Alley Mills (born May 9, 1951) is an American actress best known for her role as Norma Arnold, the mother in the coming-of-age series The Wonder Years. Mills was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Ted Mills, a television executive, died in August 2003. Her stepmother, Genevieve, whose real name was Ginette Marguerite Auger, died March 2004. Alley's mother, Joan (Paterson) Mills Kerr, an author as well as an editor for American Heritage Magazine, died in November, 1996. Her stepfather was Chester Kerr, former director of Yale University Press. She has one sister, Hilary Mills Loomis, and one brother, Tony Mills. Her first acting role on television was in the short-lived comedy, The Associates, where she played an attorney, opposite a then-unknown Martin Short. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, film, television, stage actor and author Orson Bean. Bean is well known for being a long term celebrity panelist of To Tell the Truth and Match Game. Mills (who is twenty-three years his junior) is Bean's third wife, and they have been married since 1993.