Throughout her decades-long career in Hollywood, Donna Mills has shared kisses onscreen with many of her male co-stars, but kissing Clint Eastwood in the 1971 thriller Play Misty For Me is one smooch that she’s never forgotten.
Mills Gushes Over Eastwood
“I would give him a triple A!” Mills, 82, gushed to Fox News about kissing Eastwood, 92.
Mills had been recommended to Eastwood for Play Misty For Me, which was his directorial debut, by Burt Reynolds after he worked with her on Dan August in 1970.
“I worked with Clint Eastwood because of working with Burt Reynolds,” Mills recalled. “I had come out here to California. I was living in New York at the time where I was doing a soap opera.”
“About a month or so later after doing Dan August, I was getting ready to leave the soap. I had already given them my notice,” she continued. “All of a sudden, I got a call. I was told I got this new movie with Clint Eastwood. My instant reaction was ‘What? How did I even do that if I’ve never met Clint?’ I didn’t audition for it or anything.”
Related: Brad Pitt Slams Clint Eastwood-Style Masculinity – Labels It As ‘Exhausting’
Eastwood Was ‘Really Sweet’ To Mills
Mills enjoyed working with Eastwood on Play Misty For Me, saying that he was “a really sweet man” on the set of the film. He was even willing to cut a love scene from the movie if it made Mills uncomfortable.
“He actually did something that I’ve never had anybody else do,” she said. “There’s a scene in the film that’s a montage scene where we’re in a pond naked together. I think there’s a waterfall. What I do remember is that it was very cold. He played me a song he wanted to do this scene to because that wasn’t in the original script that I got. He said, ‘You know, we’re gonna have to be naked together in this.’ I went, ‘Oh, my parents aren’t going to like that!'”
“He said, ‘I know it might be difficult for you,’” she added. “’But we’ll shoot it and then I’ll show it to you. If you don’t like it, if you think it’s lascivious or anything at all, I won’t put it in the film.’ He honored that. I saw it and it was just beautiful.”
The scene was so well done and tasteful that Mills couldn’t bear to force Eastwood to cut it.
“He shot everything so carefully and out of respect,” she explained. “It came out so incredibly beautiful and worked so well for the storyline. There wasn’t anything lascivious about it at all. So of course, I said, ‘Yes, put it in the film.’ But that’s just a very kind, considerate and generous thing to do.”
Related: Clint Eastwood Punched His Son In The Face For This – ‘It Was Old School’
Mills And Eastwood Both Still Working
Though she is over the age of 80, Mills is as busy as ever, as she has four Lifetime movies coming out that are based on books by the novelist V.C. Andrews.
“I got to play an evil grandmother which was a lot of fun,” she said. “Life has been good to me. It’s like with anything else. When you love something and really focus on it, you go after it.”
Eastwood is also still working, with his latest directorial effort Cry Macho coming out just last year, when he was 91. He’s one of the most iconic Hollywood stars that is still alive today, so it’s nice to hear from Mills that he’s just as wonderful to work with as he appears to be!
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