Mariska Hargitay

Mariska Hargitay is an American actress and producer whose three-decade career has produced multiple defining American TV roles — particularly her 25-season run as New York Police Department Special Victims Unit detective Olivia Benson on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–present), the longest-running primetime live-action American TV series in TV history. She was born Mariska Magdolna Hargitay on January 23, 1964, in Santa Monica, California, into an American-Hungarian acting family. Her father was Mickey Hargitay, the Hungarian-born actor and 1955 Mr. Universe bodybuilding champion, and her mother was actress Jayne Mansfield.

The June 29, 1967 fatal automobile accident that killed her mother Jayne Mansfield — when Mariska was three years old, and which occurred while Mariska was sleeping in the back seat of the car (where she sustained survivable but childhood injuries) — shaped her subsequent later autobiographical narrative. Her education at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television (1981–1985, without earning a degree) launched her early-1980s American TV career.

Her 1986 first feature-film appearance in Ghoulies launched her late-1980s and 1990s American film and TV career. Her September 20, 1999 first appearance as Detective Olivia Benson on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — the Dick Wolf-created Law & Order franchise sex-crimes-and-victims spinoff — launched her 2000s and 2010s American TV public profile.

Her sustained 25-year run on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit across 1999–present has produced over 550 episodes of the series — making the series the longest-running primetime live-action American TV series in TV history (surpassing the 20-season previous record of Gunsmoke in October 2018). The series produced her 2006 Primetime Emmy Award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series and her 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a TV Drama Series. Her 2004 founding of the Joyful Heart Foundation — her own non-profit foundation supporting survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse — has produced her later 2000s and 2010s American sexual-assault-survivor advocacy. She married actor Peter Hermann in 2004 and the couple has one biological son and two adopted children.

Her name Mariska derives from the Hungarian diminutive of Maria (the Hungarian form of Mary, from the Hebrew Miryam). Mariska has been a rare but enduring American girls' name across the late 20th century.