Knots Landing star, Donna Mills, reveals terrifying encounter with stalker

Veteran soap actress Donna Mills has spoken candidly in a recent interview about a scary experience she had with a male stalker who had escaped prison, causing police to warn her to leave town. The Knots Landing star, 84, was in conversation with Steve Kmetko for his podcast Still Here Hollywood where she talked about her career and personal life. When asked “What did fame not prepare you for”, she replied: “I’ve had a couple of stalkers… that’s kind of scary.” When asked how she had handled that, she replied: “Well one of them was a guy who had escaped from prison. And the detective called me up and said ‘I’d leave town if I were you.’ Because he was obsessed with me, and most people when they escape prison they try to run away, but he said ‘he’s gonna come for you.'”

Donna took their advice, going to another city and checking into a hotel under an assumed name, and about a week later the man was caught and killed by police. “He had been trying to sell a story to the National Enquirer that he was my boyfriend because he had a picture with me, because you know… you go to places and you take a picture,” Donna said.

“And the National Enquirer, I give them credit, they called me up and said ‘this guy is saying he’s your boyfriend and we don’t believe him’, and I said ‘don’t believe him, it’s ridiculous’. So they never printed it. This was in the 80s when I was doing Knots.”

The man had been released from prison in order to go to trial and he escaped from the courthouse. In the end, he was found underneath a house in Silverlake and was shot dead by police. 

© Randy Shropshire

Throughout the podcast, Donna answered many other candid questions. When asked why she had never married, the star said she valued her independence too much to tie the knot. “I was always so independent, I’m still very independent,” she said. “I just didn’t want to ever be subject to anybody else’s… you know, whatever you have to do when you get married.”

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The star also shared that she didn’t feel she could commit to being with someone for the rest of her life. “I also didn’t want to say I was going to love somebody forever, if I would do that or not.” She went on to add that her daughter had recently gotten married, and had asked Donna the same question.

© Getty Images for Farrah Fawcett

Donna portrayed the scheming Abby Fairgate on Knots Landing from 1980 until 1989, cementing herself as an incredible talent. Prior to this role, she made her film debut in 1967 with The Incident, then starred in the soap opera Love Is a Many Splendored Thing for three years. Her big break came when she starred opposite Clint Eastwood in the 1971 flick Play Misty for Me.