Chapter 1: What early experiences shaped Mariska Hargitay's understanding of loss?
I started this podcast four years ago, going through old boxes of things my mom and dad and brother left behind when they died. They're still in my basement. It's been a while since I've tried to sort through them. But like many of you, the pain of the past is never far away.
When I was six years old, I lost my mother.
Many of you have left voicemails from long-ago losses that still echo in your lives today.
My baby brother died at birth. The griefs affected me. 53 years ago, my four-and-a-half-year-old brother Scott died.
I've been living with grief for over 40 years. My dad died about 24 years ago, and I have never really left it. My brother's death keeps surfacing in my thoughts. But underneath, there's pain that never really goes away.
As Ken Burns said on an earlier podcast, the half-life of grief is endless. Mariska Hargitay knows that very well.
Jane Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay have just left this American Airlines plane. A huge crowd has gathered.
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Chapter 2: How did Mariska Hargitay cope with the grief of losing her mother?
Mariska's mom, actress Jane Mansfield, died when she was three. She was raised by her father, Hungarian actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay.
Today, she was signed to a long-term movie contract by 20th Century Fox. At the moment, she is also the most photographed woman in show business.
Jane Mansfield was killed in a car crash in 1967. Mariska was in the car with her. In her 20s, she discovered Mickey Hargitay was not her biological father. An Italian singer, Nelson Sardelli, was. After decades spent coming to terms with her past and wanting to learn more about the mother she doesn't remember, Mariska has made a remarkable documentary called My Mom Jane.
I think that's where I start now, is looking that here is our mother, this little girl whose father died when she was three years old, and she was in the car with him. We start there with Jane. We start there with loss. And I go, I know that one.
Did you feel that early on, this sense of loss and longing?
I think my whole life. As a child, I did always feel separate. And, of course, I didn't know about why I felt so separate, but I just knew that I was like on this island by myself my whole life. I feel like I've had a hole in my heart. Just something has always been wrong. Something has always been wrong. missing, something could never be filled, and there was always just this incredible sadness.
When I look back at the photos of me, there was a lot of frozen smiles. And I remember I had a big personality and I was very happy, but when I got sad, I don't think my parents knew how to deal with it, so they would tell me to snap out of it and that I was like a black cloud. And that was really rough for me because I learned quickly that there wasn't room for my sadness.
And now I see it as it was too much for my dad. He had so much grief and so much pain and so much that he almost couldn't handle anymore. And so I learned very young to be the joy bringer, to be fun girl, to be just every room I walked into, light it up and make it better. And there came a big cost.
It's exhausting.
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Chapter 3: What revelations did Mariska have about her family history?
But our vulnerability is our greatest strength and our greatest connector. And so in telling the story, I don't feel vulnerable. I feel free, and I feel like there's an invisible strength. with everyone because we all have a story and you never know what somebody else carries. I was trying to reach out across that divide and say, who are you? Who was the woman behind the pose?
Why did she make these decisions? Who was the woman that made these choices and why? It was a very interesting journey, this film, but also to couple that with the mourning, the longing, the yearning, but also the kind of embarrassment and shame and then wishing that my mom was something else and the complication with her voice. That was a really big thing to me.
The voice which she put on, it's not who she was.
It wasn't who she was, but also I was trying to connect to something real. So when I heard that voice, it was just like, you're not getting in. There's no getting in. And that was one of the most profound moments. GIFs in the archival film, I would see these moments that I'd never seen before and hear her in her lower register and in her true authentic self just talking normally and go,
And it was sacred. It was holy. It was everything that I wanted.
Your mom was three years old and in a car when her father died of a heart attack. And then you were in the car three years old when your mom was killed in a car crash.
I just find that staggering and truly like remarkable. And that's why when I was 34, I was convinced that was the year that I was going to
That was the age your mom was when she died.
My mom died at 34. And when I was 34, I got in a motorcycle accident. A car hit me at a stop sign. And I remember I went flying through the air. And when you're in an accident like that, everything slows down. And it was so slow. And I remember going, wow.
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Chapter 4: How did Mariska's documentary 'My Mom Jane' come to be?
I don't really have the words for it, but I just think it's no accident that I was 34 and I had this experience, and that's what changed it. That's what broke it and that kind of fear base that was running me, really. I had a lot of PTSD growing up and dissociation from the car accident. And I didn't know what it was.
From when you were three years old?
Yeah, because I was left in the car. And there's been a few times when I've been in cars or in certain situations that I definitely got activated.
Some strangers took your siblings out of the car.
On the side of the road.
They were taken to the hospital. And then one of your brothers said... Where's my baby sister? And you were still in the vehicle?
Yeah, under the passenger seat.
Do you remember that?
I don't, thank God. But my body does. My body definitely does. And I had a lot of that and I didn't know what it was. And so I used to override my feelings, just override grief. And if I got activated, I would just like keep moving. I know that. Yeah. And then I realized that's not sustainable. And I had this really amazing therapist. Amazing. And we talk about a lot of things.
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Chapter 5: What impact did Mariska's motorcycle accident have on her life?
But I love that you came to know your mom.
Me too. And introduce her to the world in a new way.
I love that. I know her too.
She was pretty remarkable.
Is there something you've learned in your grief that would be helpful for others?
Yeah. Yeah, there is. For me, I remember when I was young and I would read old diaries. I'd say, when will it stop? The pain is never ending. And I remember thinking, it's bottomless well. And I'll never get over it. And I'll always be this sad. I'll always be this sad. And that's when you lose hope. And then I learned to practice tolerating it.
And when we can tolerate our pain, that's when it dissipates. And so I practiced that a lot of saying, I'm strong enough to go through this. And that's what changed everything for me really is that I would practice when I felt sad instead of avoiding it and putting on the frozen smile, I'd be like, I'm really sad. I'm really sad. And I would sit in it and I would cry.
But when we cry, we feel better afterwards. And something happens chemically even in our body where the grief leaves. And so I've had a lot of practice of sitting in my grief and sitting in my trauma and learning how to talk to myself, but mostly learning to tolerate pain. And every single time when I sit in it and lean toward it is when it starts to dissipate.
And so now when I'm sad, I go, wow, I'm really sad right now. And I give it to myself. I don't put on a smile and I don't pretend. I cry a lot and I like it because it's true and it's authentic. It doesn't make me weak. It's inconvenient. It's inconvenient. We're just human beings. We're trying to figure out the human being was designed that way.
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