"OF course I'm in love with Hayley Mills," says handsome young Michael Anderson, Jr., who gave Hayley her first screen kiss in In Search Of The Castaways. Then he pertinently adds, "Who isn't?" Indeed, anyone who comes in contact with this beguiling 17-year-old from Britain flips for her. But not many get to date her. Mike Anderson is one of the lucky few. As a matter of fact, their dating got to the point of a serious romance for a while. Then Hayley went off on a round-the-world tour with her parents. Mike went off to the Technicolor wilds of Utah to portray St. James in The Greatest Story Ever Told. And love--for the moment at least--went out the window.

That's the way it always has been for Hayley and Mike. They meet, they get fascinated with each other, they part. But one of these years they will be in one part of the world long enough to fan the spark. Then--watch out!

"Amazing, marvelous, divine!" Ask Mike about the girl he obviously adores, and brace yourself for this barrage of adjectives!

Ask any movie fan who saw Mike in The Sundowners or The Castaways, and you're certain to hear some highly complimentary remarks about him, too. This son of a famous father (the director of Around The World In 80 Days) is one of the most refreshing new faces to hit the screen in years. And what is he like personally? Delightful. He is witty, charming and slightly mad, a master mimic who can--and will--tell stories in any dialect from either side of the Atlantic. He is slender, good-looking and enthusiastic. Especially about Hayley Mills.

He declares simply, "She is divine!"

He didn't think so when they first met. That was over five years ago when they were both signed for roles in Tiger Bay, an English film which was Hayley's first.

There were two wardrobe rooms; Mike was in one and Hayley was in the other with her father, John Mills. She was laughing, giggling and screaming and Mike's initial reaction was, "What a brat!"

Then she came into the room, and she looked not like a brat but like a pretty and ingenious 11-year-old--nearly 12.

"Hello," she said with a smile that melted all of Mike's previous antagonism.

"She is the kind of a girl who says hello to anyone, whether she knows the person or not," says Mike. "She has always been open like that. It is impossible to say a word against her."

Mike played Hayley's hero in the movie, and they hit it off from the start.

"We shot the picture in Cardiff, Wales, and it rained almost every day," Mike recalls. "We used to sit for hours in a caravan (trailer) waiting for the rain to let up. I remember that Hayley taught me 15 different kinds of double solitaire, and I never won a single game from her."

The picture ended and they parted. Fade out.

Fade in three years later. Michael is signed to star in the Disney film In Search Of The Castaways. He asks who else will be in the cast.

"Maurice Chevalier," he is told. "Wonderful," he says.

"George Sanders."

"Wonderful."

"Hayley Mills."

"W-w-w-wow!"

It seemed too good to be true--a return engagement with the girl he had been wild about. Their paths hadn't crossed between the two films, he having made films in Australia and elsewhere, she having been in America and all over the map.

On the first day of shooting, Mike was nervous as a cat. He watched the other performers arrive and settle in their new dressing rooms, but no sign of Hayley. Mike's mother arrived to help him move his things into his dressing room. She suggested visiting the Millses, who were old friends.

"Do you think we should?" he asked cautiously.

"Certainly," said Mrs. Anderson, and she marched over to Hayley's dressing room and knocked on the door.

Mrs. Mills emerged, and the two mothers greeted each other warmly. Hayley and Mike remained distant.

"Hello," she said quietly.

"Hello," he answered.

Months later they were able to laugh about their second meeting. "You surely seemed nervous," she said.

"I was!" he replied. "Weren't you?"

"Certainly!"

To add to their nerves, they had to go right into their kissing scene on the first day of shooting! It was unconvincing and had to be re-shot at the end of the schedule. By that time they were able to put more conviction into the scene.

At first they were both busy with production matters and had little time together. Then one day the youngsters in the cast were dismissed early. Young Keith Hamshere suggested to Mike that they take in a movie. "Not interested," said Mike.

Then Hayley happened by and asked what the boys were going to do that afternoon.

"I'm going to a movie," said Keith. "Want to come along?"

"Sure," said Hayley.

"Wonderful idea!" Mike said hastily.

They had the choice of seeing Parrish or Hayley's new picture, Whistle Down The Wind. They chose Parrish. Keith's mother and Hayley's companion--her parents were in Tahiti--came along to chaperone. Happily, they sat in the front of the theater, and the three youngsters sat together. Keith bought some popcorn and kept handing it to the other pair until he discovered that they were more interested in each other.

After that, Mike would have dinner with Hayley at the hotel where she stayed near the English studio. Sometimes they would take in a movie. The interest was beginning to flicker.

Once again they parted, at the end of Castaways. Hayley went off to finishing school in Switzerland, and Michael came to Hollywood to do some television shows and prepare for The Greatest Story Ever Told.

One day he was having lunch with Walt Disney.

"By the way," Walt said. "Hayley will be out here in three weeks."

Whistles, bells and sirens started sounding in Mike's head. He found out what hotel she would be visiting and made certain that two dozen red roses would be in her room at her arrival.

Contact was difficult at first, because Hayley went right to work on Summer Magic. Then one day Hayley called up to invite Mike to a party her parents were giving. The party was to begin at 3 in the afternoon. Mike arrived at 3.

The younger set gathered around the pool, and Mike made Hayley cry laughing when he fell unceremoniously off the diving board. Later they watched some movies Frank Sinatra Jr. had brought, but once again Hayley and Mike were less interested in movies than each other.

"Call me tomorrow at the studio," she said.

Mike tried. But after going through four different persons, he was told tersely, "We suggest you write Miss Mills."

Finally he called her at home one night. "What are you doing tonight?" he asked. "I couldn't go out," she said. "My parents don't like me to unless they know about it in advance."

"Look, kid, we've just got to go out," he told her. "I'll pick you up in half an hour."

She was ready when he got there. They went to dinner, then for a long ride. They discovered the spark was still there.

It got to the point where Hayley wasn't entertaining calls from other boys. Once Tommy Kirk called Mike to chat and mentioned casually, "By the way, have you talked to Hayley lately?"

"Yes, I talked to her about 10 this morning," Mike said.

"That's funny," Tommy said. "I called her at 10, and I was told she wasn't in."

What kind of a date is Hayley?

"She is very feminine--and that's the first thing I look for in a girl," says Mike. "I've known some girls who fight you to open a car door. 'I'll do it,' they say; 'I'm as good as you are.'

"Hayley is never like that. Nor does she demand that you open the door for her. She merely accepts it as a polite gesture."

What does she talk about?

"Methods of acting; people; how she loves Elvis Presley," Mike reported.

She has a wild sense of humor and is given to practical jokes.

"She is serious only about herself," said Mike. "She doesn't have an inferiority complex, but it is closely related to that. I don't mean that she is insecure; her parents have given her a marvelous upbringing.

"But she faces the worry that plagues all stars: will people accept her for what she is? That is the thing that bothered Marilyn Monroe, that every star must wonder about. They have dinner with twelve people and can't be sure that any of them are really their friends.

"Hayley had an unhappy time at the school in Switzerland because the other girls had preconceived notions about what she would be like. They'd say, 'There's Hayley Mills--she might not like us, so let's not talk to her.' So she felt lonely and left out.

"She still has moments of doubt, when she fears that people accept her as a movie star and not as herself.

"Hayley Mills herself, not the movie star, is a gas to be out with. She is very sweet and nice. She does things from feeling, not from technique. She's the most natural person and the most natural actress I have ever met."

You may get the feeling he likes her. The feeling is also prevalent that she likes him. But for the divergence of their careers, it might go well beyond that stage.

But there is time. She is 17 and he is 19, and fate has already thrown them together three times. When it happens the next time, something wonderful might happen.

--BY BOB THOMAS

Don't miss Hayley in Walt Disney's Summer Magic.