My Mom Jayne review – the beautiful, touching tale of a film star, by the daughter who lost her aged three

Actor Mariska Hartigay was too young to properly remember her mother Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car crash. So she has made this thoughtful, articulate biopic to get closer to herI was braced, I must say. My love for Olivia Benson and all 26 seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that she has carried on her formidable shoulders knows no bounds. When I grow up I want to be just like her, especially if I can have the season nine haircut. But the prospect of Mariska Hargitay, the actor who plays her, directing and presenting a documentary about Hargitay’s late mother, the troubled film star Jayne Mansfield, who was killed in a car accident when her daughter was three? The spirit has to quail within, does it not? There are very few children and even fewer children-cum-actors who should be allowed to do this. The likelihood of a schmaltzy, hagiographic spectacle is in fact not a likelihood at all – it is a virtual certainty.But My Mom Jayne is tender rather than schmaltzy, compassionate rather than hagiographic and an evident labour of love for all involved. Hargitay works pretty much chronologically, and – having only a memory of her mother touching her hair as she walked past while she was eating cereal – begins by eliciting some from her older siblings: Jayne Marie (her half-sister by Jayne’s first husband, Paul Mansfield); Mickey Jr (named after their adored father, and Mansfield’s second and best husband by far, the Hungarian actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay, who brought them up); and Zoltan. All are articulate, thoughtful and – nearly 60 years after their mother’s death – still emotional. “Can you cut for a minute?” Zoltan asks his sister after the first question. “It feels more like I remember an essence, a nuance of the person, if that makes sense,” says Mickey. “I remember her presence and some of the feelings of that time … the feeling was good in those early days.” Whenever any of them talks about Mansfield, the shock and grief still write themselves across their faces. It is a powerful reminder of how deep some losses go.My Mom Jayne aired on Sky Documentaries and is on Now Continue reading...

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