Mariska Hargitay on Domestic Violence and Child Abuse (2013)

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• published: 18 Apr 2015
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Hargitay was born at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of actress and 1950s-era sex symbol Jayne Mansfield. Her father was the Hungarian-born former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay.[1] Her first and middle names are Hungarian and refer to Mary Magdalene (Mariska is a diminutive of Mary). Hargitay was raised Roman Catholic.[4] She has two older brothers, Miklos and Zoltan, and three half-siblings, Jayne Marie Mansfield and Antonio "Tony" Cimber (from her mother's first and third marriages, respectively) and Tina Hargitay (from her father's first marriage). Hargitay's parents had divorced in May 1963, but a judge later found their Mexican divorce invalid. They reconciled a few months before Hargitay's birth in January 1964, but soon separated again; in August 1964, her mother successfully petitioned the court to rule the Mexican divorce legal. A few weeks later, Mansfield married the director Matt Cimber, who had directed her in a 1964 production of the William Inge play Bus Stop.[1] On June 29, 1967, Mansfield was killed in an automobile accident on a stretch of U.S. Route 90 between New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Her boyfriend, Sam Brody, and the driver were also killed. Asleep in the back of the vehicle, Hargitay, then three and a half years old, was left with a zigzag scar on one side of her head. Her brothers Miklós and Zoltán were also in the car, but escaped with minor injuries. After the death of their mother, the three siblings were raised by their father and his third wife, Ellen Siano.[1] Hargitay dislikes comparisons with her famous mother and at age 18 said, "My dad was Mr. Universe, so it would be fun for me to be Miss Universe."[5] While a student at her Catholic secondary school, Marymount High School, Hargitay was active in cheerleading, student government, athletics, and the theater program.[6] She enjoyed acting and enrolled at UCLA after graduation from high school in 1982. That same year, Hargitay was crowned Miss Beverly Hills USA.[7] By the time she was a freshman in college, Hargitay had an agent and several small roles to her credit. She attended UCLA School of Theater Film and Television (where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma).[8][9] She left before completing her degree when she began her acting career.[1] Hargitay attended Groundlings theatre company in Los Angeles. Her improv teacher was Kathy Griffin. Griffin stated in an interview, "We started class, and in the Groundlings curriculum, one of the first exercises you do is the cliched 'trust' game. I made everyone stand in a circle, with me in the center, and I said, being onstage, you have to trust your fellow actors, especially when you're an improviser. You're going to be there for each other, and they're going to be there for you. For example, I'm going to fall back, knowing that you'll catch me. Then I let myself fall backward, and sure enough, I was caught. Everyone gets out some nervous laughter, and then they all took turns doing it. By the time it got around to Mariska Hargitay, we'd already done it with ten or eleven students, and they had clearly gotten the point. Then it was Mariska's turn. 'Okay, Mariska, cross your arms in front of you and gently fall back,' I said. She fell back and nobody caught her. She fell flat on her ass. I was horrified. This had never happened in one of my classes before." In 1982, after Hargitay was crowned Miss Beverly Hills USA,[7] she then competed in the Miss California USA pageant the following year, placing fourth runner-up to Julie Hayek, who was later crowned Miss USA.[11] In 1984, she appeared in Ronnie Milsap's music video for "She Loves My Car".[12] A year later she had a small role in the horror film, Ghoulies.[13] Hargitay said in 1986 that she never thought about doing television until a role for the one-hour adventure drama series Downtown was offered.[13] In 1988, she had a recurring role as Carly Fixx in the soap opera Falcon Crest.[12] She portrayed police officer Angela Garcia in the 1992 series Tequila and Bonetti, and appeared in an episode of the fourth season of Seinfeld. Two years later, Hargitay portrayed Didi Edelstein, the sexy next-door neighbor, in the 1995 sitcom Can't Hurry Love, which starred Nancy McKeon. In 1997, Hargitay played detective Nina Echeverria on the drama series Prince Street, and had a recurring role as Cynthia Hooper during the fourth season of ER. Hargitay has appeared on numerous other television programs, including: Freddy's Nightmares; Ellen; All-American Girl; Baywatch; Cracker; Gabriel's Fire; In the Heat of the Night; The Single Guy; Wiseguy, and thirtysomething. Her voice is featured on the 2005 video game True Crime: New York City. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariska_Hargitay Image By Joella Marano (Mariska Hargitay) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons