Version 1961: the Casting of Trixie Belden

Naturally, Hayley Mills has always been my first choice as Trixie. She struck me as being so incredibly like Trixie in The Parent Trap, and later when I saw the Truth About Spring (1965) I thought the same thing.

Hayley had just won a 1960 "mini Oscar" for her role in Pollyanna, and was Disney's newest darling. Shown here, age 15, in a still from The Parent Trap (1961), Hayley's short blond curls, blue eyes, and plaid shirt bespeak "Trixie".She played a convincing thirteen-year-old, and her character in the film (at least, one of them) was quite a tomboy, very impulsive and always scheming.

Still, I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving out any prospective Trixie here, so I searched through old films and television shows from around 1960. The only spunky blonde I could come up with was Sandra Dee, and well...she just doesn't quite cut it. What do you think?

Sandra in Gidget, 1959. Sandra turned 19 in 1961.