Affair Rumors That Swirled Around Jayne Mansfield In The '60s

The 1960s were the age of "free love," so it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that many of the biggest stars of that era faced affair rumors. Jayne Mansfield was one of those stars — though to her credit, she did also marry two of her affair partners. 

Strictly speaking, we can't classify Mickey Hargitay as one of Jayne's affair partners from the '60s. After all, even though she met and began her relationship with her second husband before she was divorced from her first (that would be Paul Mansfield, her high school sweetheart and the man whose last name she catapulted to fame), the marriage had already been over for some time. The "Female Jungle" star and former Mr. Universe tied the knot in 1958. 

Unfortunately for Mickey, a few years into the marriage and two kids later, he and Jayne began having problems. During a separation period, Jayne started seeing singer Nelson Sardelli ... and as her daughter Mariska Hargitay revealed for the first time in 2025, he was her biological father. Jayne had gotten back together with Mickey after she fell pregnant, and Mariska tragically only learned the truth about her parentage when she was in her 20s. Sadly, in an interview with Vanity Fair, she shared that Mickey had denied it to be the case and had gotten so upset that they never spoke about it again. Even so, she added that she believed her mom had made the best decision for her. "[Jayne] knew: Mickey will love me forever, and he will love this child. ... I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me," she told Vanity Fair. Mariska ultimately met Sardelli when she was 30, and though she's always maintained that Mickey is her dad, he's remained in her life.

Mickey Hargitay may have been the right choice of father for Mariska Hargitay, and Nelson Sardelli may have been overjoyed to have met his daughter when he finally got the chance, but sadly, not all of Jayne Mansfield's affair partners turned out to be great real-life partners. 

A few months after giving birth to Mariska in 1964, Mickey and Jayne worked together in a stage production of "Bus Stop," directed by Matt Cimber. A few months after that, Jayne married the director. Unfortunately, the marriage seems not to have been a happy one, with Jayne's secretary sharing in Mariska's 2025 documentary "My Mom Jayne," "I think Matt was the worst thing that ever happened to [Jayne]. The only good thing that came out of that was Tony." Tony, of course, is their son, whom Mariska spoke to about some of the serious goings-on in the relationship for "My Mom Jayne." "There are things that I've heard that I'm always fearful to bring up with you ... things that are really ugly," she told her brother (via People). He replied that he also had a vague idea about them, but had never wanted to delve deeper. "I don't know that I want to know. Because I don't want to carry it," he said. 

Jayne would soon divorce Cimber, using attorney Sam Brody as her legal counsel, and they too began a relationship before the divorce was finalized. Sadly, that also became volatile. "She agreed to a relationship with Brody because she imagined it would ensure her custody of her children," Blanche Barton wrote in "The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey." "Almost immediately Jayne had second thoughts. Brody showed a side of himself that was violently jealous, imposing impossible constraints on Jayne."

In "The Secret Life of a Satanist," Blanche Barton mused that one of the reasons Sam Brody may have been so jealous in his relationship with Jayne Mansfield was because of a budding romance between the actor and the head of the aforementioned Church of Satan, Anton LaVey. Barton wrote that Mansfield had become intrigued by LaVey, so she organized to meet with him while she was at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1966. Soon enough, Barton wrote, they were having incredibly intimate conversations, and the author wrote that some of those conversations even revolved around how she would be able to end her relationship with Brody. 

In an interview with Barton for the biography, LaVey himself recounted his sexual experiences with Mansfield, and shared that she tried to see him whenever she could (especially when Brody was busy). "Jayne could be a demanding woman. ... It was almost like being her personal 'sorcerer-on-call' at times," he said. Brody wasn't quite as intrigued by LaVey's teachings, though, and LaVey also told Barton that he regularly went out of his way to make fun of the church. In one instance, he even lit one of LaVey's candles. LaVey recounted telling Brody he'd made a grave error and might even have been cursed, which the attorney did not take seriously.

Sadly, Mansfield was killed in a deadly car accident in 1967, and LaVey believed Brody, who died alongside her, was responsible. "I have little doubt that the reason they were killed was because of Brody goading the driver to go faster. I would stake anything on it ... Jayne would be alive today if Brody hadn't been in the car that night," he told Barton. Sadly, we'll never know if that was the case.