Disney’s Original ‘Parent Trap’ Actor Lost ‘90% of Earnings’ From Child Stardom Due to ‘Crook’ Financial Advisor

Hayley Mills recently appeared on the “Rosebud Podcast” podcast (via The Daily Beast) and spoke about losing out on the millions of dollars she made as a child star. Mills was a Disney icon in the 1960s as the star of “The Parent Trap” (1961), plus movies such as “That Darn Cat!” (1965) and “In Search of the Castaways” (1962). She was contracted by the studio, but the money she made as an actor ultimately vanished because “I gave it to the tax man.”

“It was rather a big chunk,” Mills said. “It was most of it because it was all put into a trust fund, because [British] supertax was 90 percent in those days, so they had to do something.”

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During the height of her child stardom, Mills said she was told to put her earnings into a trust by the financial advisor who worked with her father, the actor Sir John Mills. The advisor, Stanley Passmore, was “not very well” in terms of his guidance.

“The trust company was set up for me. Stanley was also involved in setting up a trust company for Jack Hawkins. And the Inland Revenue attacked his trust company, which affected British law. It created the precedent,” Mills explained. “And so, when I reached 21, instead of being given the key to the door, I was handed an envelope across a green baize tablecloth by Stanley, which was the Inland Revenue basically saying, ‘Thank you. You owe us 90 percent of your earnings.’ And I’ve never been good at figures. I said, ‘Well, what does this mean? I don’t understand.’ And Stanley laughed and said, ‘Well, I think it means you have to move to America.’ And that’s all he ever said. He was a crook.”

Miles previously told The Times of London in 2021 that It “would have been very nice” to receive the money she earned as actor, adding: “I could have bought a bigger house or got a nicer car. But the main thing it would have given me is the freedom to say no and not to have to go America for work or whatever after that.”

Before her run at Disney, Mills broke out as the star of the 1959 British crime drama film “Tiger Bay” and won the BAFTA for most promising newcomer. The same year Mills starred in “The Parent Trap” she also appeared in “Whistle Down the Wind,” for which she was nominated for the BAFTA for best British actress.