Mariska Hargitay, whose HBO documentary feature “My Mom Jayne” is now streaming on Max, was taken aback during a Monday interview with Marc Maron in learning that the podcast host had played a version of her brother’s father on “GLOW”: “Six degrees, baby. That’s crazy!”
The “Law & Order: SVU” star visited “WTF With Marc Maron” for the first time this week and went deep on her family, life and career. At one point, she broke down the various relationships within her family — namely her late icon mother Jayne Mansfield. While discussing the half-siblings she shares on Mansfield’s side — Jayne Marie Mansfield, Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay, Jr., Zoltán Hargitay and Antonio “Tony” Cimber — she was audibly shocked to learn that Maron himself actually had some extended relation to Tony Cimber.
Turns out, Maron played a composite of Cimber’s father, Matt Cimber, in the beloved Netflix series “GLOW.”
“I played him in a show kind of. This show ‘GLOW.’ The ‘Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,’” Maron said, explaining that his character Sam Sylvia “was kind of a bunch of different characters, but [Matt Cimber] was at the beginning of that. He was the guy that made G.L.O.W. the original G.L.O.W.” He added that Sam was “a kind of down-and-out filmmaker who was brought in to manage and direct this Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.”
“Oh, that’s funny. Six degrees, baby. That’s crazy,” Hargitay said, admitting: “I never saw that.”
“It was on Netflix, it was pretty funny. It was kind of a sweet show, it was on for a few seasons,” Maron said.
Asked if she was close with her half-brother Tony, who’s briefly featured in the documentary, Hargitay shared that there was distance between them but their love for one another is strong.
“We see some things differently, but we’re not close like Mickey and Zolie ’cause I wasn’t raised with him,” Hargitay explained. “We don’t have shared perspective at all. And like he said in the movie, he didn’t feel very connected to my mom and stuff. But yeah, I love him and he loves me and he’s the sweetest.”
“Glow” had a three-season run on Netflix before its 2019 cancellation. Cimber was the original director and executive producer of the 1980s syndicated TV show “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,” which ran from 1986 to 1990 and had four seasons. That series served as the inspiration for the comedy “GLOW.”
