For nearly six decades, Jayne Mansfield’s oldest son said almost nothing publicly about his family. That changed when his sister asked him to help tell their mother’s story.
Hargitay runs a plant shop out of a converted Hollywood bungalow at Fountain Avenue and North Sycamore, a few blocks from the studios where his parents once worked as movie stars. He has been there more than four decades, long enough that most customers have no idea his mother was the actress Jayne Mansfield, killed in a highway crash in 1967 that also broke his arm and leg, or that his father was Mickey Hargitay Sr., the bodybuilder turned actor who raised him and his two younger siblings alone afterward.
His sister, actress Mariska Hargitay, changed that in 2025, asking him to speak about their mother for her HBO documentary, the first time in decades Mickey Hargitay Jr. had said anything publicly about his family.
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Miklรณs “Mickey” Hargitay Jr. |
| Born | December 21, 1958, Hollywood, Los Angeles |
| Age | 67 (as of 2026) |
| Parents | Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay Sr. |
| Siblings | Tina Hargitay, Jayne Marie Mansfield, Zoltรกn Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay, Tony Cimber |
| Occupation | Owner, Mickey Hargitay Plants, Hollywood |
| Known for | Surviving the 1967 crash that killed Jayne Mansfield; appearing in My Mom Jayne (2025) |
A Family Built Across Three Marriages
Jayne Mansfield married Mickey Hargitay Sr. in January 1958, three years after he won the Mr. Universe title and turned to acting, including alongside her in films like Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. Their son, born that December, was the first of three children the couple would have together, followed by his brother Zoltรกn in 1960 and his sister Mariska in January 1964, now known for her role on Law and Order: SVU.
He was not, though, the oldest child in the household. Both of his parents brought children from earlier marriages into the family: his father’s daughter Tina, born in 1949, and his mother’s daughter Jayne Marie, born in 1950, were both already several years old by the time he arrived. A younger half brother, Tony Cimber, was born in 1965, after their mother’s third marriage. By the time he was old enough to understand any of it, Mickey Hargitay Jr. was one of six children split across three marriages.
Mansfield and Hargitay Sr. divorced in 1964. He also had a brief, minor screen presence of his own as a young child, an uncredited role as a baby in the 1962 film It Happened in Athens, along with a few television appearances alongside his mother. None of it turned into anything. Whatever pulled the rest of his family toward the camera never really took with him.
The Crash That Killed Jayne Mansfield
The crash happened on June 29, 1967, on a highway outside Slidell, Louisiana, as Mansfield rode back to New Orleans after a nightclub engagement in Biloxi, Mississippi. The car she was riding in rear ended a trailer truck, killing Mansfield along with her boyfriend and their driver. In the back seat, asleep, were her three youngest children, and being asleep and lying down rather than sitting upright is generally credited with saving all three of their lives. Mickey Hargitay Jr. was eight, Zoltรกn was six, and Mariska was three.
A photograph survives from not long afterward showing him being carried by his father, his arm and leg both set in casts. It is one of the few public records of what the crash actually did to him physically, apart from what his mother’s death did to her legacy.
Their father raised the three of them alone from there. He remarried in 1968, to Ellen Siano, and later built a second career as a real estate investor after his own acting work slowed down. He died in 2006, at 80.
The Plant Shop He Built Instead
In the late 1970s, Hargitay and a group of friends started selling handmade macrame plant hangers around Los Angeles, going door to door to beauty shops and offices, before opening a small storefront on Echo Park Avenue they called Max Macs, short for maximum macrames.
By the early 1980s, in his early twenties, that had grown into Mickey Hargitay Plants, a nursery set up inside a bungalow dating to the early 1900s at the corner of Fountain Avenue and North Sycamore in Hollywood. In a later interview with Voyage LA, he described the shop’s earliest days plainly, saying it doubled as his own home, where he and his friends would hang out while selling plants.
More than four decades later, the shop is still there, still selling indoor tropical plants, succulents, cactus, pottery, and landscaping services seven days a week. Its Instagram account, followed by more than 40,000 people, describes it simply as a plant shop of over 40 years.
Hargitay has said the growth of the business was never part of any plan, telling ShoutOut LA he has “a very strong work ethic, a natural inclination to nurture,” and that being “not super social” made working with plants a good fit.
A Return to the Camera for My Mom Jayne
For most of his adult life, Hargitay gave almost no interviews about his family. That changed with My Mom Jayne, the HBO documentary his sister Mariska wrote, directed, and produced about their mother, a film that relies heavily on the siblings who actually remember her, since Mariska herself was only three when Mansfield died and has said she has almost no memories of her own.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025. Further screenings followed at the Tribeca Festival and at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles, ahead of the film’s HBO debut on June 27, 2025. In the trailer, Hargitay tells his sister, “Anything you ask, you know I’m there for you,” and says of their mother, “I looked the other way because I knew she was really smart.”
The documentary also became the venue for a family secret Mariska had kept private for more than 30 years. Her biological father, it turned out, was the entertainer Nelson Sardelli rather than Mickey Hargitay Sr., the man who had raised her, along with Hargitay Jr. and their brother Zoltรกn, as his own children regardless of biology.
Mickey Hargitay Jr. Now
Hargitay was married to Dana Hargitay from 2002 until a later divorce, according to IMDb’s records, and little else about his personal life has ever become public. The plant shop remains the one part of his life anyone can actually see, still open in Hollywood and still run by him.
When Mariska marked his 65th birthday in 2023, she called him her “best big brother” and described him publicly as “soulful, protective, nurturing” and “hard working.” His own description of the life he built is shorter. “My family made decisions to reach for the stars,” he has said, “and I’ve wanted to keep my feet on the ground.”
Common Questions About Mickey Hargitay Jr.
How old is he now?
He was born on December 21, 1958, which makes him 67 as of 2026.
Was he in the car when his mother died?
Yes. He was eight years old and in the back seat with his younger siblings when the crash happened on June 29, 1967. He survived with a broken arm and leg.
What does he do for a living?
He owns Mickey Hargitay Plants, a nursery in Hollywood he built starting in the late 1970s and formally opened in the early 1980s.
What happened to his father, Mickey Hargitay Sr.?
He raised his three youngest children alone after Jayne Mansfield’s death, remarried in 1968, built a second career in real estate, and died in 2006 at 80.
