Personal:
Born April 16, 1946, in London. Married to Roy
Boulting, 1971-77; one son, Crispian, 27. One son, Jason Lawson, 24,
with Leigh Lawson.
Films:
Include Tiger Bay, 1959; Pollyanna,
1960; The Parent Trap, 1961; Whistle Down the Wind,
1961; The Chalk Garden, 1964; The Truth About Spring,
1965; The Trouble With Angels, 1966; The Family Way,
1966; A Matter of Innocence, 1967; Take a Girl Like You,
1970; Endless Nights, 1972.
Theater:
Includes Peter Pan, 1969-70; Three
Sisters, 1970; A Touch of Spring, 1975-76; Talley's Folly,
1982; Toys in the Attic 1985; The King and I, 1997-98;
Shadows of the Evening, 2000; A Song at Twilight,
2000.
Television:
Includes The Flame Trees of Thika, 1982;
Parent Trap II, 1986; Good Morning, Miss Bliss, 1988;
Back Home, 1990.
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In Step With |
 Today, the wonderful Hayley Mills, star of Pollyanna and The Parent Trap in the '60s, is one proud parent. |
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HAYLEY MILLS |
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HIS WAS A COOL spring afternoon, and I was in a Manhattan
restaurant sipping coffee with Hayley Mills. You remember blond and
adorable Hayley, perhaps the most successful Hollywood child star since
Shirley Temple. The daughter of the British film legend Sir John Mills,
she is probably best known as the star of Pollyanna and The
Parent Trap. She was in town for the production of two of Noël
Coward's later plays and was talking about the theater."You need great stamina," she said. "I was Anna in The King and I on a national tour in '97 and '98. It's a three-hour play, and Anna is in almost every scene." |
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I wondered if it bothered Hayley, now in her 50s, to be
asked about her child roles. "No," she said. "I'm proud
of them. I was terribly lucky my directors knew how to handle child
actors and treated me like a professional." Her career was launched when she was 12, playing opposite her dad and Horst Buchholz in Tiger Bay, a thriller. The director J. Lee Thompson was visiting the Mills home and complaining to Hayley's dad that he couldn't find the right 12-year-old boy for the film when he spied this girl clowning around in the yard. Thompson changed the character to a girl and gave Hayley a screen test. "I did that test and never did another one until 25 years later," she told me. When her first flick came out to raves, Wait Disney's wife touted Hayley to her husband. "Walt was casting Pollyanna," Hayley said, "and asked my agent to send a copy of Tiger Bay, and my agent said, 'No.'" Mr. Disney eventually saw her debut film and cast her as Pollyanna. Unfortunately, both of her Noël Coward plays, Shadows of the Evening and A Song at Twilight, drew mixed reviews and closed after a brief run. But don't worry about Ms. Mills. She can spend the time off at her 200-year-old cottage "near where Henry VIII lived," in England. James Brady's new novel, "The Marines of Autumn," published this week by St. Martin's Press, tells the story of the epic battle of the U.S. 1st Marine Division and the Chinese army in the mountains of North Korea. |
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Hayley Mills is still lean and fit, the eyes still that gorgeous blue. But the girl we all loved is now the mother of two grown sons. She was telling me about life as a child star. "It was alarming," she said, "the fan reaction to Tiger Bay. But I had this sort of dual life. After the film, I went back to boarding school. It insulated me. Only after Pollyanna did things really change. My family got a house in L.A." Did she continue her studies? "There was a schoolhouse on the Disney lot," she said. "The Mouseketeers and I were in school together. It was fun, but I didn't learn a thing. No college. But if you're curious, you learn. I used to regret in my 20s that I hadn't a formal education. But I never stopped working. When I was 16, I found myself working with theater actors, like Eli Wallach, Irene Papas. Their approach to acting was different. I didn't know what to do, but theater was the way I wanted to go. I didn't go to drama school. I learned from those I admired." When Hayley talks of her two sons, you hear the admiration in her voice. Crispian has a band, and Jason graduated from Leeds University - "the only one in our family to finish college," said Hayley.