

A year later she had a small role in the horror film Ghoulies. In 1984, Hargitay appeared in Ronnie Milsap's music video for " She Loves My Car" (The first country music video to appear on MTV). Career Īfter Hargitay was crowned Miss Beverly Hills USA, she competed in the Miss California USA pageant the following year and placed fourth runner-up to Julie Hayek, who was later crowned Miss USA. Hargitay's father died in 2006 from multiple myeloma in Los Angeles, California, at age 80. I will always be a girl who lost her mom". Hargitay has said that the early loss of her mother left "a hole in my life that won't ever be filled. Universe, so it would be fun for me to be Miss Universe".

Hargitay dislikes comparisons with her famous mother and, at age 18, said, "My dad was Mr. After the death of their mother, the three siblings were raised by their father and his third wife, Ellen Siano. Her brothers, Miklós and Zoltán, escaped with minor injuries. Asleep in the back of the vehicle, Mariska, then three-and-a-half years old, was left with a zigzag scar on one side of her head. The accident ripped off the top of the car, instantly killing Mansfield, her boyfriend Sam Brody, and the driver. On June 29, 1967, Mansfield was in an automobile accident on a stretch of U.S. By the summer of 1966, however, Mansfield and Cimber had filed for divorce. A few weeks later, Mansfield married the director Matt Cimber, who had directed her in a 1964 production of the William Inge play Bus Stop. In August 1964, Hargitay's mother successfully petitioned the court to rule the Mexican divorce legal. They reconciled a few months before Hargitay's birth in January 1964, but soon separated again. Hargitay's parents divorced in May 1963, but a judge later found their Mexican divorce invalid. She has two older brothers, Miklós and Zoltán, and three half-siblings, Jayne Marie Mansfield and Antonio "Tony" Cimber (from her mother's first and third marriages, respectively) and Tina Hargitay (from her father's first marriage). Her first and middle names are Hungarian and refer to Mary Magdalene (Mariska is a diminutive of Mary). Her father was the Hungarian-born former Mr. Hargitay was born at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of actress and 1950s-era sex symbol Jayne Mansfield.
