Book Review: Forever Young by Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap

Hayley Mills' Forever Young is a rewarding memoir. My main complaint is that it lacks dish. As seamy as it gets is Ms. Mills noticing Samantha Eggar playing footsy with a married producer. Hollywood Babylon this is not. However, the rich background material on Ms. Mills' talented family is alone worth the price of admission. Even before she embarked on her acting career, she had met almost all the leading figures of English theater. Her breakthrough role in J. Lee Thompson's Tiger Bay led to a contact with Disney. By 1961, when she turned fifteen, she was one of the world's biggest box-office stars.      

Beginning with Pollyanna, who Mills sheepishly admits is her emotional double, she projected a sweet and spunky image through a number of family oriented films that still entertain today. I would recommend The Parent Trap, The Moon-Spinners, and, even, That Darn Cat!. Her image was that of a Disney cossetted virgin, but she was allowed a few forays in offbeat fare on her native turf such as Whistle Down the Wind and The Chalk Garden. Disney, however, did put the kibosh to her appearing in Kubrick's Lolita and other more grownup roles. Her career foundered after the end of her Disney contract, but it is probable that this would have happened anyway. Teen idols have a short shelf life. Hayley Mills was a cultural relic by the advent of flower power. 

Ms. Mills' rose colored glasses are rarely removed in this book. Even such noted bad boys as Rex Harrison, Frank Sinatra, Ian McShane and Placido Domingo, get off easy. Ms. Mills kept a journal during her youth and had access to the Disney archives which adds to the observant nature of this work. The memories have an overly golden glow, but how could it not since Mills was working with such luminaries as Maurice Chevalier, Pola Negri, Peter Ustinov, Alan Bates, George Sanders, Ida Lupino, Eli Wallach, Walt Disney himself, etc. Her brushes with The Beatles are hilarious and telling. 

Her fall from film stardom spurred a retreat to the English countryside to raise her sons Her marriage with 58 year old, thrice married, producer/director Ray Boulting was ill-advised and short-lived. Ms. Mills is demure, but unsparing in her portrait of Boulting. She is equally frank about her own problems with anxiety and bulimia. Her mother's lifelong alcoholism was an obvious sore point. When Ms. Mills loses her virginity on page 300 or so out of 360 or so, her mother's reaction is priceless, "So. You've finally been in the hay." It was not all rainbows and butterflies for Hayley.

Still, I should not be so snide. Forever Young is more of a clear eyed remembrance of films past than one would expect from someone with Ms. Mills' image. She is still of sunny disposition and is effusive about her spiritual interests, but darkness is visible if not dwelled upon. Forever Young is a must for Hayley fans and Disney fanatics and a maybe for film and theater geeks. 

Hayley with her parents at Grauman's Chinese Theater