The ‘Law & Order: SVU’ star talked about her famous Texas mom, her sexual-assault activism and freeing herself from silence at a Genesis Women’s Shelter event.
By Sarah Hepola
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
“I’m so excited to come here,” said Mariska Hargitay, sounding like she meant it, in an onstage conversation at the 33rd Genesis Women’s Shelter luncheon on May 8, 2026. “I see all the prosecutors and SVU detectives and all the people in law enforcement,” she said, casting her eyes over the 1,500 or so attendees of the sold-out event inside Dallas’ Hilton Anatole ballroom. “I play a cop on TV, but you all are my heroes.”
The Genesis Women’s Shelter luncheon has a reputation for high-profile keynote speakers. Nicole Kidman, George W. Bush and Kristin Chenoweth have all appeared at the annual fundraiser for the nonprofit, founded in 1985 as a safe place for women fleeing violent homes. Hargitay was a natural fit, given the more than a quarter-century she’s played Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Olivia Benson, a detective turned captain who’s something of an avenging angel for women’s justice and one of America’s most beloved female TV protagonists.
Like Genesis, the 62-year-old Hargitay is comfortable addressing topics people might prefer to keep hidden: domestic abuse, rape, sexual assault. In 2004, she founded Joyful Heart Foundation to help survivors, and 16 years ago, she began sounding the alarm about hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits languishing in warehouses across the country (also the subject of her 2017 HBO documentary I Am Evidence). That activism has led to reform across all 50 states.
“Guess who was the first state who had all the six pillars of reform?” she asked the audience, referring to the End the Backlog legislation her organization championed. “Texassss!” she answered, lightly shimmying her shoulders in a creamy silk top whose elegant drape only the truly glamorous can pull off.
“My mom was from Texas,” Hargitay continued, seated across from her conversation partner, Genesis CEO Jan Langbein, “and I consider myself half-Texan.”
Hargitay’s mother, of course, is ’50s blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield. Born Vera Jayne Palmer, she played in the orchestra through Highland Park High School, married Paul Mansfield in her senior year (it was a different time) and studied violin at Southern Methodist University before setting off for Hollywood, where she became one of the most photographed women in the world. Mansfield died in a 1967 car crash that also took the lives of her then-boyfriend and driver. Mariska, 3 at the time, was in the back seat. She was found pinned under the car seat, and though a zigzag scar on her forehead dates back to that tragedy, she was mostly unharmed. The emotional impact was another story.
“I don’t remember the accident, but I had quite a bit of PTSD from it,” she said. “That’s when I learned about trauma and how it gets stuck in the body.”
Hargitay’s ability to hold complicated stories began in childhood. Everyone knew her mother — but she did not. Her extraordinary 2025 HBO documentary My Mom Jayne illustrates how her mother’s absence shaped her life, though the narrative tension comes from the film’s reveal about her dad. Raised by Mickey Hargitay, aka Mr. Universe and her mom’s devoted second husband, Mariska learned in her 20s that Hargitay was not her biological father.
“I kept it a secret, because I wanted to honor him,” she said, referring to the late Hargitay, the man she calls “my North Star.” She eventually realized she could honor him — and herself — in other ways, freeing herself from the silence in the hope it might free others, too.
“We all have secrets,” she said. “We all carry a story.”
The Genesis Women’s Shelter aimed to raise $1.3 million at the luncheon for its services, which reach 3,000 women a year. A special Jane Doe award, given for courage in helping women fleeing domestic abuse, went to Terry Flowers of St. Philip’s School in South Dallas. An Ignite award for people who spark change was given to Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation. The luncheon’s co-chairs were Angela Crates and Stephanie Bond, who came to the podium to share the story of surviving an attempted murder-suicide by her husband of 22 years, who shot her three times before turning the gun on himself.
“Domestic violence suffers greatly from a ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome,” Bond told the audience. “We all think it happens to people over there.”
Genesis Women’s Shelter is a reminder that it does happen, and if it happens to you, there’s a place to go.
Sarah Hepola is a staff writer at The Dallas Morning News. She has more than 25 years of journalism experience including with the Dallas Observer, Salon.com and Texas Monthly. She is the author of the 2015 best-selling memoir “Blackout” and was the host/creator of the Texas Monthly podcast “America’s Girls,” about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
