Hayley 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 Tiger Bay, the Academy Juvenile
Award for Pollyanna 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 films and TV appearances.
From 2007 to 2012, Mills played Caroline, a main character in the ITV1 Series Wild at
Heart.
Early life and career Mills was born in London.
She 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, which co-starred her father.
Bill Anderson, one of Walt Disney's producers, 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.
Disney subsequently cast Mills as twins Sharon and Susan who reunite their divorced parents
in The Parent Trap.
In the film, Mills sings "Let's Get Together" as a duet with herself.
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.
During her six-year run at Disney, Mills was arguably the most popular child actress of
the era.
Critics noted that America's favorite child star was, in fact, quite British and very
ladylike.
The success of "Let's Get Together" 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".
In 1962 British exhibitors voted her the most popular film actress in the country.
In addition to her Disney films, Mills starred in several other films, notably Whistle Down
the Wind 1961,, with Alan Bates, The Truth About Spring, 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, Mills scored
a hit in The Trouble with Angels, as a prankish Catholic boarding school girl with "scathingly
brilliant" schemes, opposite screen veteran Rosalind Russell, and directed by another
Hollywood veteran, Ida Lupino.
Looking to break from her girl-next-door image, Mills returned to Britain 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 appeared alongside her father and Hywel Bennett in director Roy
Boulting's critically acclaimed film 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 eventually married Roy Boulting in 1971.
She then starred as the protagonist of Pretty Polly, opposite famous Indian film actor Shashi
Kapoor in Singapore, and appeared in the controversial horror thriller Twisted Nerve in 1968, along
with her Family Way co-star Hywel Bennett.
In 1972 she again acted opposite Hywel Bennett in Endless Night along with Britt Ekland,
Per Oscarsson 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.
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
films: 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.
Mills recalled her childhood in the 2000 documentary film Sir John Mills' Moving Memories which
was directed by Marcus Dillistone and written by her brother Jonathan.
In 2007 she began appearing 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.
In 2012 Mills starred 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 raga
rock band Kula Shaker.
The couple divorced in 1977.
Mills currently lives in New York City and London.
Mills later had a second son, Jason Lawson, during a relationship with British actor Leigh
Lawson.
Mills' current partner is Firdous Bamji.
Mills had involvement with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
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.
However, in a 1997 article of People Magazine, Mills stated that "she is 'not a part of Hare
Krishna,' though she delved into Hinduism and her own Christianity for guidance."
In 1988 she co-edited, with Marcus Maclaine, the book My God, which consisted of brief
letters from celebrities on their beliefs 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.
Filmography Film
Television Theatre
Awards/Nominations References
External links Hayley Mills at the Internet Movie Database
Hayley Comes Back to Her Richmond Roots