Mills says she thinks fans of the show wanted her character and Richard Long’s professor to couple up on the ’70s show.

Nanny and the Professor star Juliet Mills reveals why main characters never got together romantically

Mills says she thinks fans of the show wanted her character and Richard Long's professor to couple up on the '70s show.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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February 19, 2026 5:45 p.m. ET

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Juliet Mills and Richard Long on 'Nanny and the Professor'. Credit:

ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Juliet Mills was all for the titular characters in '70s sitcom *Nanny and the Professor *getting together. The timing just wasn't right.

But the actress, who's also known to fans of *Passions* and *The Love Boat*, was very much in favor of a romance between her character, Nanny, and the late Richard Long's Prof. Everett.

"There was always a curiosity, especially about as far as the professor and I, we seem to get on so well, but nothing ever really seemed to happen romantically," Mills, who's now 84, explained to host Steve Kmetko on a recent episode of the *Still Here Hollywood* podcast. "And I think that the audience began to really wonder about that and want something to happen. But in those days, television was much more prudish, as you probably remember."**

*Nanny and the Professor* aired on ABC between 1970 and 1971, although it produced three seasons of episodes about, well, a nanny taking care of a widowed professor's children.

"They didn't let that progress, that relationship, which, I think, actually the fans wanted," Mills said. "And that was one thing behind the scenes that they were always saying, 'Isn't he falling for you? You're such good friends.' And it never went that way. I think if they had started writing a romantic relationship that grew out of this respect for each other, that probably the show would have continued for a bit longer."

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There were other attempts to keep the show family-friendly, too, according to Mills, who's the older sister of actress Hayley Mills, the actress who starred in a string of Disney movies in the '60s, including the original version of *The Parent Trap*, and, in the '80s, the original* Saved by the Bell*, *Good Morning, Miss Bliss*.

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"I had to wear a sort of long, white nightgown, with long sleeves and a high neck, if I was seen in my bedroom or anything," Juliet Mills explained. "I could never make the professor a Scotch and soda. I had to make him a cup of tea."

To her point about the prudishness, *The Brady Bunch* never even mentioned what had happened to the ex-husband of matriarch Carol, who was played by the late Florence Henderson. That series debuted just a year before *Nanny*.

But TV was changing, as evidenced by the debut of *All in the Family* on CBS during *Nanny and the Professor*'s third and final season.

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Source: “EW Comedy”