Donna Mills
Donna Mills
Donna Mills is an American actress and producer. She began her television career in 1966 with a recurring role on The Secret Storm, and in the same year appeared on Broadway in the Woody Allen comedy Don't Drink the Water. She made her film debut the following year in The Incident. She then starred for three years in the soap opera Love is a Many Splendored Thing, before starring as Tobie Williams, the girlfriend of Clint Eastwood's character in the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth11 December 1940
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
There were episodes where I would wear seven or eight outfits. It took a lot of time to get those together. What the character wears is very essential to how I create the character.
I would spend at least one day a week-whatever day I had off-shopping for the next show. A lot of times, I'd have seven or eight outfits in one show. There might be a gown or cocktail dress, but... I felt the clothes had to be special.
The lighting is so important. One thing that makes me nuts about the lighting now is that they spend an enormous amount of time lighting the set, the background. But the most important thing in the scene is the actor.
I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.
You really have to love the work. You can't look for stardom. That's a by-product.
I found through my fan mail that women... really wanted a role model.
A lot of actors just do whatever they do, and wherever the camera is, it is. They don't pay much attention, but I always did. I was always very close to the camera crew. They were my best buddies, no matter what movie or show I was doing.
I always loved Bette Davis-she's probably my very favorite. She had an influence on me in that I felt I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking the things she wanted me to know about. When you're in extreme close-up, all you have to do is think, and the thoughts will read.
I did a video... and now I have an eye-makeup kit out. I did the video because I got so many letters. I did my own makeup.
Somebody like me doesn't get arthritis, doesn't get all the other diseases that come along. Well, it happened to me.
The shoulder pads were very powerful-and made the waist and hips look smaller, too.
They sent me to catechism classes and then to first grade in a Catholic school, and apparently I cried and moaned and bitched so much that they took me out.
I really want to spend as much time as I can with my daughter and really participate in her growing up. I'm very active in her school.
Abby would do things that weren't very ethical, but she was never evil. She had a humanity that characters like her on the other soaps didn't have.