Donna Mills

Donna Mills, born Donna Jean Miller on December 11, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois, is an American actress whose career has spanned television, film, and stage. She grew up in the Norwood Park neighborhood of Chicago, where she attended Garvy Elementary School and Taft High School. Among her high school classmates was Jim Jacobs, who would later co-create the musical Grease and based the character of Sandy on Mills. Her parents, Bernice, a housewife, and Ambrose, a computer analyst for Union Oil, later retired to Florida. She has one brother, Donald, who is ten years her senior and resides in Colorado.

Mills enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she joined Delta Gamma sorority, but left after one year to pursue a dancing career. She gained early stage experience through summer stock productions, and her first professional acting role came in a production of Come Blow Your Horn at the Drury Lane Theater in Chicago. A touring production of My Fair Lady subsequently brought her to New York City. Before securing professional work, she supported herself as a secretary at Popular Mechanics magazine.

Her professional career began in earnest in 1966, when she took on a recurring role on the CBS daytime soap opera The Secret Storm, playing a nightclub singer named Rocket. That same year, she made her Broadway debut in Woody Allen's comedy Don't Drink the Water, in which she played the Sultan of Bashir's wife. She followed her stage work with a film debut in the 1967 neo-noir crime thriller The Incident, appearing alongside Martin Sheen, Beau Bridges, Ed McMahon, and Thelma Ritter. Also in 1967, she joined the CBS daytime soap opera Love Is a Many Splendored Thing as ex-nun Laura Donnelly, a role she held until 1970.

After departing Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, Mills relocated to the West Coast and made her primetime television debut on the Western series Lancer. In 1971, she appeared opposite Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walter in the psychological thriller Play Misty for Me, directed by Eastwood for Universal Pictures, portraying Tobie Williams, Eastwood's character's girlfriend. She signed a contract with Universal in 1972 and spent much of the decade as a guest performer on series including Gunsmoke, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hawaii Five-O, CHiPs, Police Woman, and Fantasy Island, among others. During 1971 and 1972, she co-starred with Larry Hagman in the short-lived sitcom The Good Life. She also carried leading roles in numerous made-for-television films throughout the 1970s, among them Haunts of the Very Rich, Night of Terror, The Bait, Live Again Die Again, Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, Curse of the Black Widow, The Hunted Lady, Woman on the Run, and Bunco. In 1975, she starred in the heist film Murph the Surf opposite Don Stroud and Robert Conrad, playing the eponymous character's girlfriend. In 1979, she returned to the Midwest to star opposite Joe Namath in a stage production of Picnic presented by the Kenley Players of Ohio.

In 1980, Mills was cast as Abby Cunningham on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing, the role for which she became most widely recognized. She remained a series regular until 1989, a tenure of nine years. For her portrayal of Abby, she received the Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Villainess three times, in 1986, 1988, and 1989, as well as a 1986 nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role on a Prime Time Serial.

Following her departure from Knots Landing, Mills continued working steadily in television films, including The World's Oldest Living Bridesmaid in 1990, Dangerous Intentions in 1995, The Stepford Husbands in 1996, Ladies of the House in 2008, and Ladies of the '80s: A Divas Christmas in 2023. In 2014, she joined the cast of the daytime soap opera General Hospital as Madeline Reeves, earning a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Guest Performer in a Drama Series. She starred in the Lifetime limited series V.C. Andrews' Dawn in 2023. Her film credits also include Joy in 2015, Nope in 2022, and Origin in 2023.