George Harrison Went on a Date With a Disney Actor and Fans Nearly Took Her Eye out With a Ballpoint Pen
Shortly after the Beatles’ popularity broke out in the US, George Harrison took Disney actor Hayley Mills on a date for a good cause. The guitarist was the perfect gentleman, even as hordes of screaming girls crowded the young couple and threatened their evening.
George Harrison agreed to date Hayley Mills for charity
In 2021, Mills told the Daily Mail, “Much to my embarrassment – but also to my secret delight” that she had her mother to thank for her once-in-a-lifetime date with George. The Beatles had just returned from a successful trip to the United States. By then, 17-year-old Mills had already made two of her most famous films, The parent trap and Pollyanna.
Mills and her parents, playwright Mary Hayley Bell and actor John Mills, had been invited to a Red Cross charity event. Actor Richard Todd hosted a reception party at his home in Henley, Oxfordshire.
“It was one of those old-fashioned fundraisers where movie stars and celebrities come to a premiere or premiere and raise money for a good cause,” Mills said. Her mother suggested that George accompany her.
“I almost choked on my tea when she said she would fix it. ‘What?! Are you serious?’ I gasped. “You can’t just call George Harrison out of the blue and say, ‘Hey, George, do you want to date my daughter?'” Mills’ mother suggested George because they had met him at another charity event days earlier. where Mills’ mother had cheekily asked George for his number. Surprisingly, he presented it.
Bell phoned George to have Mills escorted and he agreed. He picked up Mills and drove to Todd’s house. “I was shocked. Actually, the whole house was. The anticipation of this evening was unbearable: Christmas, birthdays, weddings – they don’t even come close. It was 1964 and I was on a date with George Harrison!”
George and Mills’ date almost ended badly
Mills wrote about her and George’s date in her journal. “As soon as I walked down the stairs and saw him standing there in the hallway with his black corduroy coat and his hands tucked deep in his pockets and all that shiny hair, my carefully cultivated calm vanished, my knees began to tremble,” Mills wrote.
“George and I drove off together in his black E-Type Jaguar. It was pouring rain and when my heart finally found more or less its place, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t seem to mind that I’d been foisted on him by my very determined mother.
“He reminded me of a little colt peeking out from under a bearskin blanket. His smile is quite evil, but in the most innocent way; When he laughs, it’s like having a tiny goblin perched on his shoulder, pulling up one side of his mouth.”
Mills got nervous when they got to Todd’s house. Guests pounced on George. A limousine then drove the couple to the Regal Cinema, where a crowd of fans were waiting for them. Seeing the throngs of fans, George “went slightly green and intimidated.”
Mills wrote: “In all the chaos, someone managed to open the door and jumped into a snake pit of screaming, clawing, maddened girls. One of them almost put my eye out with a ballpoint pen.” Somehow, they fended off fans trying to rip their clothes off their backs and managed to get into the theater where they were watching farce. However, they were not safe inside.
“But as soon as we sat down, we were surrounded — people were leaning on our heads, their pointy elbows and growling stomachs in our faces,” Mills said. “George was great, he signed autographs and smiled at everyone even when he was pushy. A woman actually knelt on my lap to get at him!”
The next morning, Mills’ father, George, cooked breakfast, and he loved it
Unfortunately, fans essentially ruined George and Mills’ date. You couldn’t watch the film. “People were crawling down the aisle on their hands and knees, autograph books in their teeth, trying to reach George,” Mills wrote. When they decided to sneak out, there was more “yelling, fighting, and pin-poking.” The same happened to George’s future first wife, Pattie Boyd, when she decided to leave a Beatles concert early.
George got into the car, but someone slammed the door before Mills could get in. “I saw his face look at me helplessly as the car sped away, girls were still chasing and banging on the windows,” Mills said. She had never experienced anything like this. Mills returned to Todd’s where she reunited with George.
Still, people flocked to him. “I don’t think it was just because he was a Beatle,” said the child actor. “George had that certain something that not many people have: a mixture of great poise and composure, a sweetness and an ordinaryness. He was unaffected, his own man, but there was also a certain reserve about him.”
Later that evening George Mills drove home. “We got through the night and I think a subtle bond was formed,” she said. When they arrived, Mills’ father greeted them and invited George to scrambled eggs.
George apologized as he and Ringo moved with a police escort that morning. “I remember thinking what a terrible price the Beatles had to pay for their success,” Mills recalled.
Years later, Mills met George at the Chelsea Flower Show. They remembered their eventful date. “One of the thrills of his life, he confessed, was having actor John Mills cook him scrambled eggs at four in the morning,” Mills concluded.
