Noticias

For a good portion of Mariska Hargitay’s life, strangers knew more about her mother than she did. So it’s fitting that when Hargitay first appears onscreen in My Mom Jayne, her exquisite and gripping documentary, she’s surrounded by demolition-site rubble, the remains of the Sunset Boulevard mansion that was her first childhood home. The film she’s made traces a years-long process of excavation, sifting through not just movie-star memorabilia but Hargitay’s conflicted feelings about Jayne Mansfield, the blond bombshell who was a mother of five when she died in a horrendous car crash at 34.

Fascinating every step of the way, My Mom Jayne builds toward the public revelation of a secret that Hargitay held close for 30 years, and which was already a 30-year secret when she became aware of it. As the actor turned director declares in the film’s final minutes, making the doc...

Loni Anderson, who starred as shrewd radio station receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on Wkrp in Cincinnati before her fairy-tale marriage to and acrimonious divorce from Burt Reynolds kept her uncomfortably in the tabloids, died Sunday. She was 79.

A two-time Emmy nominee, Anderson died at noon in Los Angeles from “an acute prolonged illness,” publicist Cheryl J. Kagan announced.

The Minnesota native also portrayed doomed Hollywood sex sirens in two telefilms: 1980’s The Jayne Mansfield Story — alongside an untested Arnold Schwarzenegger as her second husband, Mickey Hargitay — and 1991’s White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd.

And from 1988-90, she toplined TV movie remakes of the classic films Leave Her to Heaven (in the Gene Tierney role), Sorry, Wrong Number (in the Barbara Stanwyck part) and Three Coins in the Fountain).

After appearing on such series as S.W.A.T., Police Woman, Barnaby Jones and Phyllis and auditioning to play Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company,...

Mariska Hargitay has been on “Law & Order: Svu” since the beginning in 1999. That’s 26 seasons with a 27th on the way. It remains a ratings winner in no small part due to Hargitay’s continued presence as Captain Olivia Benson, a role that has won her both an Emmy and a Golden Globe, among other honors. To make her recent documentary (and feature directorial debut) “My Mom Jayne,” which dropped on HBO Max last month, Hargitay channeled her inner “Svu” character Olivia Benson.

Hargitay’s Benson — who helps fictionalized victims reckon with their abusers weekly — helped her prepare for the emotional process of making the documentary, which explores her relationship with mother… or rather the lack thereof, since her mom Jayne Mansfield died when Hargitay was only three years old.

“I used to say that vulnerability is my superpower, because, you know, everyone’s like, ‘Oh… you’re badass,...

Mariska Hargitay is opening up about a special conversation she had with her biological father.

During a screening of her documentary, My Mom Jayne, at the HamptonsFilm’s SummerDocs series on Thursday (July 17), the 61-year-old actress held a Q&a session.

While speaking to the audience, Mariska revealed that she spent father’s day with her biological father, Nelson Sardelli.

Keep reading to find out more…

According to Mariska, the experience was “magical.” She told the audience about a special conversation the two of them had and said, “He apologized and he said, ‘Thank you for forgiving me.’ And I said, ‘Thank you for making the choice that you made.’”

At the screening, Mariska opened up about learning to accept her family’s secret about Mickey Hargitay not being her biological father.

She told the audience, “I spent my life feeling unworthy, not wanted, not claimed, not good enough, abandoned.

This past Father’s Day was one of deep emotional resonance for actress and filmmaker Mariska Hargitay, as the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star opened up about spending the holiday with her biological father, Nelson Sardelli. At a screening of her documentary My Mom Jayne during the HamptonsFilm SummerDocs series on Thursday, July 17, the multi-hyphenate revealed during the Q&a that she spent her first Father’s Day with Sardelli. “It was so magical,” she said to the audience. “He apologized and he said, ‘Thank you for forgiving me.’ And I said, ‘Thank you for making the choice that you made.'” “So it’s like everyone was right in the end, but I grew up not knowing that,” she added. Hargitay made her directorial debut with the HBO documentary, in which she revealed that at age 25, she learned that the man she believed was her father and who raised her,...

Law & Order: Svu star Mariska Hargitay's husband Peter Hermann surprised the network TV star with a heartwarming gift that has ties to memories of her mother. Hargitay's mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield, died in a traffic collision when Hargitay was just three years old.

The actress appeared in and directed the 2025 documentary My Mom Jayne to find out more about her mother. At the conclusion of the documentary, Hermann, who appeared in Svu in a recurring role as Trevor Langan, surprised his wife with a bittersweet gift that brought memories flooding back.

Per Swooon (via My Mom Jayne), Hermann shocked his wife and former co-star by presenting her with her mother's grand piano that had remained in the Mansfield home following her death. After singer Engelbert Humperdinck bought the home, he kept the piano, and Hermann was able to convince the crooner to part with it, and revealed it...

While Mariska Hargitay’s documentary on her movie star mother Jayne Mansfield, “My Mom Jayne” — who died in a car accident when Hargitay was only three years old — just dropped on HBO Max June 27, the “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” actress said that she’s been “preparing for this [her] whole life.”

“Even when I was in, like [my] early, early twenties, and my acting teacher, Larry Moss — who’s brilliant man — in the class, said, ‘We all have a story.’ And one of the exercises in the class was to do it was like a one man show — where you would write your story and then perform it in class,” Hargitay shared on “The View.” “And I saw such brilliant stories. Now, I never did it back in my twenties for good reason… but the fact that I was able to do it now is everything.”

“My Mom Jayne” includes...

Mariska Hargitay is getting candid about family secret she’s been hiding.

The 61-year-old actress and daughter of the late Jayne Mansfield was a guest on the June 25 episode of Alex Cooper‘s podcast, Call Her Daddy.

While on the podcast, Mariska opened up about a family secret she had been hiding for years and finally decided to share with the public with the release of her documentary, My Mom Jayne.

Keep reading to find out more…

In the documentary, Mariska revealed that her biological father was not actually Mickey Hargitay and was instead Nelson Sardelli.

“I went up to my dad’s house and I was hysterically crying and in a state and he was — how about this metaphor, my dad was physically building me a house. So, I drive up to the house that he is building me and confront him,” Mariska recalled on the podcast episode and...

After Mariska Hargitay produced the 2017 HBO documentary I Am Evidence, people started asking her if she would make another film — and if she’d ever consider making one about her mother, actress Jayne Mansfield. She wasn’t interested at the time, she says, but when Covid shut down much of everyday life in 2020, including Hargitay’s long-time day job on Law & Order: Svu, she started reconsidering the story of her mom, who died in a car accident in 1967 when Hargitay was 3 years old (she and her brothers were in the back seat; all three survived the crash).

“It was really during Covid that I had all this time to process things that I had never processed before, and I started reading these letters from people who knew her,” Hargitay tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was so moved by the generosity and thoughtfulness that people would send me what felt like...

“I’m reclaiming my own story; this is what this is about for me,” explains the Emmy and Golden Globe winning Law & Order: Svu star Mariska Hargitay in My Mom Jayne, her new intimate and moving documentary about her mother Jayne Manfield, one of the 1950s and ‘60s “Blonde Bombshells” who followed the emergence of Marilyn Monroe, and her life’s effect on Mariska and her family. While promoting her well-received film, Mariska shared a shocking secret that few know, one she held close for 30 +years — her biological father was not Mickey Hargitay, the loving Hungarian immigrant weightlifter and sometime actor who raised her (along with three of her half-siblings), but one of Manfield’s paramours, a genial Brazilian-born entertainer named Nelson Sardelli. Mariska dives deep to tell a comprehensive story about her mother, whose tumultuous life ended at 34 in a 1967 car crash that also killed the driver and her abusive boyfriend/agent.

Mickey Hargitay may not have been Mariska Hargitay‘s biological father, but he was proud to be her dad until the very end. In Mariska’s new documentary My Mom Jayne, the actress revealed that her actual father is singer Nelson Sardelli, despite being raised to believe she was Mickey’s daughter. The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star opened up about the revelation on the Wednesday, June 25, episode of Alex Cooper‘s Call Her Daddy podcast, sharing that Mickey continued to deny the truth of her parentage until his death at age 80 in 2006. “​​He used to say, even before he died, ‘Remember when you thought that crazy thing?’ and I go, ‘I know, wasn’t that nuts?’ she stated. “I went with it, and then I felt like I became the parent in a way, and I was grateful to be that.” When asked if the actor-bodybuilder “genuinely thought” he was her father,...

It isn’t just that Mariska Hargitay has been waiting to tell this story for a long time, it’s that she also wasn’t certain exactly what story it was that she had to tell. That uncertainty, and her decades-long process of grappling with her identity, has resulted in an introspective, searching documentary so accomplished you’d never know it was Hargitay’s first feature film as a director.

“My Mom Jayne” has the longtime “Law & Order: Svu” star turning her lens on the mother she never knew, the actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, who died in 1967 when Hargitay was just three years old. She had only one memory of her mom, and even that she suspects she might have dreamed up. She had been in the car with two of her brothers when her mom had her fatal wreck, suffered a head injury herself, and was...

The stars turn out for Mariska Hargitay.

Not only did many of her “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” co-stars join her at the Tribeca Festival premiere of her feature film directorial debut, “My Mom Jayne,” but so did Cher, Jamie Lee Curtis and Liam Neeson, among others.

Cher and Mariska Hargitay at the Friday night premiere of "My Mom Jayne" at Tribeca Festival pic.twitter.com/rZJ6exqAO8

— Variety (@Variety) June 14, 2025

Taking place at Carnegie Hall, the evening also included a Q&a with Hargitay moderated by Griffin Dunne.

The documentary tells the story of Hargitay’s mother, Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield.

Mansfield died in a car accident when Hargitay, who was a passenger in the vehicle with her brothers, was three years old.

While Hargitay and Curtis are both children of celebrities, the “Freakier Friday” star told Variety, “We also share being women in our 60s in show...

Mariska Hargitay is known to many as the star of Law & Order: Svu, playing the capable Olivia Benson. Starting from a detective, Benson moved up the ranks throughout the 26 seasons of the show to become a police captain. After playing the character for so long, it isn’t surprising that the role starts seeping into her real life.

During one of the most important moments in her life, Hargitay shared that she fully transformed into Olivia Benson in the way she handled it. It has to do with her paternity, which she will unravel more about in the upcoming documentary about her mother, My Mom Jayne.

Mariska Hargitay went full Olivia Benson when meeting her real father Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Svu | Credits: NBC

Mariska Hargitay is getting to know more about her famous mother, Jayne Mansfield. In the ’50s Hollywood, Mansfield was one of the blonde bombshells,...

Mariska Hargitay was just 3 years old when her mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield, died in a car accident at the age of 34. Nearly six decades later, the Emmy-winning actress makes her feature directorial debut with the documentary My Mom Jayne, which explores her personal journey to understand, honor, and embrace her mother’s legacy.

Through intimate interviews and an extensive collection of never-before-seen photos and home movies, Hargitay grapples with her mother’s complicated public and private legacy, uncovering the surprising layers and depth of who Mansfield was, not only to her fans, but also to those closest to her. The HBO documentary premieres June 27 (8 p.m. Et/Pt) and will be available to stream on Max.

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings — who each has their own memories of their mother — and an excavation of the photographs, letters, and cherished belongings Mansfield left behind, Hargitay assembles a new picture of the extraordinary,...

Mariska Hargitay’s feature-length documentary “My Mom Jayne” will make its television debut on HBO and Max on 27 June after drawing a standing ovation in its world première at Cannes on 17 May and securing a Tribeca Festival slot on 13 June. The 106-minute film, produced with HBO Documentary Films, turns the “Law & Order: Svu” star into a first-time director as she pieces together the public myth and private reality of her mother, 1950s screen siren Jayne Mansfield, who died in a 1967 car crash that three-year-old Hargitay survived.

“This movie is a labor of love and longing,” Hargitay says in the film. “It’s a search for the mother I never knew … and a reclaiming of my mother’s story and my own truth.” Anchored by home movies, never-before-seen photographs and interviews with all five Mansfield children, the documentary also revisits the family’s famed “Pink Palace,” locates the long-lost crash...

Mariska Hargitay really dug deep into the most meaningful moments of her younger years in her documentary, “My Mom Jayne.” One of those moments just happens to involve a certain little secret she has kept for so many years about who her biological father really is.

Mariska Hargitay On Her Reaction To Finding Out Mickey Hargitay Was Not Her Biological Father

In 1963, a year before Mariska’s birth, her mother Jayne Mansfield filed for divorce from Mickey, before striking up a high profile romance with Italian musician Sardelli. The actress would later go on to reconcile with Mickey, a few months before Mariska’s birth.

At age 3, the ‘Law & Order: Svu’ star lost her mother to a car accident. Mansfield was aged 34 at the time, and young Mariska was strapped in the backseat.

In her 20s, a friend of Mariska’s showed her a picture of the Italian performer,...

For over two decades, Mariska Hargitay has captivated audiences as the fearless Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Svu, earning admiration not only for her on-screen talent but also for her real-life resilience. But now, the Emmy-winning actress is making headlines for a deeply personal revelation.

In her new documentary focusing on her mother, Jayne Mansfield, a movie star and s*x symbol of the ʼ50s and ʼ60s, Hargitay has revealed the long-held family secret, revealing the truth about her biological father.

Mariska Hargitay reveals the shocking truth about her real father in the new documentary

In a new documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield, titled My Mom Jayne, actress Mariska Hargitay has revealed a long-held family secret that the bodybuilder and actor Mickey Hargitay is not her biological father.

Related: Dick Wolf, Stop Doing This: ‘Law & Order: Svu’ Is Continuing a Worrying Trend With Mariska...

The late actress Jayne Mansfield became a regular at the Cannes Film Festival in the 1950s and ‘60s, sometimes photographed on the Croisette with her husband, Mickey Hargitay, and on at least one occasion accompanied by her pet pooch.

Decades after her death in a tragic car crash, Mansfield again enjoys a place of honor at the festival, thanks to her daughter, Mariska Hargitay. The star known for her role as Det. Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Svu, makes her directorial debut with the documentary My Mom Jayne, which just premiered in the Cannes Classics section of the festival.

A photograph of Jayne Mansfield displayed on the Croisette during the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

“Obviously I’ve grown up with images of my mother. There were certainly a lot taken,” Hargitay said as she stopped by Deadline’s Cannes Studio. “But the photos of her in Cannes in particular were...

Mariska Hargitay has revealed a long-held family secret: the truth about her biological father.

The actress, whose mother was Jayne Mansfield, had believed for years that her father was Mickey Hargitay, the Hungarian bodybuilding champion who became an actor. He married Mansfield in 1956.

When Mariska was only 3, she and her mother were involved in a tragic car accident that killed Mansfield instantly. Mickey raised their three children after Mansfield died.

“He was my everything, my idol. He loved me so much, and I knew it,” she told Vanity Fair. “I also knew something else — I just didn’t know what I knew.”

In fact, she didn’t know the truth until she was in her 20s. During a brief time in 1963-64, Mansfield filed for divorce from Mickey and began dating Italian entertainer Nelson Sardelli. However, Mickey and Mansfield reconciled months before Mariska’s birth.

Mariska had always believed something...

Law & Order: Svu star Mariska Hargitay was only 3 years old in 1967 when a horrendous car accident took the life of her mother, Jayne Mansfield, as she and two of her siblings slept in the back seat. The chauffeur and Mansfield’s lawyer boyfriend also were killed that night, and Hargitay was found injured under the passenger seat. Now, nearly 60 years later, Hargitay, an Emmy-winning star in her right, is coming to terms with not only losing her mom at such a young age but also getting to discover just who she was, a parent she says she has no memory of ever knowing.

To do this, she has directed and narrates a new HBO Films documentary My Mom Jayne, which explores her very personal and highly emotional journey to meet the woman the public knew well as a blond bombshell movie star of the 1950s and ’60s but also a...

Mariska Hargitay is named after the man who raised her, bodybuilder-turned-actor Mickey Hargitay, following the death of her mother, Playmate-turned-actor Jayne Mansfield. But the Law & Order: Svu star found out in her 20s that her biological father is actually the singer Nelson Sardelli, and she’s revealing that family secret in her new documentary, My Mom Jayne, and in a new interview. As is public knowledge, Mansfeld dated Sardelli in 1963 during relationship troubles with Mickey, from whom she filed for divorce. Mansfield reconciled with Mickey before giving she gave birth to Mariska in 1964, though the two would break up again before Mansfield’s death in 1967 at age 34. And as she shares in the documentary, Mariska was in her 20s when someone showed her a photo of Sardelli, and she immediately knew he was her biological father. “It was like the floor fell out from underneath me,” she says in My Mom Jayne,...

Mariska Hargitay is revealing a major family secret after 30 years.

If you didn’t know, the 61-year-old Law & Order: Svu star is the daughter of late actress Jayne Mansfield. However, in her new documentary My Mom Jayne, Mariska dropping shocking news – her biological father isn’t Hungarian actor Mickey Hargitay, the man who raised her, but rather Italian singer Nelson Sardelli.

Janye and Nelson had a highly publicized romance in 1963, and Mariska was born in 1964. Mariska said that at the age of 25, she immediately knew that Nelson was her biological father when she saw a picture of him.

After the documentary premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this week, Mariska opened up to Vanity Fair about meeting Nelson for the first time at the age of 30.

Keep reading to find out more…

“I’ve been waiting 30 years for this moment,” he reportedly said to her.

However, Mariska said that...

Mariska Hargitay fought back tears while basking in a four-minute standing ovation at Saturday’s Cannes Film Festival premiere of “My Mom Jayne,” a new HBO documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield.

The film is Hargitay’s feature directorial debut, and marks the first time she publicly dives into Mansfield’s story and legacy, nearly sixty years after her death. It’s also the first time that Hargitay shares the truth about her rumored parentage. Her biological father is an Italian singer named Nelson Sardelli, not Mickey Hargitay, the Hungarian bodybuilder who was her mother’s second husband.

Mansfield died in a car accident when Hargitay, who was a passenger in the vehicle with her brothers, was three years old.

”Tonight I’m celebrating the power that film has for me to remember somebody I didn’t have the good fortune to know or grow up with,” an emotional Hargitay said while introducing the film.

Known for leading tales of fictionalized tragedies on Law & Order: Svu, Mariska Hargitay will tell the real-life story of her late mother in an upcoming HBO documentary, My Mom Jayne. It will mark her feature film directorial debut and her first public exploration of Mansfield’s life and legacy. She died in a car accident at 34 years old, nearly 60 years ago.

“This movie is a labor of love and longing. It’s a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I’d never owned,...

Mariska Hargitay is set to direct “My Mom Jayne,” an HBO documentary centered on her mother, actress and Playboy model Jayne Mansfield.

“This movie is a labor of love and longing. It’s a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I’d never owned, and a reclaiming of my mother’s story and my own truth,” Hargitay said of the project and opportunity, which comes 60 years after her death in 1967. “I’ve always believed there is strength in vulnerability, and the process of making this film has confirmed that belief like never before.”

The film, which will serve as Hargitay’s directorial debut, will also be produced by Hargitay and Trish Adlesic (“I Am Evidence”). Lauran Bromley will executive produce.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Mariska Hargitay was three years old when her mother, Jayne Mansfield, tragically died in a car accident...

Mariska Hargitay will be telling the story of her late mother, Jayne Mansfield, in a new HBO documentary, “My Mom Jayne.”

The doc is Hargitay’s feature film directorial debut, marking the first time she publicly dives into Mansfield’s story and legacy, nearly sixty years after her death.

“This movie is a labor of love and longing. It’s a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I’d never owned, and a reclaiming of my mother’s story and my own truth,” Hargitay says. “I’ve always believed there is strength in vulnerability, and the process of making this film has confirmed that belief like never before.”

Mansfield was a Hollywood bombshell in the 50s and married Mr. Universe winner Mickey Hargitay in 1958. The pair starred in many movies together including “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” and “The Loves of Hercules.

Law & Order: Svu star Mariska Hargitay is making her feature directing debut with a very personal subject: her mother, Jayne Mansfield.

HBO will premiere Hargitay’s documentary My Mom Jayne in June. The film will follow her “as she seeks to know, understand, and embrace her mother for the first time,” according to the documentary’s logline. “Through intimate interviews and a collection of never-before-seen photos and home movies, she grapples with her mother’s public and private legacy and discovers the layers and depth of who Jayne was, not only to her audience but to those who were closest to her.”

Hargitay is the daughter of Mansfield, an actress and sex symbol of the 1950s and ‘60s, and actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay. Mansfield died in a 1967 car accident, when Hargitay was 3 years old; she was involved in the accident as well but survived, as did two older siblings.

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Fans of "Gilligan's Island" are likely intimately familiar with the show's original pilot, which was shot in 1963, but not aired to the public until 1992. The pilot, called "Marooned," featured Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jim Backus, and Natalie Schafer, but also starred three rudimentary characters that didn't carry over into the completed series. The Professor was originally a high school teacher played by John Gabriel. The Mary Ann character was a secretary named Bunny (Nancy McCarthy), and Ginger was still named Ginger but was ... another secretary. She was played by Kit Smythe.

Eventually, the show was reworked, and creator Sherwood Schwartz wrote a tighter, better pilot with the Professor (Russell Johnson), Mary Ann (Dawn Wells), and Ginger (Tina Louise) that we all know and love today. 

In Schwartz's biography "Inside Gilligan's Island: From Creation to Syndication," he mentioned that Louise...

Mariska Hargitay first appeared on ER as Cynthia Hooper before landing her iconic role on Law & Order: Svu as Olivia Benson. Hargitay's persistence in auditioning for ER paid off, as she was initially rejected but later offered the role. Hargitay's portrayal of Cynthia in ER demonstrated a different side of her acting abilities compared to her role as Olivia Benson.

Viewers may not remember, but Mariska Hargitay appeared in ER before her career-defining run on Law & Order: Svu. Throughout 15 seasons of ER, the long-running medical drama has featured numerous main, supporting, recurring, and guest characters filling the ranks of Cook County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. While there have been plenty of notable actors to appear as one-time patients, doctors, and other peripheral characters, few have jumped from ER to starring in one of the longest-running TV shows of all time.

Before ER, Hargitay was a relative unknown,...

Palais Intrigue Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood

Warren Beatty and his Splendor in the Grass co-star (and then girlfriend) Natalie Wood on the steps of the Palais du Festival, 1962.

Queen Elizabeth Liz Taylor

A bejeweled and becrowned Liz Taylor grabs a seat, and all the attention, at the 1957 edition of the festival.

Bonjour, Bb! Brigitte Bardot

French actress Brigitte Bardot at the Ninth Cannes Film Festival in 1956, the year Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman made her a star.

Stars Aligning Cary Grant and Kim Novak

Cary Grant and Kim Novak at the 12th edition of the festival, perhaps discussing their recent work for Alfred Hitchcock.

Belle Journée Marie Laforêt

French singer Marie Laforêt in a dreamy moment at the Cannes Festival in 1960.

Moment of Reflection Grace Kelly

Grace Kelly in the Carlton Hotel in 1955, the year she appeared with Grant in Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, about...

When a little girl can’t find her mother in a pocket park in New York City, she inexplicably runs crying straight into the arms of Mariska Hargitay. Though Hargitay’s in the middle of shooting a scene from “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” she doesn’t hesitate. She scoops up the child and begins circling the playground looking for the missing mom.

She doesn’t stop to think about the cast and crew, all of whom are waiting at the other end of the park, hoping to finish the scene before the sunlight reappears from behind the clouds.

Hargitay isn’t NYPD Capt. Olivia Benson, but after portraying her for 25 years on the NBC procedural, their names, and some of their qualities, are synonymous. Benson’s compassion radiates from Hargitay. It’s evident from the moment we meet: Just one day on the set of “Law & Order: Svu,...

The role of retired CIA operative Luke Brunner in Netflix’s Fubar is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “first TV role ever” in the same way that this is my first McVitie’s Milk Chocolate Hobnob of the day – it absolutely isn’t but if it makes us all happier to lie to ourselves then why not?

Early press for action-comedy series Fubar has made much of the coup of Netflix bagging Schwarzenegger for television. At last! The Governator is “set to make his TV series debut” says The Hollywood Reporter. This marks the action icon’s “first ever television series”, says Collider. Science has finally figured out how to make TV screens wide enough to accommodate the Hollywood star’s mighty girth, and now we’ve got him. Never mind that Arnie’s been muscling around on television since 1974.

Granted, Fubar marks Schwarzenegger’s first lead role in a scripted and...

When I say hello to Marlene Parker, my neighbor of more than 20 years, I usually say, “Good to see you,” and she’ll reply with a smile and a laugh, “It’s good to be seen.”

She has lived on the same corner in West Hollywood for more than 40 years, even before the LGBTQ-friendly Los Angeles enclave officially became its own city. She’s hard to miss, with a boisterous energy that belies her 92 years and an insistence on dressing to the nines — jewelry, makeup, and fabulous hair, of course — even if it’s to walk the dog or go to the store. If she comes to a city meeting, she arrives fashionably late enough to make a grand entrance, apologizing in her distinctly throaty, German-accented voice.

Even if you know Marlene, you don’t know her whole story, which she was never willing to tell publicly. She’s turned...

Gothic Fantastico-Four Italian Tales of Terror

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

Starring Barbara Nelli, Helga Liné, Franco Nero, Erica Blanc

Written by Giovanni Grimaldi, Bruno Corbucci

Directed by Massimo Pupillo, Alberto De Martino, Mino Guerrini, Damiano Damiani

The success of 1957’s I Vampiri, a grimly beautiful fantasy directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava, provoked an unexpected trend in the country known for neo-realism; Italian horror films began to embrace the classical romanticism of Rebecca over the modernistic shocks of Psycho. Elegant nightmares like Bava’s Black Sunday cast their spell and soon this new breed of gothics—united by sumptuous black and white photography—dominated movie theaters with tbeir come-hither promise of seductive spirits and strategically lit negligees.

A few of these thrillers were more brazen in their approach—flaunting their teasing nudity and blood-soaked denouements, exploitation fare like Atom Age Vampire and The Playgirls and the Vampire took aim at...

Hey everyone! We have one last batch of horror and sci-fi home media releases headed our way before the end of the month, and this week’s offerings are massive, with well over 20 titles coming out on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD this Tuesday alone.

One of my favorite creature features ever is getting some love in HD finally, with Scream Factory’s 4K release of Lewis Teague’s Alligator (and its sequel is headed to Blu-ray this week as well), and the horror comedy Dead Heat is also getting a 4K upgrade. For all you giallo fans out there, Forgotten Gialli: Volume 3 is being released tomorrow and features three more Italian classics genre fans are going to want to own, and Severin Films is keeping busy with a ton of titles this week too: Bloody Pit of Horror, Black Candles, Night of the Demon, and The Halfway House.

Other titles...

In a video circulating on social media this week, “Law & Order: Svu” star and executive producer Mariska Hargitay leapt into action to help get a shoot in New York City back on track.

In the video, she respectfully asks a man to stop singing and interrupting a shoot in in Washington Square Park, telling him: “Your singing was beautiful, but we’re just trying to get the shot. Is it okay if you don’t sing when we say ‘action’?”

According to the Twitter user who posted the video, a passerby in the park had been singing loudly to intentionally disrupt the shoot, and refused to stop when asked by members of the “Law & Order: Svu” crew. Hargitay, who plays Olivia Benson in the NBC crime drama, then approached him herself.

olivia benson talking to someone trying to disrupt filming pic.twitter.com/wlO5xNprpI

— ale (@mayfielms) November...

Did these filmmakers have any idea how twisted a picture they were making? It doesn’t matter because this Italo torture orgy has has remained a freakout favorite ever since. Mickey Hargitay likely asked, ‘do you really want me to act this nuts?’ and then fully complied with Massimo Pupillo’s request to burn, stab, choke and roast his mostly female victims in orgasmic glee. It’s all still more than a little disturbing — or screamingly funny depending on one’s orientation. Severin’s Blu-ray sources original printing elements, lending incredible video and audio quality to this artless yet stunning exercise in sex & death insanity. We also recall an interpretation given this gem by Brit film critics. Co-starring Walter Brandi & Luisa Barrato, plus eight willing special guest torture victims.

Bloody Pit of Horror

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date November 26, 2021 / Il boia scarlatto, The Crimson Executioner / Available...

With his exaggerated visuals, eye-popping color and frantic characterizations, Frank Tashlin has been promoted to a genuine ‘fifties icon. This freewheeling comedy hits on the Top Tashlin fetish subjects: Hollywood glitz, Madison Avenue neurosis, dynamic women, wimpy men and… and… bosoms, dammit. As the bubbly yet calculating sex symbol Rita Marlowe, Jayne Mansfield places career issues way ahead of anything to do with sex. Tony Randall receives his first leading film role as a Mad Man who’ll jump through hoops to keep an account. But the surprise is Betsy Drake, who more than anyone represents the conflicts facing the pre-feminist ’50s woman: she defines success her own way.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date Feb 19, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Mickey Hargitay.

Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald

Film...

By Fred Blosser

As movie censorship relaxed in the early 1970s, Mel Welles’ horror film “Lady Frankenstein” added sex and nudity to the familiar Frankenstein formula of the single-minded and arguably demented scientist who creates a monster and lives to regret it. In the 1971 production, now available in a handsome, fully loaded Blu-ray edition from Nucleus Films encoded for Region B, Dr. Tanya Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) returns home to the family estate after completing medical school. Having inherited the family obsession, she is determined to help her father (Joseph Cotten) realize his long-frustrated ambition of creating human life in his laboratory. When Baron Frankenstein and his associate Dr. Marshall (Paul Muller) balk at including the refined young woman in their gory experiments, she fiercely overrides their objections: “Stop treating me like a child! I’m a doctor and a surgeon.” Frankenstein and Marshall successfully reanimate a creature that they’ve stitched together from plundered cadavers,...

She's a a wife, a mom-of-three, and an Emmy-winning TV star, but not even Mariska Hargitay admits that she has life all figured out. In fact, during an exclusive new interview with Closer Weekly for the magazine's latest issue, on newsstands now, the 54-year-old actress confessed she's still learning every day. "I look at my life now and think, I’m on a TV show, I run a foundation, I run a household, I’m a mom, I’m a wife, I’m a lot of things. I’m learning to be present with where I am. The truth is we have to live the journey, right? And that’s what I’ve learned," Mariska candidly revealed. Mariska filming Law & Order: Svu. (Photo Credit: Getty Images) Mariska's job has also helped her grow both on and off-screen. For the past 19 years, she's portrayed Detective Olivia Benson on the NBC drama...

Screen star Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Hollywood royalty, a successful actress, and an impassioned activist — but her most beloved role is that of mom to her three kids. In an emotional new interview, the 54-year-old opened up about her home life and "perfect" family with her husband, Peter Hermann. "Our family is so perfect, or at least perfect for me. Together we’re just this whole, happy, joyful, chaotic, crazy unit. I’ve never known anything that was more right," she gushed. "The thing that’s made me a better parent is my kids. Because they taught me to really listen. My husband is my North Star, and my kids are my teachers," Mariska told People. "Peter and I, we’re so different that it’s been amazing how we complement each other. He knows everything I don’t." Mariska, Peter, and their three kids in 2013. (Photo Credit:...

Though Mariska Hargitay was just three years old when her famous mother, Jayne Mansfield, was killed in a tragic car accident, the 54-year-old actress says the Hollywood icon has always been an inspiring part of her life. "My mother was this amazing, beautiful, glamor­ous sex symbol — but people didn’t know that she played the violin and had a 160 Iq and had five kids and loved dogs. She was just so ahead of her time. She was an inspiration, she had this appetite for life, and I think I share that with her," Mariska tearfully revealed in a new interview. "Someone once said about [remembering] my mother: 'All you have to do is look in the mirror.' She’s with me still," the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star told People. Jayne was only 34 years old at the time of her 1967 death and because Mariska lost her mother at such a young age,...

Let's give a cheer for the lowly sword 'n' sandal epic. This persecution and torture spectacle also takes in the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The impressively mounted Italian-Spanish production stars Rhonda Fleming, Fernando Rey, Wandisa Guida, and as the slimy villain, none other than Serge Gainsbourg. Revolt of the Slaves MGM Limited Edition Collection 1960 / Color / 2:35 enhanced widescreen (Totalscope) / 103 min. / La rivolta degli schiavi / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 19.98 Starring Rhonda Fleming, Lang Jeffries, Darío Moreno, Ettore Manni, Wandisa Guida, Gino Cervi, Fernando Rey, Serge Gainsbourg, José Nieto, Benno Hoffmann, Rainer Penkert, Antonio Casas, Vanoye Aikens, Dolores Francine, Burt Nelson, Julio Peña . Cinematography Cecilio Paniagua Film Editor Eraldo Da Roma Original Music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Written by Stefano Strucchi, Duccio Tessari, Daniel Mainwearing from the novel 'Fabiola' by Nicholas Patrick Wiseman Produced by Paolo Moffa Directed by Nunzio Malasomma

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Make all...

Mariska Hargitay is taking a seat Inside the Actors Studio. The Law & Order: Svu star will appear on Bravo's James Lipton-hosted show on Monday, Sept. 22, at 8 p.m. In the episode, Hargitay describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of Hollywood couple Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay and how this affected her when she auditioned for acting roles.  She also talks about working with George Clooney and Anthony Edwards on ER, why she was drawn to her current role as Olivia Benson, and how her character has impacted her own life, including

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This weekend marks Hercules’ return to the big screen. A staple in the hero canon, the half man, and half god has slayed lions, bedded mortal women, and even hung out with the Three Stooges. Over the past seven decades, the hero has transformed from an Italian Stallion of the 1950s to the Blockbuster Beefcake we see today thanks to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kellan Lutz taking on the title role. With the former’s film (Hercules directed by Brett Ratner) opening this weekend, we thought it was a good time to look at the evolution of Hercules on the big screen.

’50s: The Italian Stallion

A star of the “sword and scandal” genre, Hercules became a regular fixture in Italian cinema during the 1950s. These historical epics were seen as the country’s answer to successful big-budget Hollywood films, such as Spartacus and The Ten Commandments.

Subsequently, the...

This weekend marks Hercules’ return to the big screen. A staple in the hero canon, the half man, and half god has slayed lions, bedded mortal women, and even hung out with the Three Stooges. Over the past seven decades, the hero has transformed from an Italian Stallion of the 1950s to the Blockbuster Beefcake we see today thanks to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kellan Lutz taking on the title role. With the former’s film (Hercules directed by Brett Ratner) opening this weekend, we thought it was a good time to look at the evolution of Hercules on the big screen.

’50s: The Italian Stallion

A star of the “sword and scandal” genre, Hercules became a regular fixture in Italian cinema during the 1950s. These historical epics were seen as the country’s answer to successful big-budget Hollywood films, such as Spartacus and The Ten Commandments.

Subsequently, the...

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Mariska Hargitay is such a badass on Law & Order: Svu and such an incredible force for good in real life, that sometimes we forget her earlier years as a bombshell beauty. Silly us — she is, after all, the daughter of original blond bombshell Jayne Mansfield and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay. Today, as the actress turns the big 5-0, we’re looking back at some vintage foxy photos of Mariska.

Despite her celebrity pedigree, Mariska really worked her way up in showbiz. She was Miss Beverly Hills USA in 1982, and by 1984 she had a gig in this cheesetastic video for Ronnie Milsap’s “She Loves My Car.”

She went on to get parts in such cinematic masterpieces as Jocks and Ghoulies, before landing steadier work, like the role of Carly on the CBS prime-time soap Falcon Crest. There followed a lot of roles on short-lived shows, as well as...

Chicago – To answer the musical question, “Baby, if you ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me?” there is the sublime Loni Anderson, who portrayed Jennifer Marlowe on the popular 1970s sitcom, “Wkrp in Cincinnati.” Anderson was an attendee of “The Hollywood Show,” which comes to Chicago again on September 7th and 8th, 2013.

Loni Anderson is much like her character on Wkrp – luminous, intelligent and with a unique perspective. She climbed the show business ladder herself, after having a first marriage and a child in her teens. After that marriage ended before her 21st birthday, she finished college at the University of Minnesota and started an acting career, taking roles on stage and in local and national commercials. After moving to Los Angeles in 1975, she dyed her jet black hair to blonde, and began a series of high profile appearances on familiar dramas and comedies of the era, including “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Police Woman.

Motherhood and the perspective of age have helped Mariska Hargitay become a more confident - and fulfilled - woman and actress. The longtime Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star, 49, answered candid questions about life and aging from readers for the Ladies' Home Journal's March cover story, on newsstands Feb. 12. "I love my curves because they scream, 'I'm a mama!' I'm the girl who started wearing maternity pants about an hour after I found out I was pregnant because I was so excited about becoming a mom," Hargitay, a mother of three, happily offers, noting that while she runs to stay fit,...