[I review "My Mom Jayne," Mariska Hargitay's film about her mother, Jayne Mansfield and "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything")
My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay (2025)
But Mansfield was much more than her measurements. She claimed to have an IQ of 163 and few knew that she was a classically trained violinist and pianist and could speak four other languages besides English. So her other nickname was Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde." Though she played up the ditsy blonde persona as a means to an end, she later complained that no one cared about her brain, just her measurements.
She had five children, a pink mansion, a heart-shaped swimming pool, a grand piano decorated with cherubs, a turbulent love life, and sadly died in a car accident in 1967 at the age of 34.
Hargitay, who wrote and directed this documentary (her directorial debut) was Mansfield's fifth and last child when Mansfield was married to Mickey Hargitay, a body-builder and past Mr. Universe. She was only three when her mother died. She doesn't remember her mother so this documentary is Hargitay's way to not only find her mother but to get some answers and also come to grips with a long held family secret.
Hargitay had longed to not be in the shadow of her mother, the blonde bombshell, but now wants to understand her. She also wants to reveal the family secret that she kept to honor her mother and father but..."Reclaiming my own story...sometimes keeping a secret doesn't honor anyone."
Hargitay has woven in archival footage of Mansfield's career as well as home movies and interviews with her own siblings: Jayne Marie, Miklós, Zoltán, and Tony. They talk about their childhoods, and in a very touching scene, they all meet in a storage unit that no one had been in since 1969, and they go through the many artifacts and belongings of their mother. And there is an even more touching scene involving that piano.
This is not your run-of-the-mill, "just the facts, ma'am," kind of biopic documentary. It's not just the story of a famous blonde bombshell. It's the story of her equally famous daughter getting to know a mother she never really had.
Rosy the Reviewer says...a touching family story that will remind you that no matter how famous someone is, they are not immune to the disappointments, sadness and tragedies that touch the rest of us. If you like documentaries, this one is highly recommended. (HBO and Max)
Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything (2025)
The life and career of pioneering broadcast journalist, Barbara Walters.
We see women news anchors on TV all of the time now, but that was not the case when Barbara Walters was making a career for herself in broadcast journalism. She joined the staff of the Today show in the early1960s as a writer and segment producer of women's-interest stories, and in 1974, she became co-host of the program, the first woman to hold such a position on an American news program. And in 1976 she was the first American female co-anchor of a network evening news program, alongside Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News. And let's just say that Harry wasn't happy. More on that later. And as we all know now, Barbara went on to be a correspondent, producer and co-host on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 (1979 to 2004) and created, produced, and co-hosted the ABC daytime talk show The View, where she also appeared from 1997 until 2014. She was also known for her annual specials where she interviewed the current "Fascinating People."
As and interviewer, Walters was known for asking questions of famous people that other interviewers were afraid to ask, but the kinds of questions viewers wanted the answers to. I mean, she asked the Kardashians why they were famous since they didn't sing or dance or seem to have any talent. She asked Putin if he ever ordered someone killed. She asked Martha Stewart why everyone seemed to hate her and Boris Yeltsin if he drank too much. She was disarming and fearless. She did her homework, put her subjects at ease and then went in for the zinger! She was also known for making her subjects cry. Just ask Oprah.
Growing up in New York, Barbara's father, Lou Walters, owned The Latin Quarter, a popular New York City nightclub, so Barbara was used to hanging out with celebrities and later said, "I learned that celebrities were human beings so I was never in awe," which probably accounts for how she was able to ask those burning questions. When her father's nightclub closed and he lost everything, it fell to Barbara to support the family, which many say accounts for her burning ambition.
It is amazing to me that no woman was a TV news anchor until 1974 but I guess that's why we had the Women's Movement. When I was in eighth grade, I also wanted to be a journalist. I had to write a report on my desired career and I had to interview someone in that field. So I interviewed a woman at our local newspaper, and though she was a journalist, she was only assigned articles of interest to women. Even at 13, I could tell her assignments rankled her, that she wanted to be reporting on real news, not local weddings and what hat to wear on Easter.
But such was the world that Barbara Walters found herself in as she began her career.
This documentary directed by Jackie Jesko, explores Walters' career, the ambition that drove her and the sexism and challenges she faced as she made her way in broadcast journalism. When Frank McGee joined "The Today Show" as host in 1971, he refused to do joint interviews with Barbara unless she was silent until he had asked the first three questions. Likewise, news anchor Harry Reasoner was not only not happy to have a co-anchor on the ABC Nightly News, he was particularly unhappy that it was a woman. He barely acknowledged her, and since the staff was made up entirely of men, none of them even talked to her. She described that time as the "most painful period in my life." Peter Jennings bullied her too. Those men clearly did not want a woman in their midst.
But our Barbara had spunk and overcame the obstacles. She figured out a way around the sexism in the newsroom by doing interviews on her own, and ironically, that's what she became famous for. She turned the TV interview into an art form and went on to interview every sitting U.S. president and first lady from the Nixons to the Obamas, Fidel Castro, Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Saddam Hussein as well as celebrities and pop culture figures like the Menendez brothers. Her interview with Monica Lewinsky after the Clinton scandal was the highest rated news interview of all time with 70 million people watching.
Sadly Walters' personal life wasn't so successful. She was married four times and had problems with her adopted daughter, Jackie. Walters was also insecure about her looks and once said to Katie Couric, "We are so alike. Neither of us is that attractive."
The documentary includes archival footage from many of Walters' interviews and Oprah, Katie Couric, Bette Midler, Connie Chung and others weigh in on the impact Walters had on them. When Walters retired from "The View" in 2014, all of the female journalists she had inspired paid tribute to her on her last show. As they all came on stage, one by one, it was very moving and poignant. Walters died in 2022 at the age of 93.
"Maybe I made a difference."
She sure did.
Rosy the Reviewer says...Barbara Walters herself was one of those "Fascinating People." A wonderful documentary about a trailblazing and fascinating woman (Hulu).
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