A rather condescending article published in Modern Screen magazine, February 1963. No bi-line.

Image donated by Myra Koob.

Hayley Mills will be seventeen this April. This fact alone is enough to shock people. How could that pert-faced Pollyanna girl - overnight - accumulate all those years? Why, it was only yesterday she was a little girl, impish, gangly as a colt and just as endearing. Look at her today. She walks into a nightclub and the whispers circulate: "Is it? No, it can't be. Hayley?" It's Hayley all right, the new version. Then you think, "Where has she been all these months?" Answer: She's been away at a Swiss finishing school and though she hasn't graduated yet, there's little left for her to learn in the art of becoming a woman. Hayley had two other wonderful tutors as well. There was her mother whom she leaned on heavily for guidance in womanly conduct and her father whom Hayley turned to to seek advice on the man's world she knew very little about. She was well-schooled. And waiting to help her practice what she'd learned were: Frank Sinatra Jr., Johnny Crawford, Sal Mineo, Rex Thompson. They were all eager to initiate Hayley into the world of dates, goodnight kisses, and romance. Hayley knew all the ground rules by heart though. No sudden love leaps for her, no going steady, and yet no different-date-every-day-of-the-week kind of thing either. Hayley became a woman with the same good sense and unruffled calm she exhibited when she became an actress.

Of course there were several signs that Hayley was bidding goodbye to her young girl years. Her conversation stopped being sprinkled with horse facts, she ceased to sigh publicly over Elvis, she didn't make funny faces at the drop of a hat, she stopped raving about Disneyland all the time. Then there was a subtle change in her dress, hairdo and general manner. Hayley added pearls, heels, slim sheaths, fur-trimmed coats to her wardrobe. Her hair swept up to the top of her head for date evenings, pink lipstick and powder adorned her pert face. All traces of gangliness disappeared. Walking down stairs, along the street, entering a room filled with other, older celebrities, Hayley was poised, perfectly postured. Her hands didn't fidget to push back a strand of hair, she didn't giggle - assurance showed, so did her new maturity.

Just as her parents must have felt pangs of regret to see their girl turn her back forever on the uncomplicated world of the young, so did Hayley's fans. There was a feeling of "Please, don't ever grow up." But grow up she did and you know what? It didn't hurt a bit!

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