Hayley Mills is a former child star best known for her performances in several classic live-action
Walt Disney features, including Pollyanna and The Parent Trap.
Hayley tried her best to leave behind her child-centric image as an adult, but she is
still most fondly remembered for her Disney films.
Hayley is still around today, and she still acts every once in a while.
Those who see her nowadays will be shocked to learn that she’s the same actress who
portrayed the adorable little title character in Pollyanna so many decades ago.
Join Facts Verse as we explore how Hayley Mills is not the child stay you remember—not
even close!
Hayley Mills’ Early Life Hayley Mills was born on April 18th, 1946,
in London.
The young girl was born to two show-business professionals.
Her father was a notable character actor on the screen and stage.
His name was John Mills, and some people may have heard of him!
Hayley’s mother was a less notable figure, but she was still actively working in the
entertainment industry at the time of her daughter’s birth.
Her name was Mary Hayley Bell, and she was a writer that wrote numerous film scripts.
Over the course of her career, Hayley Mills would get the chance to both star alongside
her father and appear in films that had been written by her mother.
In fact, Hayley’s very firs appearance on the screen came as a result of a film that
her father was starring in.
That film was 1947’s So Well Remembered, and Hayley appeared in it when she was only
a baby.
Despite the fact that Hayley’s parents let her appear in one of her father’s films
as a baby, some stories suggest that the two weren’t entirely keen on letting their daughter
grow up in the entertainment industry.
However, fate ended up having other plans for the young girl.
Still, even after she became a star, Hayley’s parents tried their absolute best to provide
the girl with some semblance of a normal upbringing.
Hayley Mills’ parents owned a dairy farm in Sussex that spanned hundreds of acres,
and this is where the young girl grew up.
For schooling, she attended a private boarding school.
As a child, Hayley was in good spirits.
In fact, it was her good spirits that caught the eye of a professional in the entertainment
industry.
As the story goes, a director by the name of J. Lee Thompson was visiting the Mills
household to prepare Hayley’s father for a role.
The role was in an upcoming film called Tiger Bay, and Hayley’s father was tasked with
playing a police superintendent.
At the time, Hayley was 12 years old.
While her father was working with J. Lee Thompson, she was in the other room playing.
Tiger Bay Caught the Attention of Walt Disney It seems that the game Hayley Mills was playing
involved her acting out various television commercials, and she was doing it loudly enough
that J. Lee Thompson could hear her in the other room.
Instead of getting annoyed by the distraction, J. Lee Thompson found himself enamored by
the zest with which the young girl was performing her commercial parodies.
J. Lee Thompson was so enamored with young Hayley Mills that he convinced her parents
to let her appear in his movie.
There was a major role for a child performer in the film Tiger Bay, though it had initially
been written for a male instead of a female.
J. Lee Thompson had the part rewritten to work for Hayley Mills, and the blossoming
young woman ended up knocking her performance in the film out of the park.
J. Lee Thompson had so much faith in Hayley that he didn’t even require the girl to
perform a screen test.
Hayley would later catch the attention of Walt Disney, who showed similar faith.
Tiger Bay was released in 1959.
Though the film isn’t often discussed nowadays and has largely been overshadowed by the later
Walt Disney work in the overall Hayley Mills canon, it was still a major success that deserves
credit for bringing the young performer to the attention of the public.
It was Hayley’s role in the film Tiger Bay that caught the attention of Walt Disney.
As legend has it, Walt Disney’s wife was in London on a trip when she ventured into
a movie theater on a whim to escape a rather cumbersome rainstorm.
The movie playing in the cinema was none other than Tiger Bay.
Though Walt Disney's wife hadn't come into the theater with much interest in the film,
she found herself hypnotized by the performance of the young Hayley Mills.
Soon, Hayley was working for Disney.
Hayley Became a Huge Moneymaker for Disney For those that aren’t brushed up on their
Walt Disney history, Walt was married to a woman by the name of Lillian Disney from 1925
until his death.
Upon seeing Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay, Lillian knew that she somehow needed to get a copy
of the film to her husband.
However, this proved a bit more difficult than one might imagine!
Tiger Bay’s distributor refused to send a print of the film overseas to Walt Disney,
which meant that that mogul had to come overseas and catch the film in a theater for himself.
Walt was impressed, and he was soon meeting with Hayley and her parents.
At the time Walt Disney met Hayley Mills, the mogul had been hard at work on an adaptation
of the 1913 children’s novel Pollyanna.
Walt knew that there was no point in going forward with the production of the film without
the perfect child actress to portray the titular character.
By the point that Walt was introduced to Hayley, he was said to have screen tested well over
300 girls for the part of Pollyanna.
None of the screen tests had been successful, and Walt had started to consider shelving
his passion project permanently.
When Walt Disney first saw Hayley Mills, his eyes lit up!
The mogul knew that this was his Pollyanna.
Walt Disney ended up signing Hayley to a contract.
During the five years that she worked with Disney, Hayley appeared in several more films
than just Pollyanna.
In fact, Pollyanna wasn’t even the young child star’s biggest hit with the production
company.
The Parent Trap Was a Major Success Pollyanna was released in 1960, and critics
received it very well.
However, the audience was a different story.
The audience didn’t dislike Pollyanna.
Instead, they simply didn’t show up to watch it.
The film is considered a classic nowadays, but Walt Disney had a hard time getting butts
in the seat upon its original release.
The mogul blamed the film’s lack of commercial success on its female-centric title.
Despite the fact that Pollyanna wasn’t a huge success, Walt still had a lot of faith
in Hayley.
He continued casting her in films, and her next film would be a gigantic box office hit!
Though Pollyanna wasn’t a big moneymaker, critics positively received it.
Hayley Mills even ended up being given her own special miniaturized Academy Award!
Sadly, Hayley’s parents wouldn’t let the young girl show up to the ceremony to receive
the award, which would’ve been presented to her by none other than Shirley Temple.
Hayley’s mother and father had been convinced to let their daughter appear in movies, but
they were still averse to letting her take part in the celebrity lifestyle.
The second film that Hayley Mills made with Walt Disney was The Parent Trap, which was
released in 1961.
This time, the film was both a critical and commercial success.
Finally, Walt’s faith in the young Hayley Mills had paid off.
By the time the end of 1961 came around, Hayley was dubbed the most profitable box-office
star of the entire year.
After the success of The Parent Trap, Hayley would continue appearing in notable Disney
films until her contract was up.
Hayley Mills Is Still Around Today!
After Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, some of the other notable Disney features that
Hayley Mills appeared in include 1963’s Summer Magic and 1965’s That Darn Cat!
At the peak of her Disney success, it has been said that Hayley was receiving several
thousands of fan letters a week.
That Darn Cat!
was the very last Disney feature that Hayley Mills starred in.
By a matter of pure coincidence, it was also the very last live-action Disney feature that
would be produced by Walt Disney himself!
The mogul passed away in 1966, and the event of his passing perfectly coincided with Hayley
Mills’ exit from the company.
Though the squeaky-clean image of Walt Disney has come into question since his death, Hayley
has never spoken a bad word about him.
After her work with Disney was done, Hayley Mills shed her child-friendly image by appearing
nude in the 1966 comedy film The Family Way.
A man named Roy Boulting directed the film.
Though Roy was over 30 years older than Hayley, the two ended up falling in love and getting
married.
They married in 1971 and stayed married until 1977.
Over the course of their marriage, they had a son named Crispian.
As compared to numerous other child stars, Hayley never fell victim to any type of tragic
fate.
However, there were a few years during her early adulthood when she was overly preoccupied
with her weight.
Hayley is still around today, and still works every once in a while!
However, she prefers taking it easy.
Her son is a notable screenwriter.
Tragically, Hayley never got to receive the millions of dollars that she made as a child
star.
The money was kept in a trust, and tax issues caused all of the money to be eaten up by
the time Hayley could get to it.
Hayley tried taking the matter up with the British courts but to no avail.
Still, it seems that missing out on this fortune didn’t hurt the star too much.
Hayley Mills is now 76 years old, and her most recent role was in a 2022 episode of
the British crime drama Unforgotten.
Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Pollyanna star Hayley Mills’ parents
were both in show business and that they were hesitant about letting their daughter follow
in their footsteps?
Comment down below!