Hayley Mills on living out her adolescence in the spotlight and why she thinks 'The Parent Trap' is so beloved

In this episode of Are the Kids Alright, actress and former Disney teen star Hayley Mills talks about her unusual childhood, the challenges of living her adolescence in the spotlight, and what it was like meeting Walt Disney for the first time.

She also discusses why she thinks The Parent Trap is such a beloved movie and explains why she chose to write a memoir at this time.

Video Transcript

HAYLEY MILLS: I was a very normal child, leading a very unusual life.

- Mother, I think what you and daddy did to us children is lousy. In fact, I think it stinks.

- Sharon.

- And let's get this straight, I'm not Sharon, I'm Susan.

HAYLEY MILLS: I was born into a theatrical family. When I was born, my father was a big star. His name was John Mills. He was a big star in Great Britain, and my mother was a writer. So that was the family business, if you like. I never intended to be an actress. I don't think I'd really thought about it much. When I was 12, a film director, who's also a friend of my father's, called J. Lee Thompson, came to have lunch with us one Sunday. He wanted to speak to my father about him being in a film called "Tiger Bay." They were wandering around talking about the film, Lee Thompson and my father, when he said, it's really important, of course, that you get the right child. And Lee Thompson said, yes, yes, I agree. And I've been looking all over the place, but I've found it over there. And pointed at me.

- Put them up!

- Drop that gun.

- Don't move. I got you covered.

HAYLEY MILLS: After I finished "Tiger Bay," which was a very successful movie, nothing happened. There was no interest, you know, in England for me, and I just went back to school, and everybody forgot about it. And it was about a year later that my father's agent got a call from Walt Disney saying he wanted to meet me, which was absolutely astonishing. Everyone was astonished.

I didn't really have an image of him in my mind as a human being until we got to the Dorchester Hotel. I went up to the top floor to the Harlequin Suite, and suddenly the door was opened and there stood a human being, there stood a man. We all stood there with our mouths open, even my parents who, because they were actors, they'd been in the business, they had met a lot of very famous people, and there was Walt Disney. I mean, it was like meeting the Wizard of Oz.

- Well, aren't you going to invite me in?

- Invite you in? No more privacy than a goldfish.

(SINGING) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

NARRATOR: Meet the duplicate daughters who make double trouble by setting a trap for their problem parents.

HAYLEY MILLS: It's wonderful when people tell me "The Parent Trap" was, you know, an important film for them, or any of the others. And it's about a subject that a lot of children were starting to experience when we made it in the 60s. People were beginning to get divorced, and that was new, and the children were having to deal with the reality of what that meant. To see a film where children are in control, sorting out the mess their parents made, is very empowering.

I think working with Walt Disney was very different. So that I was really fortunate, because it wasn't a big studio. Walt Disney was very much connected, he was very involved in everything. He loved visiting the sets, he knew most people's names. It wasn't that huge. You didn't feel you were lost. It wasn't a factory-like atmosphere, at all. I don't think the children were exploited. People who worked for Disney were not exploited.

I had to do my four hour schooling every day, in that little red trailer on the set, or rather on the lot. Annette Funicello and the Mousketeers were there, and Tommy Kirk, and Moochie, and they were all there. I have to say, and it's not the fault of the teacher, I didn't learn very much, because, you know, it was very interrupted. You had to keep on going back to the set to do a scene, or light a shot, or something. And then they would say, we just need to light the shot, so you go back to school, Hayley, for 10 minutes. What are you going to learn in 10 minutes?

My very sketchy education-- my lack of a really good education was one of the things that held me back and hung me up for a long time. However, as a result, I started reading because I wanted to compensate for-- I didn't want to be, you know, the ignorant one at the table. My parents were very concerned that I was protected, and particularly that I was protected from the unreality that kind of goes hand in hand with being in movies, where people run around looking after you, you know, at your beck and call, and pick up your bag, and open the door, and everything's done for you. They were wary of that. They didn't want me to become a brat, very easily done.

Very easy for all that attention to go to your head, and you think that you are the little princess. They tried very hard to keep my life as normal as possible. And I already was at an English boarding school, which couldn't have been-- I mean, it's 100 years away from Hollywood. You know, there was no central heating, and no boys, and it was two different worlds. I lived in two alternate universes, Hollywood and an English boarding school, which was quite confusing at times.

The hardest thing was dealing with people socially, because I got very shy. I was terribly shy. My fame had grown, and it was like somebody else. I didn't really recognize this image that I read about. The face on the magazine covers, and the relationships that I was having with boys that I've never met, and feuds I was having with girls that I didn't know, and we're all the same when we're going through adolescence. Were so full of insecurity and self-doubt. We don't know who we are. We don't know what our opinions are. We don't really like the way we look. We're always judging ourselves, you know, against somebody else who's prettier and thinner, or whatever it is-- whatever that she has that you haven't, you know.

It kind of does put a strange light on your childhood. The kind of attention that you get as a child, which isn't altogether helpful and not altogether healthy, which is why my parents wanted to-- they wanted to take me out of Hollywood and send me back to that freezing boarding school to keep a sense of reality.

Leaving Disney was a big step. My eternal gratitude that he did want me to sign another contract with him, but by that time, I was wanting to make my own decisions. I wanted to accept parts that were not necessarily things that Disney would have approved of. I got some very interesting offers when I was working for Disney, that I wasn't able to do. Well, one of them was "Lolita."

- What makes you say I've stopped caring for you?

- Well, you haven't even kissed me, have you?

HAYLEY MILLS: That would have given me a chance to work with Stanley Kubrick, James Mason and Shelley Winters, and play that marvelous part. This was a nymphet, and a nymphet really didn't gel with the Disney image. Humbert Humbert, you know, this middle aged man who's in love, basically was a pedophile.

Then it was "Exodus," which Otto Preminger made, and the funny thing about that is that he offered me the part and, again, it was turned down because it was considered to be too adult. When it was first turned down, Otto Preminger then offered my parents a small Renoir. Even that didn't swing it.

A few years ago, I went to Disney, and I went to the studios. And I saw Walt's office that they put back together again. And I went into the archives, and I found my boxes and all those things, and it all just-- it all seemed to lead towards writing a book. The book is called "Forever Young." It's about my struggle to grow up, and it's about everybody's struggle to grow up, really, except I happened to do mine in Hollywood.

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