Donna Mills

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Donna Mills
Donna Mills in 1990
Born	Donna Jean Miller December 11, 1942 (1942-12-11) (age 66) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1966–present

Donna Mills (born December 11, 1942) is an American actress. Among her many television appearances was a continuing role as Abby Cunningham on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing.

Early years

Born as Donna Jean Miller^{[citation needed]} in Chicago, Illinois, she graduated from Garvey Elementary School and Taft High school. Due to being double-promoted at Garvey, she graduated from Taft at an early age. From there, Donna attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was a member of Delta Gamma sorority. She completed one year of course work and left to pursue an acting career. She gained some early stage experience in the late 1950s.

Career

Mills began her acting career on television with a guest role on the CBS daytime soap opera The Secret Storm in 1966. Following this she gained a regular role as ex-nun Laura Donnelly on the soap Love is a Many Splendored Thing, which she played from 1967 to 1970. Mills appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's comedy, Don't Drink the Water, as the Sultan of Bashir's wife.

In 1971, Mills co-starred with Clint Eastwood in the thriller Play Misty For Me, which has remained her most prominent movie role to date. Prior to signing up a contract for Universal Studios in 1972 (like her future Knots Landing co-stars Joan Van Ark and Kevin Dobson did at the same time), Mills spent much of the 1970s appearing as a guest television shows such as The Six Million Dollar Man, The Love Boat, CHiPs, The Oregon Trail, Quincy, M.E., Thriller, Police Woman, and Fantasy Island, as well as several made-for-TV movies.

In 1980, she landed her most prominent role—that of scheming homewrecker, Abby Cunningham on the long-running primetime soap opera Knots Landing, a role she played until 1989. After leaving the series, Mills concentrated on TV movies, several of which she co-produced. She returned to Knots Landing for its final episode in 1993, and again for the reunion mini-series Knots Landing: Back To The Cul-De-Sac in 1997. In between, she had a recurring guest role as Josie Bissett's mother on the popular 1990s soap opera Melrose Place.

Donna Mills in a Helen Lawson wig at a benefit reading of Valley of the Dolls to help launch the DVD release of the film.

In more recent years, Mills has continued to make TV movies as well as guest appearances in series such as Cold Case and Nip/Tuck (in which she guest-starred with fellow Knots Landing star Joan Van Ark). In 2005, she reunited with the Knots Landing cast for the reunion, Knots Landing: Together Again, in which the stars reminisced about the show.

In 1986, Mills released "The Eyes Have It", an instructional video for achieving several different make-up looks. She went on to release her own line of cosmetics of the same name.

Mills appeared in a cover featured (non-nude) pictorial for the November 1989 edition of Playboy Magazine^[1].

Personal life

Mills has never married. She adopted her daughter, Chloe (born 1995). She currently teaches vocal classes at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA.

Partial filmography

• Play Misty For Me (1971)
• Haunts of the Very Rich (1972)
• The Bait (1973)
• Live Again, Die Again (1974)
• Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976)
• Curse Of The Black Widow (1977)
• Bare Essence (1982)
• Alice in Wonderland (1985)
• The World's Oldest Living Bridesmaid (1989)
• Runaway Father (1990)
• Her desperate choice (1993)
• In My Daughter's Name (1992)
• The Stepford Husbands (1996)
• An Element of Truth (1997)
• Ladies of the House (2008)

References

1. ^ Playboy Magazine November 1989

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Donna Mills

• Donna Mills at the Internet Movie Database
• Donna Mills at Allmovie
• Donna Mills at Yahoo! Movies