TMS Muse of the Week: Hayley Mills
(Mirrorpix)
After Shirley Temple and before Macaulay Culkin, there was a blonde, charismatic child star who captured the hearts of movie viewers all over the world. Her dad was Oscar winning character actor John Mills, her older sister Juliet became a household name as one-half of the title characters on ABC’s “Nanny and the Professor” (1970-71), and her godmother was stage and screen legend Vivien Leigh. She is the ‘glad girl’ herself, Hayley Mills! To my parents’ generation what Lindsay Lohan was to my generation. It seemed every decade had their own Disney girl after Hayley’s success as the original; whether it be Lindsay, Jodie Foster, Miley Cyrus and so on. At 12, Hayley debuted locally in England opposite her father in J. Lee Thompson’s crime thriller Tiger Bay (1959), and only a year later Walt Disney recruited her over to Hollywood after he and many critics were impressed by the tomboyish starlet’s very first acting effort. Hayley’s first two projects for the biggest family film studio in tinsel town—David Swift’s ensemble drama Pollyanna (1960) and Swift’s comedy The Parent Trap (1961)—would already be huge hits and instant classics on release. By 15, she had won Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTAs for Tiger Bay and the now defunct Best Juvenile Performer category at the Oscars for Pollyanna.
My favorite thing about Hayley is how she’s so naturally English, yet can completely fit into any all-American Disney flick. Much like Cary Grant, something about her voice sounds more ‘Transatlantic’ than posh or Cockney like some Brits. Whether it’s a 1910s period piece like Pollyanna or in The Parent Trap, where one of the twins is supposed to be from upper-class Maine, she doesn’t feel out of place. Rather than sport curls or long, voluminous hair, Hayley kept it simple with her famous pixie cut years before Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli and Mia Farrow. The film star continued her streak at Disney with Robert Stevenson’s adventure In Search of the Castaways (1962) and James Neilson’s musical Summer Magic (1963) in between making time to co-star on loan in Bryan Forbes’ Whistle Down the Wind (1961), Ronald Neame’s The Chalk Garden (1962) and Richard Thorpe’s The Truth About Spring (1965) for more grown-up audiences. By the time her third Disney classic, Stevenson’s farce That Darn Cat! (1965), was in theaters, 19-year-old Hayley was ready to retire from family flicks. Her first post-Disney hit was Ida Lupino’s teen comedy The Trouble with Angels (1966), and she had a couple of critical successes with Roy Boulting’s drama The Family Way (1966) and Boulting’s suspense-thriller Twisted Nerve (1968). But despite maintaining some popularity without Walt’s mentorship, Hayley’s momentum wouldn’t sustain as strongly as an adult.
(Godfrey Argent)
Fortunately, unlike depressingly the case with quite a lot of child stars, Hayley maintains that her experiences at Disney Studios were all positive and exciting; and doesn’t feel like she was exploited by Walt or her parents. Unfortunately, there is still a small downside to the actress’ superstardom according to her recent memoir, Forever Young (2021). An eating disorder in her late teens, a volatile marriage in her early 20s to Boulting [who was over 30 years older than her], the UK government taking most of her Disney royalties, and surviving breast cancer in 2008. Her frustration with being typecast as the girl next door began when both her dad and Walt refused to let her play the title role in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962) because of the original novel’s controversial reputation. Things didn’t stay so bad, luckily. Though audiences were reluctant to see Pollyanna all grown up, the blonde had a couple of hits on TV with NBC’s “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” (1987-89) and ITV’s “Wild at Heart” (2007-2012); and found a niche in theatre for a while starring in stage revivals of classic productions like JM Barrie’s Peter Pan (1969), Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1979), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King & I (1991 and 1997-98), and Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music (2001). While Hayley and Roy separated by 1975, they had a son, musician Crispian Mills in 1973. Hayley also conceived a second son, Jason [b. 1976], during her relationship to fellow actor Leigh Lawson from the late 1970s to early 1980s.
These days, Hayley continues to support both her family’s legacy and her work at Disney Studios. She was named a Disney Legend in 1998 and her family classics still endure decades later. Twisted Nerve has grown a following with film lovers as well, and the actress even gets to brag about partying with the Beatles during the height of the 1960s British Invasion. No cautionary tale to be found here, and thanks goodness for that.