Hayley Mills and David Rubin.Photo: Richard Harbaugh / A.M.P.A.S.
Hayley Millsis being honored once more for her work inPollyanna, over 60 years later.
The actress received a secondOscarstatuette on Sunday, to replace the mini version that went missing from her home back in the late 1980s.
Originally winning the Academy Juvenile Award for her title role in the 1960 Disney film, Mills, 75, was presented with a full-size trophy this time around.
“Mills won the Juvenile Oscar for her performance as Pollyanna. She was the last person and one of only 12 young actors to receive this award, a group that includedShirley Temple,Judy Garland, andMickey Rooney,” the Academy wrotein a follow-up tweet.
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“When I came back from that first year, my little statuette had disappeared, and I never found it,” she said. “And you know, it’s not something you can replace. They’ve broken the mold.”
“I spoke to the Academy, and I said, ‘Well, look, give me a big one then!’ They said, ‘I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that,’ " she added.
Mills, the daughter of British actor Sir John Mills, was only a preteen when she got swept up in the world of Hollywood. While underWalt Disney’s wing, Mills rose to stardom with roles in classic films likePollyannaandThe Parent Trapduring the 1960s.
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She went on to win multiple awards, including aGolden Globe, multipleBAFTAsand the Academy Juvenile Award. (In a June 1961New York Timesreview ofThe Parent Trap, critic Bosley Crowther praised Mills for her “delightful insouciance, dexterity and charm.")
The English actress spoke to PEOPLE last year amid the September release of her memoirForever Young, noting that her “career didn’t really start until Walt Disney brought me to America forPollyanna.”
“As a young English girl playing such an American icon, I could have been met with roars of disapproval, but I quickly discovered the nation’s generous spirit and I felt genuinely taken into the hearts of their filmgoers,” she continued. “This was the beginning of a wonderful relationship that continues to this day. It was a very different world when I first arrived in the States and so much has changed.”
Mills added, “Writingthis book has been the most marvelous opportunityto go back to those early days of wonder and confusion, to remember all the rare and exceptional people that I was lucky enough to meet and to love, and at the same time, to try and fathom the strange and fortuitous events that shaped my family’s life.”
source: people.com
