Mariska Hargitay memorializes late mom Jayne Mansfield: 'We live to love you more every day'

Mariska Hargitay has been connected to show business all her life — and it's brought her pain as well as success.

Before she was the long-running star of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Hargitay was the daughter of actress Jayne Mansfield. Mansfield was a popular sex symbol in the '50s and '60s who starred in films like Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (reprising her role from the earlier Broadway play) and The Girl Can't Help It (which featured performances from early rock & roll icons like Little Richard and Fats Domino). Mansfield's career was tragically cut short when she died in a car accident in 1967, at the young age of 37.

Hargitay posted a beautiful throwback photo of her mother on Wednesday, which would've been Mansfield's 90th birthday.

"Happy Birthday Mama," Hargitay wrote on Instagram alongside a heart emoji. "We live to love you more each day."

Hargitay was in the back seat with two of her siblings during the crash that killed Mansfield. Although all three children survived, they've had to live with the trauma ever since.

"I think I learned about crisis very young, and I learned very young that s--- happens and there's no guarantees, and we keep going," Hargitay told Glamour in 2021. "And then we transform it."

For those interested in celebrating Mansfield alongside her daughter, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

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