Thu 11/18 @ 7PM
It’s hard for many now to wrap their minds around it now, but in the early-mid 60s, Hayley Mills was the biggest child star on earth, a gifted actress who became an icon for being relatable rather than precociously glamorous. She starred in upbeat Disney movies such as Pollyanna, The Parent Trap and That Darn Cat (co-starring with a Siamese!) as basically the girl next door as well as grittier British films such as Whistle Down the Wind. (I can still imitate her assumed Lancashire accent as she says “You can’t call a cat Spider”!) As a child, I scoured movie magazines searching for every mention of her and had Hayley pen pals as far away as Oklahoma.
Mills is now 75 and it’s been a long time since she was gracing screens at every neighborhood theater (and they’re gone now too). She did leave a lasting legacy though; the undying popularity of the name “Hayley” and its many variations (yes, that’s where it started).
She’s lived through a lot since then, including a marriage at 25 to a man 33 years older (she’ currently with a man a couple of decades younger than herself!) She’s continued to act in films, on TV and on stage; her son Crispian fronted the band Kula Shaker, which had a string of Britsh hits in the late 90s. She tells us all about her life in her book Forever Young, A Memoir, offering readers a glimpse of the joys and difficulties of being so gifted and famous so young.
Mills will be the guest of Hudson Library & Historical Society for a virtual author event. It’s free but registration is required. Go here. Her book will be available through Hudson’s Learned Owl Book Shop.