Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills (born 18 April 1946) is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and 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 Tiger Bay (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for Pollyanna (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961. During her early career, she appeared in several films for Walt Disney, and is perhaps best known for her dual role as twins Susan and Sharon in the Disney film The Parent Trap.

During the late 1960s she began performing in theatrical plays, and played in more mature roles. The age of contracts with studios soon passed. Although she has not maintained the box office success or the Hollywood A-list she experienced as a child actress, she has continued to make movies and TV appearances, having two movies in post-production in 2010.

In 2007 Mills became a main character in the ITV Series Wild at Heart.

Early life and career

Mills was born Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills in London, England, the younger daughter of actor Sir John Mills and playwright Mary Hayley Bell. She is also the younger sister of actress Juliet Mills and the first cousin once removed of Susie Blake.

Mills was 12 when she was discovered by J. Lee Thompson, who was initially looking for a boy to play the lead role in Tiger Bay. Walt Disney's wife, Lillian Disney, saw her performance and suggested that Mills be given the lead role in Pollyanna. The role of the orphaned "glad girl" who moves in with her aunt catapulted Mills to super-stardom in the United States and earned her a special Academy Award.^[1][2]

Disney subsequently cast Mills as twins Sharon and Susan who reunite their divorced parents in The Parent Trap. In the film, Mills sings the hit song "Let's Get Together." She made four additional films for Disney in a four-year span, including In Search of the Castaways and Summer Magic. Her final two Disney films, The Moon-Spinners and That Darn Cat!, did very well at the box office.^[3]

During her six-year run at Disney, Mills was arguably the most popular child actress of the era. In 1961, British exhibitors voted her the most popular star in the country for that year.^[4] Critics noted that America's favourite child star was, in fact, quite British and very lady-like. The success of "Let's Get Together" (which hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 17 in Britain ( Decca F 21396) also led to the release of a record album on Disney's Buena Vista label, Let's Get Together with Hayley Mills, which also included her only other hit song, "Johnny Jingo" (Billboard No. 21, 1962).

In addition to her Disney movies, Mills starred in several other films, notably Whistle Down the Wind 1961, (based on the book of the same title written by her mother, Mary Hayley Bell), with Alan Bates. The Truth About Spring (with her real father, John Mills, cast as her father and James MacArthur as the love interest), and The Chalk Garden, 1964 from the play by Enid Bagnold

Mills was considered for the role of Lolita Haze in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film version of Lolita. However, Walt Disney discouraged the casting, feeling the role was not up to Disney's wholesome standard, and the part eventually went to Sue Lyon.

In 1962 Disney announced plans to film I Capture the Castle, from the novel by Dodie Smith, with Hayley Mills in the role of Cassandra. However, Disney never produced the film.

Post-Disney film career

After her contract with Disney expired in 1965, Mills starred in the enduring comedy The Trouble with Angels, opposite screen veteran Rosalind Russell. Looking to break from her girl-next-door image, Mills returned to England to appear as a mentally challenged teenager in the film Sky West and Crooked, which was directed by her father and written by her mother. Shortly thereafter, Mills was persuaded by her father and director Roy Boulting to star in The Family Way, a comedy about a couple having difficulty consummating their marriage, featuring a score by Paul McCartney and arrangements by Beatles producer George Martin. She then starred as the protagonist of Pretty Polly, opposite famous Indian film actor Shashi Kapoor in Singapore. In 1972 she made Endless Night with Britt Ekland, Per Oscarsson, Hywel Bennett and George Sanders. It is based on the novel Endless Night by Agatha Christie. After her appearance in The Kingfisher Caper in 1975, Mills dropped out of the film industry for a few years.^[5]

Television resurgence and reception

In 1981 Mills returned to acting with a starring role in the UK television mini-series The Flame Trees of Thika, based on Elspeth Huxley's memoir of her childhood in East Africa. The series was well received, prompting Mills to accept more acting roles. She then returned to America, and made two appearances on The Love Boat.

Always welcomed at Disney, Mills narrated an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney, sparking renewed interest in her Disney work. In 1986 she reprised her roles as twins Sharon and Susan for a trio of Parent Trap television movies: The Parent Trap II, The Parent Trap III, and The Parent Trap IV: Hawaiian Honeymoon. Mills also starred as the title character in the Disney Channel-produced television series Good Morning, Miss Bliss in 1987. The show was cancelled after 13 episodes, and the rights were acquired by NBC, which reformatted Good Morning, Miss Bliss into Saved by the Bell. In recognition for her work with The Walt Disney Company, Mills was awarded the prestigious Disney Legends award in 1998.^[6]

Mills recalled her childhood in the 2000 documentary film Sir John Mills' Moving Memories which was written by her brother Jonathan. In 2007 she began appearing (alongside her sister Juliet) as Caroline in the ITV1 African vet drama, Wild at Heart.

In 2005 Mills appeared in the acclaimed short film, Stricken, written and directed by Jayce Bartok.

In 2010 Mills appeared in Mandie and the Cherokee Treasure, based on one of the popular Mandie novels of Lois Gladys Leppard

Stage career

Mills made her stage debut in a 1966 West End revival of Peter Pan. In 2000 she made her Off Broadway debut in Sir Noël Coward's Suite in Two Keys, opposite American actress Judith Ivey, for which she won a Theatre World Award. In 1991 she appeared as Anna Leonowens in the Australian production of The King and I. In December, 2007, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", The Noël Coward Society invited Mills as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's Gershwin Theatre, thereby commemorating the 108th birthday of Sir Noel.

Mills is currently starring as Ursula Widdington in the Stage Production of Ladies in Lavender at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, Before embarking on a National UK Tour.

Personal life

While filming The Family Way, the 20-year-old Mills met 53-year-old director Roy Boulting. The two married in 1971, and owned a flat in London's Kensington. They then went on to purchase Cobstone Windmill in Ibstone, Buckinghamshire. Their son, Crispian Mills, achieved recognition as the lead singer and guitarist for the psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker. The couple divorced in 1977. Mills currently lives in New York City.

Mills later had a second son, Jason Lawson, during a relationship with British actor Leigh Lawson. Mills' current (2012) partner is Firdous Bamji.^[7]

Mills has had involvement with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the "Hare Krishna" movement).^[8] She wrote the preface to the book, The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking, published in 1984. Mills has been a pescetarian since the late 1990s.^[9]

In 1988 she co-edited, with Marcus Maclaine, the book My God, which consisted of brief letters from celebrities on their beliefs (or lack thereof) regarding God and the life to come.

On 18 April 2008, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery and chemotherapy and told Good Housekeeping Magazine in January 2012 that she had recovered.^[7]

Filmography

Box-office rankings

Mills featured prominently in polls taken by exhibitors of the leading box office stars in the USA and Britain:

• 1961 – Most popular star in Britain^[11]
• 1962 – 20th biggest star in the USA, 5th in Britain^[12]

References

External links

• Hayley Mills at the Internet Movie Database
• Hayley Comes Back to Her Richmond Roots