Sir John Mills

English actor John Mills made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He was popular actor in light comedies and musicals in the 1930s and was best known for patriotic war films as well as Scott of the Antarctic, The Colditz Story and Oh! What a Lovely War. Mills was awarded an Oscar for his role as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter.

Born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills on February 22, 1908 at the Watts Naval School in North Elmham, Norfolk, England, Mills grew up in Belton, where his father was the headmaster of the village school and in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where he lived in a modest house in Ham's Road. He was educated at Norwich High School for Boys, 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. He made his acting debut on the stage of the Sir John Leman School in Beccles in a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream when he played the part of Puck. Upon leaving school he worked as a clerk at a corn merchants in Ipswich.

Mills took an early interest in acting, making his professional debut at the London Hippodrome in The Five O'Clock Girl in 1929, becoming a popular actor in light comedies and musicals in the 1930s.

For two generations of film audiences he represented the figure of a fundamentally decent and reliable Englishman, and took few unsympathetic roles. He was awarded an Oscar for his role as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter (1970), and appeared in Gandhi (1982) and Deadly Advice (1994). His stage career indicates a wider acting range, including The Petition at the National Theatre in 1986.

Personal Life

His first wife was the actress Aileen Raymond, who died only five days after he did. They were married in 1927 and divorced in 1941. Raymond later became the mother of actor Ian Ogilvy.

His second wife was the dramatist Mary Hayley Bell. Their marriage on 16 January 1941 lasted 64 years, until his death in 2005. They were married in a rushed civil ceremony, due to the war, and it was not until 60 years later that they had their union blessed in a church. They lived in The Wick, London, for many years, but sold the house to musician Pete Townshend in 1975 and moved to Hills House, Denham. Mills and Bell had two daughters, Juliet, star of television's Nanny and the Professor and Hayley, a Disney child star who starred in Pollyanna, The Parent Trap and Whistle Down the Wind and one son, Jonathan Mills. In 1947 Mills appeared with his daughters in the film So Well Remembered. Mills's grandson by his daughter Hayley, Crispian Mills, is a musician, best known for his work with the alternative rock group Kula Shaker.

He was knighted in 1976. In 2002 he received a BAFTA Fellowship for outstanding contributions to world cinema.

Sources: Wikipedia, Biography