Hayley Mills, who shot to teen stardom in the 1960s in Walt Disney films such as Pollyanna (above) and The Parent Trap, was the last actor to receive a juvenile Oscar. The first pint-size statuette had been given to Shirley Temple in 1935. But when Temple returned to the Oscar stage in 1961 to award Mills her own, she was not in attendance. Instead, it was hand-delivered to Mills, 15, by her agent, who showed up at her home in England.
In retrospect, Mills, 75 and still radiant, says she assumes her parents—actor Sir John Mills and writer Mary Hayley Bell (Lady Mills)—were attempting to “keep things normal.” Yet their restraint also meant there was no public affirmation of their daughter’s impact or talent during her insecure teenage years, when she could have dearly used it. Still, she proudly kept the seven-inch figurine on her mantel. That is, until she returned from a work trip and realized it was missing.
Mills continued acting, had two sons, and at one point reached out to the Motion Picture Academy to see if she might be given a new one. But it wasn’t until last year, when her raw, revelatory autobiography, Forever Young, was published, that discussion of replacing her missing Oscar was sparked. The subject came up at a Zoom gathering of Bob McBarton’s Luncheon Society, on a podcast with The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, and in an interview in the Los Angeles Times. Soon the chorus nudged three people who mattered into action. Randy Haberkamp, the Academy’s senior vice president of preservation and foundation programs; writer and Academy vice president Larry Karaszewski; and Academy president David Rubin went to work and made it happen.
While visiting L.A. in January, Mills said, “I was surprised to be asked to come to the Academy headquarters on a Sunday afternoon. I hoped it was to discuss replacing my juvenile Oscar. Never in a million years did I suspect I would be presented with a grown-up one with my name on it.” Speaking with me the next day, she confessed she was “still euphoric. When David Rubin presented it to me, he told me Pollyanna was the first film he had ever seen, and now, 60 years later, he is president of the Academy. Knowing I had something to do with initiating his love of films means so much to me.”
Mills sounded genuinely emotional about being given a gold-plated certification of her work after all these years. When asked where she will keep it, she laughed and channeled her inner Pollyanna: “I will decide when I unchain it from my hands.”
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