Donna Mills Movies
Blonde, buoyant Donna Mills began acting in local amateur and professional productions in her home town of Chicago. Donna made her Broadway bow as a harem girl in Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water, then played recurring roles on the Manhattan-based TV soap operas The Secret Storm and Love is a Many Splendored Thing. After playing Clint Eastwood's imperiled girlfriend in the theatrical feature Play Misty for Me (1971), Mills spent an unsatisfying few years typecast as a damsel in distress: all too typical was the title of her 1972 TV movie Bait. Donna Mills forever altered her on-screen image from trembling helplessness to calculating truculence in the role of Abby Cunningham Ewing, the second wife of Dallas "black sheep" Gary Ewing (Ted Shackleford), in the nighttime serial Knot's Landing (1980-89); coincidentally, Mills had co-starred with J. R. Ewing himself (aka Larry Hagman) on the now-forgotten 1971 sitcom The Good Life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1967
Martin Sheen may be the Grey Eminence of movies nowadays, but back in 1967 he often as not played switchblade-wielding punks. This he does, in the company of Tony Musante, in The Incident. After mugging a helpless old man, Sheen and Musante take over a subway car, terrorizing its occupants. In Stagecoach fashion, all the best and worst qualities of the passengers are brought to the surface by the presence of danger. Among the passengers are angry black man Brock Peters and his supplicative wife Ruby Dee, ex-alcoholic Gary Merrill, timorous Jewish couple Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter, blowhard Ed McMahon, and homosexual Robert Fields. It is furloughed army private Beau Bridges who puts an end to Sheen and Musante's reign of terror. Based on Ride with Terror a 1963 TV play by Nicholas E. Baehr, The Incident is an unpleasant but undeniably fascinating character study. And yes, that cute young blonde playing Alice Keenan is Donna Mills. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Musante, Martin Sheen, (more)
- 1971
A pre-Dallas Donna Mills is cast as Mary Ann Collins, a rather empty-headed rich girl in search of excitement. Poor Mary Ann gets far more excitement than she bargained for when she hitches a ride with Jerry Williams, an AWOL soldier with delusions of grandeur who has just robbed a bank and seriously wounded a guard. Williams is played by a young Michael Douglas, who was helpfully identified in the original TV Guide synopsis as "Kirk Douglas' son". Within a year the up-and-coming Douglas would be more gainfully employed by F.B.I. producer Quinn Martin as Karl Malden's costar on Streets of San Francisco. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Play Misty for Me marked Clint Eastwood's debut as a director, and it gave him the then-unusual opportunity to play a regular contemporary guy in a thriller about sex, obsession, and stalking. Eastwood's Dave Garver is a self-centered California jazz disc jockey struggling with the idea of committing to his on-again, off-again girlfriend Tobie (Donna Mills). One night he meets the mini-skirted Evelyn (Jessica Walters) in a bar, and he goes home with her for what he assumes is a one-night stand. Dave discovers, however, that Evelyn has repeatedly called his show requesting that he "play 'Misty' for me," and she is not about to go gently into the night now that she has bedded him. Even though it touches on the early-'70s flashpoints of sexual liberation, studio execs expressed doubts about why anyone would want to see a movie featuring Eastwood as a deejay. Eastwood reportedly answered that he was not sure either, but he thought it was a good suspense story, and he offered his services as director for free. Play Misty for Me wound up making five times more than it cost and is a precursor to such erotic thrillers as Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992). Eastwood mentor Don Siegel appears early on as a bartender. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, (more)
- 1972
Donna Mills was still in her "imperiled heroine" career stage when she starred in the made-for-TV The Bait. Mills is a policewoman who goes incognito to solves a baffling series of rape-murders. Almost as deadly as the rapist is the sexism Mills must suffer from her superior officer (Michael Constantine)--which at times is played for laughs. Based on a novel by former policewoman Dorothy Uhnak, who must have been appalled at the liberties taken with her work by this film, The Bait was the pilot for an unlaunched weekly TV series. Sidenote (courtesy of TV-movie historian Lee Goldberg): Noam Pitlik, a guest star in The Bait, would later direct several episodes of the police sitcom Barney Miller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
Dennis Weaver plays a tow-truck driver sent to prison on a trumped-up charges of attempted murder. Out after serving four years, Weaver finds himself a reluctant loner. His wife has died, and his two sons have disappeared. In seeking out his boys, Weaver also keeps an eye out for the man responsible for railroading him into jail. Whenever the script or the character threaten to lapse into cliche, The Rolling Man compensates with attractive camerawork taking full advantage of the Southern California landscape. This TV movie had all the earmarks of a pilot for a series, but there's no evidence to back up this suspicion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
It took several years and several TV movies like Night of Terror for Donna Mills to outgrow her "woman in jeopardy" period. Here she is pursued by a syndicate hit man. Mills doesn't know why, but she does know that her stalker has already killed two people in order to get to her. The lynchpin of the mystery is a earlier traumatic experience which Mills has blocked from her memory. The hit man knows that Mills has witnessed a murder...and he wants to keep her memory clouded on a permanent basis. Former police detective Eddie Egan, the role model for The French Connection's Popeye Doyle, has a supporting role in Night of Terror. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
Donna Mills guest stars as Bernice Rawson, a small-time crook with big-time aspirations. Latching onto an ex-convict who wants to go straight, Bernice talks him into pulling off one last heist--a jewelry robbery that is all but guaranteed to bring down the full wrath of the FBI. In the original TV Guide listings, much was made of the fact that Donna Mills was playing a villainous role in stark contrast with her "good girl" characterization in Play Misty for Me; Knots' Landing, of course, was still several years in the future. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
The old Outward Bound formula is pulled out of mothballs for the made-for-TV Haunts of the Very Rich. The scene is a gorgeous tropical resort, where seven very wealthy people have converged. These worthies have been lured to this spot by an anonymous host, who has promised them a vacation in a land where their every wish will be granted. It slowly dawns on the protagonists that their heaven-on-earth is actually Hell, from which there are no return flights. Based on a short story by T. K. Brown, Haunts of the Very Rich was first aired September 20, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Filmed in England, Someone at the Top of the Stairs stars Donna Mills and Judy Carne as a pair of American tourists roaming at large in London. Taking rooms in a Victorian-era boarding house, Mills and Carne are terrified by the house's weird inhabits. Be assured that there's worse to come in this updated derivation of the 1944 mystery film The Night Has Eyes. Someone at the Top of the Stairs was first telecast in Great Britain in 1973, then shipped out to American television a few months later. It debuted in the US as part of ABC's Wide World Mystery anthology series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Live a Little, Steal a Lot and You Can't Steal Love were both alternate titles for the fact-based crime caper Murph the Surph. In the early 1960s, a "celebrity beach bum" named Jack Murphy--aka Murph the Surph--helped mastermind the stealing of the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History. The film concentrates on the sociopathic pre-theft activities of Murphy (played by Don Stroud) and his partner in crime Allan Kuhn (excellently impersonated by Robert Conrad). The hollowness of Murph and Kuhn's Miami Beach lifestyle is offset with their never-ending search for "kicks"--the last of which earned them both stiff prison terms. Live a Little, Steal a Lot successfully plays its material for laughs throughout, but in the end both erstwhile criminals seem more pathetic than amusing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Conrad, Don Stroud, (more)
- 1974
Donna Mills plays the new bride of Ian Hendry. It's customary for bridegrooms to keep a few secrets from their wives -- and Hendry's got a pip. It seems that he has a twin brother -- a homicidal maniac. Or is it the brother who's normal, and the husband who's crazy? And why does Donna Mills always seem to get mixed up in dilemmas like this? Videotaped for British television, the 74-minute Killer with Two Faces debuted in the U.S. on December 3, 1974, as part of the ABC Wide World Mystery late-night anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
In this made-for-television horror movie, a Rolls-Royce develops a murderous mind of its own. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1974
- PG
Two Miami beach bums become notorious cat-burglars in this lively crime drama that is based on a true story. After successfully committing a series of burglaries of some of Miami's wealthiest, the two get bored and decide to steal the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History, New York. One of the actual thieves, Allan Kuhn, served as the technical advisor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1974
The science of "cryogenics" forms the basis of the made-for-TV Live Again, Die Again. Donna Mills plays a young woman who dies of rheumatic fever. At her deathbed request, Mills' body is frozen, in hopes of reviving her in the future. Thirty years later, Mills awakens, returning to the not-so-open arms of her doddering husband (Walter Pidgeon), her spiteful daughter (Vera Miles) and her mixed-up son (Mike Farrell). No, this was not produced by Walt Disney Studios. Adapted by Joseph Stefano from a novel by David Sale, Live Again, Die Again first aired February 16, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
In this made-for-television drama, a retired businessman's obsession with the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle increase when his lover and her friends become its next victims. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1975
This two-hour pilot episode for S.W.A.T. originated as a special installment of the ABC police series The Rookies, explaining the omnipresence of that program's co-star Georg Stanford Brown in his familiar role of Officer Terry Webster. Essentially a peace-loving man and a firm believer in due process, Webster resents the apparently cold-blooded approach of Lt. Dan "Hondo" Harrison, head of the Special Weapons and Technical (SWAT) team. Trained to handle dangerous situations beyond the control of the regular police, Hondo and his men tend to shoot first and ask questions later -- a technique that proves quite effective in the chilling climax of this episode. For syndication purposes, the S.W.A.T. pilot was been divided into two hour-long segments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Georg Stanford Brown, Steve Forrest, (more)
- 1975
The still-unsolved Black Dahlia murder case, fictionalized in the 1981 theatrical feature True Confessions, is handled on a more factual level in this made-for-TV movie. Lucie Arnaz plays Elizabeth Short, an aspiring starlet of questionable morals, who in 1947 was murdered by person or persons unknown. What made the case particularly unsettling was the fact that Elizabeth's body was sliced neatly in two, with every ounce of blood drained from her body. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. costars as the Los Angeles detective who ends up dedicating a lifetime to tracking down Elizabeth's killer. Who is the Black Dahlia? debuted March 1, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lucie Arnaz, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., (more)
- 1976
This sequel to the smash hit chiller Rosemary's Baby (1968) chronicles the childhood of Rosemary's demon spawn. The still distraught mother, whose husband sold his soul, thus allowing Satan himself to father her child, is helped out by her charming neighbors the devil worshippers. The film is also titled Rosemary's Baby II. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1976
This disaster movies chronicles the many dramas of the people involved in a 39 car smash-up on a California freeway. The wreck occurs on the final day of a holiday weekend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1976
In the third of the feature-length Quincy, M.E. episodes produced for the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie package, the LA County Coroner's Officer swings into action when movie star Roberta Rhodes dies under mysterious circumstances (note the repetitious initials, and then guess who "Roberta Rhodes" is really supposed to be). Though the police are convinced that Rhodes committed suicide, Quincy (Jack Klugman) thinks otherwise, and through the auspices of scandal-sheet publisher Reardon (William Daniels) Quincy discovers that the dead woman's secret lover, Congressman Charles Sinclair (Robert Foxworth), was with her at the time of her death--and may have been her murderer. Unable to accept the notion that his good friend Sinclair is a killer, Quincy goes off on his own investigation, quickly discovering that the gossip-mongering publisher may have a sinister hidden agenda. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
The made-for-TV Fire! is graced with a made-for-TV cast, including Ernest Borgnine, Patty Duke Astin, Vera Miles, Alex Cord and Donna Mills. It all begins when a convict (Neville Brand) escapes from an Oregon road gang. To cover his trail, the fugitive starts a forest fire. Need you be told at this point that Fire! is an Irwin Allen production? Originally telecast in a two-hour slot on May 8, 1977, Fire! was later cut by 30 minutes and rerun in tandem with another Allen TV-movie disasterfest, Flood! (he stopped short of making a picture called Famine!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
This wonderfully cheesy TV movie-of-the-week stars Tony Franciosa as a detective hot on the trail of a murderer whose mutilated and predominantly male victims are found encased in silken cocoons. He eventually tracks the killer's path to Los Angeles, where he discovers her true identity -- a woman who was bitten by black widow spiders as a child, who has developed the ability to transform herself into a gigantic spider-monster (as portrayed by a not-too-convincing rubber puppet). An odd diversion for director Dan Curtis, with a 1950's monster-movie mentality incongruous with his earlier TV features. The cast -- comprised of many familiar TV faces -- try to play their roles straight, despite the overall impression that the whole thing is a silly put-on. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donna Mills, Anthony Franciosa, (more)
- 1977
- R
A couple of LAPD officers find a school for con artists. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Urich, Tom Selleck, (more)
- 1977
In this made-for-TV pilot film, Donna Mills stars as the title character, an undercover cop on the run after the mob frames her for murder. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Us Against the World stars Christine Belford, Meredith Baxter-Birney and Donna Mills as three interns in a busy metropolitan hospital. Chief among their many problems is dealing with the chauvinistic comments of a brilliant surgeon (Theodore Bikel). The interns also contend with the drawn-out death of a young leukemia patient, and with an emotionally disturbed, increasingly violent child. Us Against the World originated as a two-part episode of the 1975 TV anthology series Medical Story; curiously, only Part One was ever telecast on the series itself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
