Mickey Hargitay
From Free net encyclopedia
Current revision
Mickey Hargitay (born January 6, 1926 in Budapest, Hungary) was NABBA Mr. Universe in 1955.
He fled Hungary in 1947 to escape the compulsory Soviet military draft. He settled in Cleveland, where he met and married his first wife, and worked as a plumber and carpenter. He was inspired to begin bodybuilding after seeing a magazine cover of Steve Reeves, famed for playing Hercules.
After winning Mr. Universe, he joined Mae West's muscleman revue at New York's Latin Quarter. The story goes when Jayne Mansfield's dinner companion asked her what she wanted the evening they caught the show, she quipped, "I'll have a steak and the man on the left." Ms. West, never to be outdone, tried to break up the attention-grabbing couple, but failed. They married on January 13, 1958 after his divorce became final. Their 3 children include TV actress Mariska Hargitay, who was born after Mansfield divorced Hargitay, however this divorce was later ruled invalid by a judge.
He remodeled much of his and Mansfield's Beverly Hills, California mansion, The Pink Palace, building its famous heart-shaped pool. In November 2002, the house was razed by developers. Its previous owner had been Engelbert Humperdinck.
After Mansfield's death in a car crash on June 29, 1967, Hargitay sued her estate for over $275,000 to support the children; in their divorce decree, she had agreed to pay child support. Hargitay married his current wife that September.
Mickey has a brother, Ede, who lived in the Hollywood area many years ago and is the grandfather of actor Eddie Hargitay, and Mickey is Eddie's godfather. Mickey is the first recipient of the Joe Weider Lifetime Achievement Award. He was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1982 TV-movie The Jayne Mansfield Story.
Mickey appeared in an episode of his daughter Mariska's series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In the episode "Control", Mickey plays a man on a subway station escalator who witnesses the aftermath of a brutal assault. (Mariska's character, Olivia Benson, is later seen interviewing him.)