Following the tragic death of movie icon Jayne Mansfield, her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay had to pick up the pieces by first identifying her body and then raising their children without her.
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00:00Following the tragic death of movie icon Jane Mansfield, her ex-husband, Mickey Hargitay,
00:05had to pick up the pieces by first identifying her body and then raising their children without
00:09her.
00:10Born Miklós Hargitay in 1926, not much is known about the Hungarian native's early life.
00:16But what is known is pretty wild, and some of that is due to Hargitay himself. We know
00:20that he was born in a Budapest suburb and that as a youth he performed in the circus
00:24alongside his father, who was an acrobat. But other stories about Hargitay are harder
00:29to pin down. Some claim that he had won international speed skating races, and that he had been
00:33a resistance fighter in Hungary during World War II.
00:36According to the Hungarian Free Press, though, Hargitay made up the story about being a resistance
00:41fighter. Similarly, though, he claimed to have an engineering degree that was also apparently
00:45fabricated.
00:46In 1947, Hargitay made the life-changing decision to leave his homeland and emigrate to America.
00:53To hear him tell it, it was a choice born from necessity, as life behind the new Iron
00:57Curtain was quickly becoming oppressive, forcing him to leave his parents and siblings
01:01behind.
01:02In Jane Mansfield, A Biography, writer May Mann asked Hargitay about the circumstances
01:06of his emigration. He explained that he had been wrapping up a degree in psychology from
01:10the University of Budapest when things started going downhill. He said,
01:13"...I was to be drafted for the army and sent to Russia for four years. I escaped and was
01:17captured three different times. After many attempts, I finally reached America, and two
01:21years later, I became a citizen."
01:23Like many immigrants, Hargitay relied on skills learned in the old country once he
01:27settled in his new homeland. His first wife, Mary Burge, supplemented the income he made
01:31as a handyman by performing an acrobatics routine in Indianapolis nightclubs, using
01:36moves he would later show off with his second wife, Jane Mansfield, as well.
01:41Hargitay then turned to bodybuilding, and it didn't take long before he got noticed
01:45in a big way. Soon he was appearing on the covers of magazines like Iron Man, and in
01:501995, he won the Mr. Universe contest. This was a surprisingly big deal, not just for
01:54Hargitay personally, but for the entire bodybuilding community.
01:58Bodybuilding historian and photographer Gene Mosé told the Los Angeles Times that Hargitay's
02:02influence on bodybuilding can't be overstated, saying,
02:05"...back in those days, bodybuilding was thought of as a freakish, unusual activity that wasn't
02:10popular with the general public. At that time, athletic coaches discouraged lifting weights,
02:14thinking you'd become muscle-bound. And along came Mickey Hargitay, a great all-around athlete."
02:20Arnold Schwarzenegger told the Los Angeles Times that Hargitay was his idol and role
02:23model, saying,
02:24"...when I came to this country in 1968, he was one of the first people I wanted to meet."
02:29It was a cover of Strength & Health magazine that brought Hargitay to the attention of
02:33Hollywood icon Mae West. At the time, she was past the racy movies of her heyday, but
02:38that definitely hadn't taken the edge off of her often-reballed performances.
02:42Post-World War II, she was renowned for stage shows featuring scantily clad men. After she
02:46saw Mickey Hargitay on that magazine cover, she recruited him. Then, in 1956, he was picked
02:52out of the crowd by none other than Jane Mansfield. When she saw him for the first time while
02:56he was performing on stage with Mae West, Mansfield was immediately smitten.
03:00"...and when the waiter came over, she said, I'd like a steak and that man on the right."
03:04As Mae Mann recounts in the biography Jane Mansfield, Hargitay and Mansfield were immediately
03:09inseparable, but the movie companies who held Mansfield's contract weren't happy. She was,
03:14after all, still technically married, and that was a kind of publicity they really didn't
03:18want. Add in the fact that they didn't see Hargitay as being Hollywood enough for the
03:21glamorous Mansfield, and it seemed like everyone had a reason why it shouldn't have been more
03:25than a fling. None of that mattered, though, and Mansfield would explain,
03:29"...I knew I wanted Mickey ten minutes after we were introduced. It's like I've been pulling
03:33a huge wagon alone. Now there will be two of us."
03:37Hargitay divorced his first wife in 1956 and married Mansfield in 1958, and their wedding
03:42was an almost ridiculous spectacle. The Mansfield-Hargitay wedding was such a big deal that the media
03:47reported on even the smallest details, and it was really no wonder. According to Mae
03:51Mann's book Jane Mansfield, hundreds of invitations were sent out to a list of who's who in Hollywood,
03:57and still more were dropped from the sky by a helicopter.
04:00On the day of the wedding, police were called in to control the crowds of people who showed
04:03up hoping to get a glimpse of the happy couple, directing traffic and attempting to keep damage
04:07to a minimum.
04:08"...Thousands of fans showed up, really, and I saw no one but Janie."
04:13In a way, it was a sign of things to come. The happiest couples are on the same page
04:17about their future, but while Mansfield relished the attention and celebrated the idea of an
04:21upcoming Vegas show telling the story of her life, Hargitay had different ambitions. Mansfield
04:26told Mann that Hargitay wanted to open a Hungarian restaurant, a line of gas stations, and his
04:31own series of health stores and fitness clubs.
04:34It wasn't long after Mickey Hargitay's marriage to Jane Mansfield that they purchased a perfect
04:39ordinary white house on Sunset Boulevard for $76,000. That was the last ordinary thing
04:43about the home that would come to be known as the Pink Palace. First, the home was outfitted
04:48with around $150,000 worth of furniture that Mansfield got in trade for personal appearances.
04:53Tributes from adoring fans also poured in, including a bed that was donated by Laguna
04:58Beach's police department. The house also required a considerable amount of work to
05:02be done in order to get it up to Mansfield's standards, and to turn the entire thing various
05:06shades of pink. Most of the work was done by Mickey Hargitay himself. He painted, he
05:11plastered, and he even built and tiled a heart-shaped pool.
05:14"'Jane wanted pink. Pink, everything pink. She loved pink."
05:18And pink was definitely everywhere, including the shag carpeting that covered the walls
05:22and ceiling, as well as the floor in her bathroom. Hargitay arranged for a champagne fountain
05:27in the living room, Cupid decor throughout, and gardens his wife likened to those found
05:31at Versailles.
05:33Shortly after Mickey Hargitay and Jane Mansfield married, she became pregnant with their first
05:37child. Two more followed, and publicly, the press celebrated their happy marriage.
05:41But behind the scenes, things got rocky, as Mansfield longed for excitement rather than
05:45domestic bliss. She told May Man,
05:48"'I need stimulation. So far, Mickey has been everything to me that I need, and now
05:51he is turning into just a husband. There's no incentive.'"
05:55Shortly after, she filed for divorce. He didn't tell Hargitay, though. He only found out when
05:59he arrived at home to find reporters gathered for Mansfield's press conference about the
06:03split. They briefly reconciled, but when Mansfield began an affair with movie producer Enrico
06:08Bamba, the writing was on the wall. Hargitay reportedly gave her an ultimatum. She responded
06:13by filing for divorce again. This time, it went through, when the two officially parted
06:17ways in 1964.
06:20In June 1967, Jane Mansfield was tragically killed in a terrible car accident outside
06:25of New Orleans. All three children from her marriage to Hargitay were sleeping in the
06:29back seat of the car and miraculously survived. Hargitay immediately made the trip to New
06:34Orleans to join them. He was there so quickly, in fact, that he was ultimately the one called
06:38in to identify her body, and he had to face the press the next day. Mansfield's death
06:43was sudden and completely unexpected, and to say her personal affairs were not in order
06:47would be a massive understatement. Hargitay was still the beneficiary of her life insurance
06:51policy and those who were closest to her estate in the Pink Palace while things got
06:55sorted out.
06:56And that's where the stories of her ghost come in. According to the book Jane Mansfield,
07:00there were a series of strange occurrences that happened in the days and weeks after
07:04Mansfield's death, including another minor car accident involving Hargitay. Fueled by
07:08stories about her associations with Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan, many latched
07:13on to the idea that the devil had infected the house. And the strange occurrences continued
07:17even after the house had been bought and sold multiple times. Allegedly, when Ringo Starr
07:21bought the house, he had the house repainted, yet it still mysteriously returned to pink.
07:27After Mansfield's death, Hargitay raised their three children, Mickey Hargitay Jr., Mariska
07:32Hargitay, and Zoltan Hargitay, with his third wife, Ellen Hargitay, whom he remained married
07:37to for 38 years until his death in 2006.
07:40It's only been recently that his most famous daughter, Law & Order SVU star Mariska Hargitay,
07:45has spoken about her upbringing. Good Housekeeping spoke with Mariska about her own decision
07:49to adopt, and she said that her father and stepmother had a large part to play in cementing
07:53her firm belief that family was about much more than blood.
07:56"...I called her mom. She really claimed us. She never had biological kids of her own,
08:01and to this day we are her kids."
08:03In other interviews, Mariska has painted a picture of everything a father should be.
08:07In Glamour, she talked about his insistence that she have a childhood of volleyball games
08:11and school sports, and how it didn't matter where he was or what he was doing. His children
08:16came first, unconditionally. And in People, she credited him for giving her wisdom and
08:20emotional intelligence.
08:22Mickey Jr. has shared memories of his father, too. According to the Los Angeles Times, he
08:26found his calling at a young age and opened a plant store. He has since built it into
08:30a wildly successful business, and he credits his father for making it his job to care for
08:34penguins' plants.
08:36Though Hargitay wasn't an actor by trade, he still ended up having an odd and interesting
08:40film and television career, mostly due to his relationship with Jane Mansfield. The
08:44two co-starred in four movies together, including Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, the decidedly
08:49adult film Promises Promises, and The Loves of Hercules, which was so bad it was never
08:54released in the United States before receiving the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.
08:59Following his divorce from Mansfield, Hargitay also starred in Bloody Pit of Horror, which
09:03cast him against the backdrop of a terrifying castle, and an excuse to surround him with
09:07scantily clad ladies destined to meet a terrible end at the hands of a madman.
09:12Sounds like it's of questionable taste? That's likely. It was supposed to have been based
09:16on the X-rated writings of the Monquita Sod.
09:19They desecrated your world of beauty with their sordidness.
09:27Hargitay's acting career wasn't filled completely with B-movies, though, and in 2003, he starred
09:31in his final role opposite his daughter in an episode of Law & Order SVU. Hargitay said,
09:36I enjoyed my career. I never wanted to be any more than what I was, and I had fun doing it.
09:42In 2006, Mickey Hargitay passed away at the age of 80 from multiple myeloma,
09:46a rare blood cancer that affects bone marrow. In the Times, Hargitay was paid perhaps the most
09:51ideal of compliments. In addition to being lauded for his business sense, his devotion to his family,
09:56and his work in promoting health and fitness, he was remembered as a genuine down-to-earth
10:01person by Iron Man publisher John Ballack, who said,
10:04He was the epitome of the word gentleman. The kind of feeling you got from him was
10:08just a really genuine guy. He had a lot of accolades and success in life,
10:12but you never felt that. They didn't call him Mr. Universe for nothing.