Inside Mariska Hargitay’s Childhood With Jayne Mansfield: See the Rare Family Photos

Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay‘s family story has never been easy. Decades after the 1967 car crash that killed her famous mother, big-screen sex goddess Jayne Mansfield, but left toddler Mariska unharmed, her world was rocked again when Mariska learned that Mickey Hargitay wasn’t her biological father. That revelation, and the weight of keeping family secrets, eventually inspired Mariska to explore who Mansfield really was — without the heels, the makeup and the sexy, stylized voice. The result is her new HBO documentary My Mom Jayne, which Mariska said gave her agency over years of hard feelings.

“I wanted to know about ‘what made your heart sing, what made you laugh, what made you cry ..what pain did you carry?’” she told TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. And at the film’s premiere, Mariska told extratv, “I was told that she was a different person behind that voice, and that’s what I wanted to get to know … and I did.”