Sir John Mills, CBE (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 1908–23 April 2005[1]) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portrayed guileless, wounded war heroes. In 1971, he received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Ryan's Daughter.
John Mills was born in Norfolk,[1] the son of Edith Mills (née Baker), a theatre box office manager, and Lewis Mills, a mathematics teacher.[2] Mills was born at Watts Naval School, where his father was a master. He spent his early years in the village of Belton where his father was the headmaster of the village school. He first felt the thrill of performing at a concert in the school hall when he was six years old.[3] He lived in a modest house in Gainsborough Road, Felixstowe until 1929. His older sister was Annette Mills, remembered as presenter of BBC Television's Muffin the Mule (1946–55).
He was educated at Balham Grammar School in London, Sir John Leman High School in Beccles, Suffolk and Norwich High School for Boys,[1][4] where it is said that his initials can still be seen carved into the brickwork on the side of the building in Upper St Giles Street. Upon leaving school he worked as a clerk[2] at a corn merchant's in Ipswich before finding employment in London as a commercial traveller for the Sanitas Disinfectant Company.
In September 1939, at the start of the Second World War, Mills enlisted in the British Army, joining the Royal Engineers.[5] He was later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, but in 1942 he received a medical discharge because of a stomach ulcer.[5]
Career
Early career
Mills took an early interest in acting, making his professional début at the London Hippodrome in The Five O'Clock Girl in 1929. He followed this with a cabaret act.
Mills then got a job with a theatrical company that toured India, China and the Far East performing a number of plays. Noël Coward saw him appear in a production of Journey's End in Singapore and wrote Mills a letter of introduction to use back in London.[6]
On his return Mills starred in The 1931 Revue, Coward's Cavalcade (1931) and the Noël Coward revue Words and Music (1932).
At the Old Vic he was in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1939), She Stoops to Conquer (1939) and Of Mice and Men (1939–40). He joined the army in 1939 but occasionally made films on leave. He went back to movies with Old Bill and Son (1940) and made Cottage to Let (1941), a war film for Anthony Asquith. Mills went back to supporting Will Hay in The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) and he was one of many names in the war film, The Big Blockade (1942).
He was in Men in Shadow (1942) on stage, written by his wife. He achieved acclaim for his performance as an able seaman in Noël Coward's In Which We Serve (1942), a huge hit. Mills had another good support role in The Young Mr. Pitt (1942) playing William Wilberforce opposite Robert Donat. He was invalided out of the army in 1942.[7]
Stardom
Mills's climb to stardom began when he had the lead role in We Dive at Dawn (1943), a film directed by Asquith about submariners. He was top billed in This Happy Breed (1944), directed by David Lean and adapted from a Noël Coward play.
Also popular was Waterloo Road (1945), from Sidney Gilliat, in which Mills played a man who goes AWOL to retrieve his wife from a draft-dodger (played by Stewart Granger). Mills played a pilot in The Way to the Stars (1945), directed by Asquith from a script by Terence Rattigan, and another big hit in Britain. He did Duet for Two Hands (1945) on stage.
Mills had his greatest success to date as Pip in Great Expectations (1946), directed by David Lean. It was the third biggest hit at the British box office that year and Mills was voted the sixth most popular star.[8]
Mills played the title role in Scott of the Antarctic (1948), a biopic of Captain Scott. It was the fourth most watched film of the year in Britain and Mills was the eighth biggest star.[10]
Producer
Mills turned producer with The History of Mr Polly (1949) from the novel by H. G. Wells.[11] It was directed by Anthony Pelissier and Mills said it was his favorite film.[12] Pelisse also made The Rocking Horse Winner (1949) which Mills produced; he also played a small role. More liked at the box office was a submarine drama, Morning Departure (1950), directed by Baker. By this stage his fee was a reported £20,000 a film.[13]
Mills had his first hit in a number of years with Hobson's Choice (1954), directed by Lean. He appeared in war film The Colditz Story (1955).
Mills played a support role in a movie for MGM, The End of the Affair (1955) with Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson. More liked in Britain was another war story, Above Us the Waves (1955); this was sixth most popular film at the British box office that year, and helped Mills be the fifth most popular star in the country.[16]
In the 1959 crime drama Tiger Bay, directed by Thompson, Mills played a police detective investigating a murder that a young girl has witnessed. His daughter Hayley was cast, and earned excellent reviews.
Better received was Tunes of Glory (1960), a military drama directed by Ronald Neame co-starring Alec Guinness. Mills's performance earned him a Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival.
Walt Disney saw Tiger Bay and offered Hayley Mills the lead role in Pollyanna (1960). Disney also offered John Mills the lead in the adventure film Swiss Family Robinson (1960), which was a huge hit. He did Ross (1960–61) on stage.
The Rank Organisation insisted Mills play the role of the priest in The Singer Not the Song (1961) opposite Dirk Bogarde. Mills and Baker reteamed on an interracial drama Flame in the Streets (1961) and an Italian-British war film The Valiant (1962).
He was in Dulcima (1971) then had support roles in Young Winston (1972) for Attenborough, Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), and Oklahoma Crude (1973). On stage he did Veterans at the Royal Court, At the End of the Day (1973), The Good Companions (1974), Great Expectations (1975) and Separate Tables (1977).
Also on the small screen, in 1974 he starred as Captain Tommy "The Elephant" Devon in the six-part television drama series The Zoo Gang, about a group of former underground freedom fighters from World War II, with Brian Keith, Lilli Palmer and Barry Morse.
On the big screen he was now mainly playing upper crust types as in Zulu Dawn (1979), Gandhi (1982), and Sahara (1983). He performed Goodbye Mr Chips on stage (1982) followed by Little Lies (1983).
The Wick on Richmond Hill in Richmond, Greater London, was the family home for many years
His first wife was the actress Aileen Raymond who died only five days after he did. They were married in 1932 and divorced in 1941. Raymond later became the mother of actor Ian Ogilvy.
His second wife was the dramatistMary Hayley Bell. Their marriage, on 16 January 1941, lasted for 64 years, until his death in 2005. They were married in a rushed civil ceremony, because of the war; it was not until 60 years later that they were married in a church.[22] They lived in The Wick, London, for many years. They sold the house to musician Ronnie Wood in 1971 and moved to Hills House, Denham, south Buckinghamshire.
In the years leading up to his death, he appeared on television only on special occasions, his sight having failed almost completely by 1992. After that, his film roles were brief cameos.
He died aged 97 on 23 April 2005 in Denham, Buckinghamshire, following a stroke.[1] His second wife died on 1 December 2005. They are buried in St Mary the Virgin Churchyard, Denham.
For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted him among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.
John Edward Boulting and Roy Alfred Clarence Boulting, known collectively as the Boulting brothers, were English filmmakers and identical twins who became known for their popular series of satirical comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. They produced many of their films through their own production company, Charter Film Productions, which they set up in 1937.
In Which We Serve is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by Noël Coward and David Lean. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information.
Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd was an Irish actor. In 1950, he received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination for his performance as Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan in the 1949 film The Hasty Heart. His defining career role was the portrayal of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., in the 1955 film The Dam Busters.
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and writer. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art-house films. In a second career, he wrote seven best-selling volumes of memoirs, six novels and a volume of collected journalism, mainly from articles in The Daily Telegraph.
Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, known as Trevor Howard, was an English actor. After varied stage work, he achieved star status with his role in the film Brief Encounter (1945), followed by The Third Man (1949). This led to many popular appearances on film and TV.
Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch was an English-Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as crazed television anchorman Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a Best Actor award from the Golden Globes.
Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox, known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer and dancer.
Kenneth Gilbert More, CBE was an English film and stage actor.
Michael Charles Gauntlet Wilding was an English stage, television, and film actor. He is best known for a series of films he made with Anna Neagle, for the two films he made with Alfred Hitchcock and for being Elizabeth Taylor's second husband.
Margaret Lockwood, CBE, was an English actress. One of Britain's most popular film stars of the 1930s and 1940s, her film appearances included The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), The Man in Grey (1943), and The Wicked Lady (1945). She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for the 1955 film Cast a Dark Shadow. She also starred in the television series Justice (1971–74).
Robert Guy Newton was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for his hard-living lifestyle, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills is an English actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her performance in the British crime drama film Tiger Bay (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for Disney's Pollyanna (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961. During her early career, she appeared in six films for Walt Disney, including her dual role as twins Susan and Sharon in the Disney film The Parent Trap (1961). Her performance in Whistle Down the Wind saw Mills nominated for BAFTA Award for Best British Actress.
John Edward "Jack" Hawkins, CBE was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. One of the most popular British film stars of the 1950s, he was best known for his portrayal of military men.
Robert Edward Stevenson was an English film screenwriter, director and actor.
Sir William Stanley Baker was a Welsh actor and film producer. Known for his rugged appearance and intense, grounded screen persona; he was one of the top British male film stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and later a prolific producer.
The Sea Shall Not Have Them is a 1954 British war film starring Michael Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde and Anthony Steel. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and is based on the 1953 novel by John Harris, about a North Sea rescue during the Second World War. The musical soundtrack is by composer Malcolm Arnold.
Mary Hayley Bell, Lady Mills was an English actress and writer, married for 64 years to actor Sir John Mills. Her novel Whistle Down the Wind was adapted as a film, starring her teenaged daughter, actress Hayley Mills.
Ralph Philip Thomas MC was an English film director. He is perhaps best remembered for directing the Doctor series of films.
In Search of the Castaways is a 1962 Walt Disney Productions feature film starring Hayley Mills and Maurice Chevalier in a tale about a worldwide search for a shipwrecked sea captain. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley freely based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.
Campbell's Kingdom is a 1957 British adventure film directed by Ralph Thomas, based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Hammond Innes. The film stars Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker, with Michael Craig, Barbara Murray, James Robertson Justice and Sid James in support. The story is set in Alberta, Canada, and largely follows the principles of the Northwestern genre of film-making.
References
1 2 3 4 Brian McFarlane, "Mills, Sir John Lewis Ernest Watts (1908–2005)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 2009 available online. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
