Brilliant ‘My Mom Jayne’ brings Nelson Sardelli’s saga to the public
It was a Las Vegas secret that really wasn’t. It was known, but not discussed. Nelson Sardelli made sure of it, 60 years ago.
An icon in the local entertainment community Sardelli arrived in Las Vegas in 1965, to work the lounge at the Thunderbird hotel-casino. The rumor was that the dashing showman had an affair with Hollywood sex symbol Jayne Mansfield.
The story was even more entangled. Word was, Sardelli was the biological father of the fourth child of Mansfield and her actor/bodybuilder ex-husband Mickey Hargitay. The little girl was originally known as Maria, a nickname given to her by her mom.
TV fans worldwide would come to know youngest child as Mariska Hargitay, who played Olivia Benson on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for 26 seasons.
Tailed by speculation of his out-of-wedlock daughter, Sardelli showed up in Las Vegas launch a career in Vegas lounges and showrooms. He opened for Judy Garland at the Sahara — the legend’s last opening act — and headlined the Flamingo and Riviera, among many hotel-casinos.
At the start, Sardelli made a plea to the local entertainment scribes who could help him realize, or wipe out, those dreams.
“When I arrived, there were just three guys that here, Ralph Pearl, Joe Delaney and Forrest Duke,” Sardelli says. “They came to me and said, ‘Are you the Nelson that just had that thing with Jayne?’ I said, ‘Do me a favor, see my show. If you think I suck, crucify me. Put an end to my career. But never mention my relationship with her.’”
A daughter’s exploration
Decades later, Hargitay herself has made that relationship know in her remarkable documentary “My Mom Jayne.” The film was released on HBO Max on Friday. The doc is Hargitay’s directorial debut. She assumes the role of investigative journalist in her own life.
Hargitay sits down with Sardelli, and her half-sisters Giovanna and Pietra Sardelli.
The actress also interviews her siblings from the Mansfield-Hargitay marriage. The result is an often powerful, disquieting and ultimately rewarding process from those who know their mother only through film and TV, and newspaper clippings.
The story unfolds like a Hollywood saga. Sardelli and Mansfield met after a Sardelli performance in Atlanta in 1963, when Mansfield was in the process of divorcing Mickey Hargitay. Within 45 minutes of meeting Sardelli, Mansfield said the engaging entertainer would give her the Italian child she always wanted.
The two ignited a romance that burned hot and fast. They were spotted in public frequently, appeared together onstage occasionally and traveled abroad in her film career. While on Rome when Mansfield was filming the parody “Panic Button,” the two entered St. Peter’s Basilica.
Swept away by romance, Mansfield mused about marriage and the couple moving someplace together as they toured the walk through the cathedral. But as the couple left, she turned to Sardelli and said, “Suppose we get married and I get pregnant by another man? Would you still want me?”
Sardelli says he realized Mansfield was projecting that she was pregnant, and he was the father.
The relationship ended by the time they hit the steps leaving St. Peter’s.
“I am 29 years old at the time, my culture is Catholic and Brazilian/Italian. This was not acceptable on many, many levels,” Sardelli says in a chat after the doc’s streaming premiere. “By the time we hit the first step, I decided then to tell her goodbye, and never to talk to her again. That’s how we left it.”
Direct questioning
In the documentary, Hargitay asks her biological father, “You knew that she was pregnant with your child?”
“Yes, Mariska, I am not denying it,” Sardelli answers, tears welling, “and I say this is the biggest shame in my life. I was wrong.”
Mansfield and Sardelli split up in June of ‘63. By October, Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay reconciled, telling reporters that their fourth child was his. Mariska Hargitay was born the following January.
Mariska would grow up believing that Mickey Hargitay was her father. She had not been confronted with information to the contrary. But retrospectively, in the doc, she says she notices in newsreels and TV clips that her mother keeps her at a distance compared to her older siblings.
“It’s as if I’m being kind of left on my own,” she says.
Death and discovery
Three-year-old Maria and siblings Mickey Hargitay Jr. and Zoltan Hargitay were injured in the auto accident that killed Mansfield, attorney Samuel Brody; and their driver, Ronald B. Harrison on June 29, 1967 — the 58th anniversary of the tragedy is just four days after Hargitay’s documentary premiere.
Hargitay has no active memory of her mother. It wasn’t until she was 25 that she learned Sardelli was her biological father. She found out in a random, stunning moment, during visit to the home of Sabin Gray, president of the Jayne Mansfield Fan Club.
As spelled out Hargitay’s description in the documentary, Gray asked, “Do you want to see a photo of Nelson?”
“Who is Nelson?” Hargitay recalls asking Gray. “He turned white as a ghost, he panicked and said, “It’s probably not true.’”
Hargitay opened a page of a scrapbook and gazed at Sardelli’s face. The similarity in their facial structure, those cheekbones, has always been undeniable.
“I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Hargitay says. “It looked like a male version of me.”
Her perception of her life changed instantly.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Hargitay says. “It was like the floor fell out from underneath me. Why didn’t he tell me?”
She confronted Mickey Hargitay, who strongly denied anyone but himself being her father.
“And he came back at me with, ‘What are you talking about?’ I love you. You are my daughter. Where did you hear this? It’s all bullshit,’” Hargitay says. “He got more upset than I was.”
They had the one contentious conversation and never spoke of Sardelli again.
In “My Mom Jayne,” Mariska reads a Father’s Day letter from 1963, while Mansfield was pregnant, written to Sardelli, “This special day is even more special to each of us. The seed of our eternal love grows as the sapling that one day must be a strong oak.”
It wasn’t until Hargitay was 50 that she and the Sardelli sisters took a DNA test, which confirmed their family ties.
‘What would I be accomplishing?’
Sardelli, in the years that passed, never reached out to Hargitay, even while knowing he was her father for decades.
“By that time your mother died … Mickey was the father you knew, and your siblings — they were your siblings,” Sardelli says to Hargitay in “My Mom Jayne.” “What would I be accomplishing that will be beneficial to you?”
Sardelli says he had a chance to speak to Mickey Hargitay one time about Mariska’s parenting, during a “Star Shine” charity shoe-shining event in Puerto Rico in 1968.
“Mickey came to help me, and we went outside and he told me, ‘Nelson, nobody has to tell me who is the father of my child,’” Sardelli says. “I said, ‘Mickey, as long as you and I live, I will never embarrass you.”
Mickey Hargitay died in 2006.
A confirmation letter
Sardelli’s daughters learned of their half-sister when they were pre-teens. Giovanna was age 11 when she discovered a letter in a locked drawer (which the kid worked free) written by Hargitay’s grandmother. The handwritten note stated what Sardelli already knew. It started, “Dear Nelson, I know you have children, I’m sure they’re fine, but there’s this amazing child who is yours …”
Sardelli and Hargitay finally met when Hargitay was 30, and Sardelli was performing again in Atlantic City.
“After the show, he came out, and I said, ‘Hi, Nelson. My name is Mariska Hargitay. I understand you knew my mother,” Hargitay says. “And he looked at me and basically burst into tears. He grabbed my ear and he said, ‘I’ve been waiting 30 years for this moment.’ I think we stayed up until 5 in the morning just talking, and he said I had two sisters.”
Pietra Sardelli said her father called the next day.
“He said, ‘You know you have a sister, right?’” Pietra says with a laugh. “That was his way of telling us.”
Hargitay and the Sardelli sisters are today in regular contact. The actress and Giovanna have been congratulating each other in text over their respective boffo reviews. Giovanna is directing the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production of “Come Back to the 5& Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical” in Mountain View, Calif. (the San Francisco Chronicle’s review icon shows the spectator coming out of his seat, the pub’s highest grade). Pietra is busy bringing back the Golden Rainbow “Ribbon of Life” charity variety show.
The trio attended a U2 show at Sphere in October 2023. The Sardelli family, including Nelson and his wife, Lorraine, stay with Hargitay when they are in New York. The family attended the doc’s New York premiere at the Tribeca Festival this month.
A revelation late in life
Sardelli is 90, recovering from back surgery but still sharp and funny in conversation. He is the founder of the FIORE club at Italian American Club (Fun Italians Organizing Ridiculous Events). Sardelli has two rules for membership: You must be Italian, or not.
Fast to smile, quick with a joke, Sardelli is the model of a classic Vegas showroom entertainer. He is of course the last of a fading era of Vegas showmen.
Sardelli was interviewed extensively in CNN’s four-part retrospective of Las Vegas entertainment, “Vegas: The Story of Sin City,” released last year. He was inducted into the UNLV College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame in 2023.
At the end of “My Mom Jayne,” Hargitay is joined by Giovanna and Pietra. She asks her biological father, “How do you feel about the fact that we’re coming clean with the whole story, like this is going to now it’s out there?”
“It’s as if a stronger, higher power is forgiving me for whatever mistakes I made,” Sardelli answers. “There is nothing I can change. But I regret having extricate myself from your mother’s life, because I think certain things would not have to happened to her. I would love to have had one more conversation with your father before he passed away, because I also like to apologize to him, because I’m sure I was also part of his suffering.”
Hargitay softly says, “Thank you for saying that.”
Sardelli says, “I’m so glad that I have the chance to say those things.”
Pietra cuts in with, “Well, very nice, but you could have told us sooner.” The room erupts in laughter. Sardelli backpedals, “I mean, in person, of course!”
Sardelli and Hargitay hug, and she tells her long-lost father, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
