About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

John Mills

Encyclopedia : J : JO : JOH : John Mills

For other people with this or similar names, see John Mills (disambiguation).
John Mills as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the Thames Television science-fiction serial Quatermass (1979).
Enlarge
John Mills as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the Thames Television science-fiction serial Quatermass (1979).

Sir John Mills, CBE (22 February 1908 – 23 April 2005), born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an Academy Award winning English actor whose career spanned seventy years and more than 120 films.

Contents

Life and career

Mills was born at the Watts Naval School in North Elmham, Norfolk, and grew up in Felixstowe, Suffolk. He was educated at Norwich School.

Mills took an early interest in acting, making his professional debut at the London Hippodrome in "The Five O'Clock Girl" 1929. He made his film debut in The Midshipmaid (1932), and came to prominence as Colley in the 1939 film version of Goodbye, Mr Chips, opposite Robert Donat. He took the lead in Great Expectations in 1946, and subsequently made his career playing traditionally British heroes such as Captain Robert Falcon Scott in Scott of the Antarctic (1948). Over the next decade he became particularly associated with war dramas, such as The Colditz Story (1954) and Ice Cold in Alex (1958). He often acted in the roles of people who are not at all exceptional, but become heroes due to their common sense, generosity and right judgement. Altogether he appeared in over a hundred films.

For his role as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter (1970) — a complete departure from his usual style — Mills won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was appointed a CBE in 1960, and in 1976 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. His most famous television role was probably as the title character in Quatermass for ITV in 1979. Also on the small screen, in 1974 he starred as Capt. 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.

He also starred as Gus the Theatre Cat in the filmed version of the musical Cats in 1998. In 2002 he received a Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), the highest award given by the Academy, and was named a Disney Legend by The Walt Disney Company.

Marriage & Children

His first wife was the actress Aileen Raymond, whom he married in 1927 and divorced in 1941.
His second wife was the dramatist Mary Hayley Bell. Their marriage on 16 January, 1941 lasted 64 years till his death in 2005. They had two daughters, Juliet, star of television's "Nanny and the Professor" and Hayley, the Disney child star made iconic by starring in the original "Parent Trap", and one son Jonathan Mills. Hayley Mills's son, Crispian Mills, became a successful singer with the pop group Kula Shaker.

Death

In the later years before his death, he appeared on television only on special occasions, his sight having failed almost completely in 1992. After that, all his film roles were brief but notable cameos. He died aged 97 on 23 April, 2005 at his home in Denham, Buckinghamshire following a chest infection. A few months after Sir John's death, Mary Hayley Bell died on 1 December, 2005.

Major films
|- style="text-align: center;"

Stage performances

External links

Wikinews has news related to:

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: