Juliet Mills

Juliet Mills
Juliet Mills at a fan festival in 2004
Born	Juliet Maryon Mills 21 November 1941 (1941-11-21) (age 68) London, England, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1942–present
Spouse(s)	Russell Alquist Jr. (1961–1964) Michael Miklenda (1975–1980) Maxwell Caulfield (1980–present)

Juliet Maryon Mills (born 21 November 1941) is an English actress.

The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and the sister of Hayley Mills, Juliet Mills began her career as a child actor. She was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in Five Finger Exercise in 1960. She progressed to film work, and then to television, playing the lead role in the sitcom Nanny and the Professor from 1970 until 1971. She received Golden Globe Award nominations for her work in this series, and for her role in the film Avanti! (1972). She won an Emmy Award for her performance in the television miniseries QB VII (1974).

Mills continued to appear in television and theatre, and from 1999 until 2008, she played a continuing role in the daytime drama series Passions, ^[1] and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her work.

She has been married to the actor Maxwell Caulfield since 1980.

Personal life

Mills was born in London during World War II, though her parents, actor Sir John Mills and playwright Mary Hayley Bell, soon moved the family to the country to be away from the bombs. Mills is the older sister of actress Hayley Mills and of director Jonathan Mills. Because of her parents' fame, Mills grew up surrounded by famous actors such as Rex Harrison, David Niven, and Marlon Brando. Her godmother was Gone with the Wind actress Vivien Leigh, and her godfather was playwright Noel Coward.^[2]

She attended the Elmhurst Ballet School, in Camberley, Surrey.^[3]

From 1961 to 1964, Mills was married to Russell Alquist, Jr., with whom she had a son, Sean. In 1975 she married Michael Miklenda, with whom she had a daughter, Melissa, before divorcing him in 1980.

In 1980, Mills married the 18-years-younger Maxwell Caulfield. Mills said of the age difference, "Everybody is always interested in the fact that I am married to someone who is a lot younger than I am ... There are no rules, and that's what I believe, because age doesn't really matter. If you meet someone that you're really close to, someone that you love, stick with that."^[1] Caulfield adopted Mills's daughter by her second husband, and the couple live in southern California.^[2]

Career

Initially Mills had no interest in being an actress, and instead considered becoming a nun. As a baby and small child she had appeared as an extra in various films, such as Freda's 11-week-old baby, in the 1942 film In Which We Serve where her father was starring.^[3][4]

However, when her younger sister Hayley found success as a Disney actress in films such as Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, Mills decided to try her hand at the family business of acting. Her first major role was at the age of 16, in a play called Five Finger Exercise, as the character Pamela Harrington. The show, written by famous playwright Peter Shaffer, played one year in London, and then moved to the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. Despite her youth, Mills was nominated for a Tony Award in 1960 as "Best Featured Actress".^[5] She also acted in films, such as the Western The Rare Breed with James Stewart. Mills stated that the highlight of her film career was the 1972 film Avanti!, directed by Billy Wilder, and in which she starred with Jack Lemmon. She was nominated in 1973 for a Golden Globe Award for the role.

Her best known role began in 1970, when she starred in the American television series Nanny and the Professor. She played a friendly character, Phoebe Figalilly, who had magical powers, in a series that was called an American variation of Mary Poppins.^[2] Mills has stated that she herself believes in magic, and witches and fairies. "There's a lot more, you know, in the aether and around us ... We have guides, and we have angels taking care of us ... I believe in metaphysics, in a big way."^[1] She was nominated for another Golden Globe Award in 1971 for the role. The series had strong ratings but ran only briefly from 1970 to 1971. The show also suffered after it was moved from its timeslot near the strong combination of The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch to a different night of the week, which impacted ratings and eventually led to its cancellation.^[2]

In 1974, she won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Drama Special" for the miniseries adaptation of QB VII.

In 1980, she returned to the stage, starring in The Elephant Man with Maxwell Caulfield. The two actors hit it off, and despite their 18-year age difference, the younger Caulfield asked Mills to marry him, and became her third husband. After marrying Caulfield, Mills quit acting herself, and spent her time supporting her husband's career for a time.

In 1999, Mills landed a role in the daytime drama Passions, where she originated and plays the character Tabitha Lenox, a witch who wishes harm on many people due to being burned at the stake in the 1600s. The character was officially declared a "good witch" in a June 2007 episode, shortly before the series ended in August.^[6] Mills was nominated for her first Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress" for the role.^[2]

In 2009, Mills joined the cast of series 4 of the ITV drama Wild at Heart, playing "Georgina", the sister of a character that was played in the previous series by her real life sister Hayley.

Filmography

• In Which We Serve (1942)
• So Well Remembered (1947)
• The October Man (1947)
• The History of Mr Polly (1949)
• No My Darling Daughter (1961)
• Twice Round the Daffodils (1962)
• Nurse on Wheels (1963)
• Carry On Jack (1963)
• The Rare Breed (1966)
• Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
• Avanti! (1972)
• Beyond the Door (1974)
• The Cracker Factory (1979)
• Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)
• The Other Sister (1999)

References

External links

• Juliet Mills at the Internet Movie Database
• Juliet Mills at the Internet Broadway Database