Donna Mills on the Joys of Becoming a Mother at 54
By Movieguide® Contributor
Single at the age of 54, KNOTS LANDING star Donna Mills found herself becoming a mother.
Mills told AARP, “I was single, I was 54, and I wanted to be a mother very badly. It was not a tough decision at all to adopt. For the first couple of years, I could take Chloe [now 28, a model and an executive at Soho House] with me.
“I truly believe she was meant to come to me, she was meant to be my child. I wanted her to have a normal life,” Mills continued. “So I stopped working for many years while she was in school, and it was for me exactly the right thing to do. I didn’t want to be apart from her.”
Mills encourages fans to not be afraid to take a detour in life if it means finding joy.
Movieguide® previously reported on the sacrifice Mills made for her daughter, Chloe:
“I’d wanted to have children, but it wasn’t in the forefront of my mind,” Mills explained. “After I quit KNOTS [in 1989], I had my own company, and I made movies for television. But afterwards I said, ‘OK, I’ve done all this, now what?’”
She continued, “I’d noticed that I’d been feeling really jealous whenever I saw a little child running up to their mother and saying, ‘Mummy’, and I felt this discontent; this feeling that something was missing. I realized I just wanted to be a mum. I felt I really had something to give to a child.”
Mills adopted her daughter in 1994, and while she continued to act for the first few years of her life—“I could take Chloe on set with me”—the actress eventually decided to focus entirely on her daughter.
“When she started school, I didn’t want to leave her for two months at a time just so I could go off and make a movie. I had no interest in that,” Mills said.
Mills has now returned to the spotlight. She presented at the Movieguide® Awards this year.
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +1