• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Today

Mariska Hargitay has directed a documentary about her famous mother, Jayne Mansfield, the bombshell star of stage and screen who died in an automobile accident when Mariska was 3 years old.

The film, titled “My Mom Jayne,” is a directorial debut and labor of love for Hargitay, 61, who traced her mother’s life and career, and interviewed family members and others in an attempt to know the mom she never knew. The film premieres on HBO and Max on June 27.

With 26 consecutive seasons of “Law & Order: “SVU” under her belt, Mariska Hargitay is one TV’s most durable stars.

In fact, her longevity in the role of NYPD Special Victims Unit Det. Olivia Benson might be the longest-running single character in the history of television drama, especially since her show is the longest-running drama in TV history and she has been there since the beginning.

The fact that she comes from Hollywood stock is not unknown, and the story of her mother has been told before on TV. 

A 2001 documentary, “Biography: Jayne Mansfield: Blonde Ambition” on A&E, won an Emmy. 

In 1980, Mansfield was played by Loni Anderson in a made-for-TV movie for CBS, “The Jayne Mansfield Story,” co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay, Mansfield’s second husband.

But this new, very personal documentary figures to be the fullest one yet on the life of Mansfield, who was 33 when she died in the horrific auto accident in 1967. 

Her 3-year-old daughter Mariska and young sons, Miklos and Zoltan, were seated in the backseat. All of them survived. 

Mansfield, sitting in the front seat, was killed along with the two other adults sitting in the front seat with her.

A look at Mansfield’s biography on Wikipedia reveals a very complicated story about an often unmanageable life.

Some of it was so tumultuous -- including her contentious marriages, well-publicized affairs, career decline in the 1960s and her alcoholism -- that it must have been emotionally challenging for her daughter to face all of it head-on.

An HBO press release earlier this week describes the director’s journey. “The film follows Mariska as she seeks to answer her long-held questions about her mother and integrate the truths she uncovers into her own sense of self,” the press release says.

“As she explores the complexities behind who Jayne Mansfield was in public, she reckons with the persona that Jayne created, but was later desperate to escape.

“Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings, who each have their own memories of their mother, and an excavation of the photographs, letters and cherished belongings Jayne left behind, Mariska assembles a new picture of the extraordinary, complex woman whose image and legacy she resisted for so many years. 

“With courage and vulnerability, Mariska engages in the process of opening herself to a new, hard-won collection of memories and a deeper level of truth,” HBO said.

Photo credits: Jayne Mansfield with daughter Mariska, courtesy HBO. Inset: Mariska Hargitay on “Law & Order: SVU,” courtesy NBC.