Biography
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