Bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay dead at 80

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Mickey Hargitay, husband of the late actress Jayne Mansfield and father of Emmy Award-winning actress Mariska Hargitay, has died in Los Angeles at age 80.

The bodybuilder and sometime actor who won a string of Mr. Universe titles in the 1950s died Thursday, a family spokesman told Monday's Los Angeles Times. No further details were given.

Hargitay, a native of Hungary, traveled around the United States as part of Mae West's live revue in the 1950s, the newspaper said.

Hargitay and Mansfield married in 1958 and divorced in 1964, but not before appearing together in the 1960 film "The Loves of Hercules," a fantasy-adventure movie produced by Italian filmmakers.

"I wanted in the worst way to do the film with Jayne," Hargitay told the Times in a 2003 interview. "At that time, we didn't tell anybody, but Jayne was pregnant. I noticed it myself she was getting a little bit heavier (making the movie) than she normally was."

He raised the couple's three children after Mansfield's June 1967 death in a car crash.

Hargitay had a daughter Tina from his first marriage and three children with Mansfield -- Mickey Jr., Zolton, the child born after the filming of "Hercules" and Mariska, the star of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."