Wednesday 22 June 2022 04:32 PM Knots Landing star Donna Mills, 81, claims she was real inspiration behind ... trends now
Knots Landing star Donna Mills may be best known for her role in the Dallas spinoff - but the 81-year-old actress has now claimed that she had a hand in the creation of an even more well-known on-screen character: Sandy from Grease.
According to the soap opera icon, when it came to finding inspiration for the famous role - which was played by Olivia Newton-John in the 1978 musical movie - one of the film's writers used her as his muse for the blond bombshell.
Mills made the claim in an Instagram video posted to her account on Monday, when she shared a clip of herself transforming into Sandy, while revealing how she helped to inspire the iconic character.
‘Does the character Sandy from Grease look similar to me? Here's why!’ she says at the beginning of the video.
I'm Sandra Dee: Soap icon Donna Mills has claimed that she was the muse for Olivia Newton-John's Grease character, Sandy
After posing in Sandy’s iconic black leather jacket look, Mills then stated: ‘Did you know I went to school with Jim Jacobs? Jim Jacobs who wrote Grease? Jim Jacobs who used me as his model for Sandy?’
She then continued: ‘I didn’t know it at the time but I found out years later – I was the original Sandy.'
Jim Jacobs co-wrote the 1972 Broadway musical with his late friend Warren Casey, which went on to spawn Randal Kleisers’ iconic 1978 flick starring John Travolta as Danny Zuko alongside Newton-John.
Both Jacobs and Mills both grew up in Chicago and attended Taft High School.
The video had originally been posted by makeup artist Brett Freedman on TikTok, who captioned the clip: ‘Uh, yeah, @thedonnamills & I are now besties and doing TikToks together… so that’s what time it is here.
Tell me more, tell me more: Mills shared the video of her transformation on TikTok and Instagram
Iconic duo: Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta as Sandy Olsson and Danny Zuko in Grease
Pink lady: Mills opened up about finding out she was the muse for Sandy
‘In June ‘78 Grease premiered in theaters! Sugar & spice a la Donna Mills.’
He continued: ‘Fun Fact: Grease writer Jim Jacobs modeled the character Sandy on Donna Mills. They went to school together back in the day and seems she left quite the muse-y impression!’
In a previous interview with The Buffalo News, Jacobs said he had the idea for the musical – based on his own experiences – after he got involved
