The end of Mariska Hargitay’s new HBO Max documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield, includes some familiar local names.
The movie’s credits list Sigal Museum, Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society and Howard McGinn, a former Warren County, New Jersey, prosecutor who is the Easton museum’s volunteer researcher who provided the “Law and Order: SVU” star and her crew with invaluable background information on her late mother, a 1950s and ’60s stage and screen actress worshipped by many for her vivacious looks.
“I found the whole movie very moving,” said McGinn, an Easton resident and retired attorney who said he teared up during a viewing Tuesday for Sigal staffers.
Mansfield, who was born Vera Jayne Palmer in Bryn Mawr, Montgomery County, lived in Phillipsburg as a child. She is buried in a cemetery off Route 512 in Plainfield Township, near Pen Argyl, having also spent time in the Slate Belt with relatives throughout her life. Fans still visit the cemetery and Mansfield’s gravesite.
While McGinn’s work was essentially behind the scenes, providing Hargitay and her production workers with background information on her mom and family, it was the “turning point” for Hargitay, according to Megan van Ravenswaay, the museum’s executive director.
It was McGinn who showed Hargitay that Mansfield also experienced the deep loss of a parent at a young age. Her father, attorney Herbert Palmer, died in 1936 from a heart attack while driving in Phillipsburg, when Mansfield was 3 years old and riding in the car with him.
Mansfield died in 1967 in a car crash in Louisiana while Hargitay, who was 3 years old, was in the back seat.
The research provided by McGinn “helped Mariska finally have compassion for [Mansfield] as an adult,” van Ravenswaay said.
She said Hargitay, who visited the area in September with her husband and production team, were a treat to host at the museum. “They were highly professional, fun and extremely respectful of the museum and our priceless collection,” she said.
In answer to several email questions, Hargitay said was grateful for McGinn’s time to help her learn more about her family.
“I was proud to learn about the scope of my grandfather’s accomplishments,” she said of Palmer, “and I was delighted to learn that his law firm had been located nearby.”
Van Ravenswaay also said museum officials are honored that the materials McGinn provided, kept in the museum’s Jane S. Moyer Library & Archives, helped strengthen the relationship between the actor and her mother.
“We wish that for everyone coming to us to research [the local heritage],” she said.
In “My Mom Jayne,” . In the movie, Hargitay reveals that her biological father is not Mansfield’s second husband, Mickey Hargitay, but Italian singer Nelson Sardelli.
Van Ravenswaay and a Hargitay spokesperson said the museum received an unspecified donation from her production company in partnership with HBO toward what van Ravenswaay called a “site rental fee.”
Contact Morning Call reporter Anthony Salamone at asalamone@mcall.com.
Who was Jayne Mansfield? Five facts
Hollywood legend Jayne Mansfield, who lived in Phillipsburg and Pen Argyl during her early years, is buried in Plainfield Township’s Fairview Cemetery.
Here are five facts you might not have known about the blonde bombshell, courtesy of imdb.com and published in СŷƵ in 2017 on the 50th anniversary of her death
1) Sex symbol: Mansfield was known for her impossibly curvy figure and was not afraid to flaunt it. She was named second (out of 100) of the top Playboy Playmates of all time, according to Playboy magazine.
2) Cinematic First: She was the first actress to appear nude in a mainstream American film (1963’s “Promises! Promises!”)
3) Beauty and brains: She had a 163 IQ (a genius) and spoke five languages. She also was a classically trained pianist and violinist.
4) Famous daughter’s scars: Mansfield died June 29, 1967, in a horrific car crash in Louisiana. Her daughter, “Law & Order: SVU” star Mariska Hargitay, then 3 years old, was in the car at the time of the accident and has a zig-zag scar on the side of her head from the wreck.
5) Like mother, like daughter: Hargitay’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is next to her mother’s.
