Donna Mills on Looking THIS GOOD at 82: 'Oh, It's Hard!'

Donna Mills, famous for her turn as Abby Cunningham on "Knots Landing," is one of Hollywood's most ageless stars — and now, the 82-year-old is opening up a bit about what drives her to keep going.

On "CBS Sunday Morning," interviewer Tracy Smith asks Mills, "How do you... how do you look like this?!"

Laughing, Mills says, "This is what 82 looks like. This is what 82 can be. I mean, that's kind of my message. That's what I want women to know — it's not over. You know? It doesn't have to be."

Acknowledging, "Oh, it's hard!" to look dewy-fresh and to have so much stamina in her ninth decade, Mills goes on to say, "I wanna still contribute. If I'm gonna be here, I wanna do something with it."

The actress, who took 18 years off at age 54 to raise her adopted daughter Chloe Mills, returned to her profession several years ago in part because she felt so strongly that she wanted to be "a part of it" again.

She promptly won her first Emmy for a special appearance on "General Hospital."

In her "CBS Sunday Morning" sit-down, Mills goes on to joke, "It takes me hours to get ready," before saying that in spite of aches and pains, "You just have to get past that, you just have to say, 'I'm gonna do it anyway.'"

Making clear that her philosophy is not only about looking good, Mills tells Smith, "The hard part is that you know it's the last chapter, and I don't wanna go away. So, I'm hangin' on as long as I can and tryin' to be as much as I can be for as long as I can be."

"We have this extended life cycle now," Mills says. "Let's make the last part of it one of the best."

As for retirement, she says, "Oh, God no. No. Well, I figure they have to have somebody to play the grandmother — I'm available for those things."

Mills is currently playing the most evil character of her career in the four-part Lifetime series "Dawn," which premiered earlier this month, proving that there are grandmothers... and there are grandmothers!