The Disney Channel Magazine July, 1983 Page 9

(Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Richard Egan, Karl Maiden, Nancy Olson)

Pollyanna and her pals are patriotic showstoppers

Play the "glad game" with Pollyanna Whittier, whose boundless optimism charms an entire town!

Hayley Mills is Pollyanna, a sunny 12-year-old orphan who comes to live with her wealthy, stiff- backed Aunt Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman) in the 1900s.

Aunt Polly dominates the town of Harrington and the people who live there. Pollyanna, who always looks on the bright side, plays her "glad game" with everyone she meets. One by one their lives change for the better as Pollyanna proves that no matter how glum things appear to be, there is always something to be glad about.

The story of Pollyanna appeared first as a magazine serial, then as a book by Eleanor H. Porter in 1913. It was instantly popular and Pollyanna became a household word. Walt Disney used it as a vehicle to launch Hayley Mills' American film career.

Hayley's Comet: Bright As Ever

At age 16, well into her career at Walt Disney Studios, Hayley Mills was receiving more fan mail than any other movie star in the world.

Today, fashionably attractive at 37, she is still reminded of those youthful years.

"I was in a shop just recently," she said. "I overheard two women talking: 'There's Hayley Mills. My, how she's aged.' The Disney films were wonderful, but of course I'm no longer that little girl. But the image has clung and I suppose it always will."

Part of the reason for that is because after her six pictures for Disney, Hayley stopped making movies. Or at least reduced them to a trickle. She returned to her native England, made four or five films there, then went into acting in British television and stage productions. A generation passed before she was seen by American audiences again.

Meanwhile she interrupted her career to marry, divorce, and raise two sons. Crispian, 10, and Jason, 7, "go to a boys' preparatory school up the road," Hayley reported from her home outside London.

"This limits my work. I don't want to interrupt their education. I did enroll them in school in Nairobi for the months I was in Africa filming 'The Flame Trees of Thika' three years ago. It was a marvelous experience for them, but it still meant separation from their friends."

"The Flame Trees of Thika," a seven-part series seen on PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" last year, and a guest appearance in "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life" on NBC reacquainted American televiewers with Hayley's films. She'll be heard on radio as narrator of "When You Wish Upon a Star," a forthcoming series covering the 60-year history of Walt Disney Productions.