A Romantic Warning To Hayley Mills!

This week's Monday With Hayley features a bit of finger-wagging from a January 1968 article to actress Hayley Mills.

For several years Hayley Mills was a number one box office draw and a favorite sweetheart to not only America, but a large part of the world as well. As she aged into adulthood she faced what many child stars had to deal with, studios and a public unwilling to see past the adorable child and accept them in ever maturing roles. Fortunately for Hayley Mills her adorableness remained in full force and she did not suffer from what would later be called the "Roddy McDowell Curse" in which a once fetching, cute and competent child actor transforms via puberty into weird, off-putting creepy adult. Others in the acting profession that labored under the curse are Danny Bonaduce, Natalie Wood, Wil Wheaton and most famously, Lindsay Lohan.

The majority of failing child actors of today descend into a spiral of drugs and other abuses that cause them to strap on Acme brand rocket skates as they travel the jogging trail to Obscuritytown. Their antics and public foibles give gossip magazines ample content to accompany out of context or manipulated photos. For the most part Hayley Mills in her transition to adult actress managed to avoid the usual pitfalls of others in her profession. Gossip magazines had little to use that wasn't positive until her relationship with Roy Boulting became public.

It was on the set of the 1966 film The Family Way that 20 years old Hayley Mills and 53 years old director Roy Boulting began a relationship that would lead to marriage in 1971 and ultimately a divorce in 1977. Her relationship became something of a scandal for the time. Obvious parallels to "Daddy issues" were bandied about though much of the gossip was reserved and somewhat polite. In spite of popular culture becoming immersed in the marketing of free love and the sexual revolution many people were uncomfortable with their idea of Hayley in a relationship with a man so much her senior. In Teen Love Stories an article appeared that not only giddily promoted her new film but also offers some disapproval by scolding Hayley on her relationship with Boulting. The article even hints at some sort of Svengali-like influence being perpetrated on a young Hayley from the older Director. Only Hayley Mills herself could comment if the pairing was love or not. I'd like to think it was.