the actress learned that Nelson Sardelli was her biological father, not Mickey Hargitay. Mariska recalled a conversation with a Jayne Mansfield memorabilia collector that set the record straight.
“I think my whole life, all the millions of moments … little fragments of a memory of a moment of things I caught that went into my subconscious,” Hariskay recalled on an episode of “Call Her Daddy.” “Then I said, ‘Who’s Nelson?’ That’s when I knew. And I think he couldn’t believe that I didn’t know. I was 25. How could I not know?”
Read the original article on InStyle
