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Donna Mills took a break from Hollywood for 18 years — and she has zero regrets.
The actress became a mother in her 50s when she adopted a daughter named Chloe, who is now 27.
“I was very concentrated on my career, but at a certain point, I realized there was something missing — it was a child,” the “Knots Landing” star recently told People magazine. “So I went after it. I adopted her when she was four days old.”
“By that time, I was 54 and people said, ‘You’re going to be so old [to] have a little toddler running around,” the 81-year-old continued. “I never felt that. I never felt older than the other mothers who were probably in their 20s.”
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Actress Donna Mills and adopted daughter Chloe pose for a picture during ‘Merv Griffin’s 7th Annual Christmas Tree Lane Lighting Ceremony and Live Auction of Trees’ on December 12, 2000, in Beverly Hills, California.
(Photo by Jason Kirk/Newsmakers)
Mills’ breakthrough performance was in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 directorial debut titled “Play Misty for Me.” She went on to star as vixen Abby Fairgate in “Knots Landing,” a spinoff of “Dallas.” The series aired from 1979 until 1993.
But despite her decades-long career, Mills said she yearned to be a mom. And when her dream finally came true, she was determined to be home with her daughter.
“I took off 18 years,” she explained to the outlet. “I didn’t work. Well, for the first couple of years, I did work. I did some movies for television and stuff like that because I could take her wherever I went. But then when she started school, I wasn’t going to go out of town for two months at a time. And I didn’t become a mother to give her to a nanny.”
Mills noted that her decision to adopt a child later in life raised eyebrows. However, she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She and her daughter have a very close bond today.
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Donna Mills played a vixen in ‘Knots Landing’, a spinoff of ‘Dallas’.
(Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
“If you want to give to your career, I say having a child later in life is better than having a child early,” said Mills.
Back in 2017, Mills described how “Knots Landing” came at a perfect time in her life. By then, she was eager to shed her good-girl image. The move worked — both on and off camera.
“It was funny, I didn’t realize it at first,” Mills told Fox News Digital at the time. “When I played Abby, whenever I would meet people, a lot of the times they were kind of standoffish to me. I thought, ‘What did I do?’ I’m friendly, I’m usually pretty nice. I [didn’t] know why they were standoffish to me. So cold. And I learned — they thought I was like Abby. They thought I was Abby. So they were worried I was going to somehow do something bad to them. Steal their husbands, I don’t know. And so, I really had to fight hard to overcome that in real life.”
Donna Mills arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s ‘The Unforgivable’ at DGA Theater Complex on November 30, 2021, in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo by Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)
As for a possible “Knots Landing” reboot, Mills isn’t sure if it will ever happen, but she would happily take on Abby again if asked.
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“Absolutely,” she said. “That was a once in a lifetime character… I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat. If it were up to me, I would say yes [to a reboot]. I think it would be fascinating to see where those characters are today and what they’ve experienced over the years. I think it would be fun to find out.”
