Looking for the Little Girl That Glared at Us

Almost across the street from The Big Chicken KFC in Marietta is one of the first K-Marts of the area. We were at that K-Mart last Friday and while there I thought of the first night that building opened its door to the public.

Before it was a K-Mart it was some other big discount store that I forgot the name of. I think it had a red, white, and blue badge for a logo.

I remembered the grand opening. It was between 1960 and July 1963. For a crowd drawer Jayne Mansfield made a personal appearance.

We post teenagers made a point to be there for the grand opening to get a look at the famous sexy Jayne Mansfield. And, maybe she might even get a look at us. Not that we expect us to spellbound her with our charming southern mannerism or anything… but again, you never know what might happen. She didn’t even look in our direction.

The store would not let us in until Jayne came, cut the ribbon or something and took the grand tour.

We were outside waiting for the famous Jayne Mansfield – we knew where she would probably park, there was a reserved place with officials not letting anybody park there, right up by the building.

A light color big Cadillac pulled into the parking lot. Everybody cheered. The Caddy pulled into the reserved parking place. She wasn’t driving. A man was. The back door opened and stepped smiling Jayne. Flashbulbs flashed. The officials of the store and the officials of the city of Marietta welcomed her and guided her inside the store.

We all ran to the big window and saw her take a General’s inspection of the place. Someplace in the store at a distance I saw my cousin Anthony R. who got a job there.

When they walked out of the view of the big window some of us walked back to her car to look at it – all young men were car connoisseurs. In the back seat sat Jayne’s daughter. She looked pouty and mad. She didn’t like us looking at her, so she hugged her doll and glared at us.



Recently I discovered that Mariska Hargitay, who plays Detective Olivia Benson, on LAW & ORDER, SVU, was the daughter of Jayne Mansfield and body builder, Mr. Universe, Miklos Hargitay.

I wondered if that was Olivia Benson glaring at me that cold night at the new grand opening of the discount store so I did a little research.

No, Mariska Hargitay is not old enough to have even been born then. She was born in 1964, which is after the grand opening. This girl looked to be over ten years old, but not much over ten.

In my Google research I found that first Jayne married Paul Mansfield and they had a daughter Jayne Marie Mansfield, born 1950. Ahah! The silver slipper fits!



Now back to Mariska Hargitay. While Googling about Jayne Mansfield I found out some about Mariska. At age three and half, in 1967, she was in the wreck that killed her mother; She has won an Emmy; and also is the highest paid actress on TV.

She does seem to put her heart in the roll she plays… good for her. And also she is not the one that hugged her doll and glared at us.