Hayley Mills was given a new Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This replaces one that was stolen from her in the 80s. The original, a Juvenile Award, was given to her for her performance in Pollyanna. She was one of 12 people to receive this award. In fact, she was the last.
She won the award in 1961 when at a boarding school in England. She didn’t realize she had won the award until it showed up at her doorstep in England. “I didn’t know very much about the Oscars,” Mills recalled to EW. “I didn’t know very much about anything, really. So it was all a big surprise… I was told, ‘Well, this is a very special award,’ but it was quite a few years before I began to appreciate what I had.”
“In the late ’80s, I came to California to do a television series [Good Morning, Miss Bliss],” Mills shared with EW in 2018. “When I came back from that first year, my little statuette had disappeared, and I never found it. And you know, it’s not something you can replace. They’ve broken the mold. I spoke to the Academy, and I said, ‘Well, look, give me a big one then!’ They said, ‘I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that.’”
Academy president David Rubin presented a full-sized award to Mills when she visited the group’s Beverly Hills headquarters. The Academy no longer has the mold for the miniature award.
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