Mills said that she had good survival skills as an actress before becoming a follower of Jesus 15 years ago, but that her priorities are much different now. She gives her Christian testimony in church and has talked about it in Bible study, but has never spoken to the press about her journey of faith prior to her interview with Christian Post.
(Photo: Alley Mills)
The actress grew up in New York and was mostly raised by a caregiver. Her parents, a father that was a television executive and a mother that was a magazine art editor, were "rabid atheists," she said. They later divorced.
"From the age of a teenager, I was always seeking something outside what the real world was. I had a yearning for meaning," said Mills, 62. "That's why I became an actress in school. I went away to boarding school when my parents got divorced. My childhood had not been happy.
"I was always searching. I became a Buddhist in my twenties when I came to Los Angeles. I met a group of people who I really loved," she explained.
Being a Buddhist was part of her spiritual journey, she said. "I was a Buddhist for 20 years. At a certain point, in my late 30s I began to get unsettled about Buddhism. and the major thing was I felt like I needed to be grateful for this incredible creation … I've always loved nature. I've always been a hiker. I love the wilderness. I didn't realize it was God then, but I now do."
Her uncertainty began to grow as she realized that chanting "to a law in the universe" was beginning to not work for her. She was also concerned that some of the Buddhist leaders were "becoming a little bit egocentric."
A shift in her life began, she says, when she went to a Lutheran school's church service because it was recommended that as grandparents (Mills is married to actor and author Orson Bean) who are helping to place their grandchild in the school, they should attend.
"There on the wall [of the church where service was held] was a very old picture of Jesus and it was the same picture that the woman who raised me, my whole childhood, had by her bed," she said. "It was as if I was hit by a thunderbolt. I saw that picture and I suddenly remembered everything that I had not remembered at all about Mary (her caregiver) raising me pretty much from the age of two. She was a devout Christian. She was an African American. She kind of rescued me from a very crazy caregiver we had at that time, and always took me under her wing."
She said she completely forgot about this part of her childhood probably because her parents forbade the caregiver from teaching from the Bible at a certain point. "I remembered that happened in front of me when I was about six and she stopped reading me the Bible, which was awful. It must have broken her heart," Mills explained. "Unfortunately, she died before I became a Christian. I am convinced she prayed for me every day."
Later, Mills asked the pastor of the Lutheran school church if it was okay for her to attend even if she was a Buddhist. He told her it was fine just as long as he could have meetings with her and her husband over coffee.
"That pastor is still my husband's best friend and he baptized me 3 to 4 years later with my grandson," she said. "That was the beginning of a change in my life. It was a continuation for me… Buddhism was sort of a step. People worry about [Buddhism being the wrong spiritual path]. That's true, people can become complacent and remain stuck… but it wasn't for me, it was a step."
Mills said she now prays regularly before coming onto a set and has been shown that by doing so it can help her think less about herself and alleviate any worries. Most of her coworkers and the crew on the set of "The Bold and the Beautiful" know she is a Christian, she said.
Mills has also had discussions about her faith with conservative media mogul Andrew Brietbart, who was her stepson-in-law. She and her husband are in a scene of the documentary, "Hating Breitbart."
"In his book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World, Andrew wrote, 'Alley, I want you to know that your prayers have not gone unnoticed.' Nobody that knew him doubts that Andrew is up there with Jesus," she said. "He and I talked about faith a lot."
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