Hayley Mills
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| Hayley Mills | |
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| Born | April 18, 1946 London, England |
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivian Mills (born April 18, 1946) is an English actress.
She is the younger daughter of the late actor Sir John Mills and the late playwright Mary Hayley Bell. She is also the younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, who appears on the U.S. soap opera Passions.
Mills was 12 when she was discovered by J. Lee Thompson, who was looking for a girl to play the lead role in Tiger Bay. Walt Disney's wife, Lillian Disney saw her performance and suggested that Hayley be given the lead role in Pollyanna. That role of the "glad girl" who moves in with her aunt catapulted Mills to super-stardom in the United States and earned Mills a special Oscar.
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". Mills made four additional films for Disney in a four-year span, including In Search of the Castaways, Summer Magic, The Moon-Spinners, and That Darn Cat!. 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 lady-like. In 1998, she was awarded the prestigious Disney Legend award by The Walt Disney Company.
In addition to her Disney movies, Mills took the lead in several other films, notably Whistle Down the Wind (based on the book of the same title written by her mother), The Truth About Spring (with her father, Sir John Mills, cast as her father and James MacArthur as the love interest), and The Chalk Garden.
After her contract with Disney expired in 1966, Mills starred in the innocuous The Trouble with Angels opposite Rosalind Russell. Looking to break from her clean-cut, girl-next-door image, Mills went home to England to star in The Family Way. Though meant to be a light British comedy about a couple having difficulty consummating their marriage, a brief shot of Mills' bare bottom generated a certain amount of controversy upon first release, possibly because of her previous 'family movie' background. Though harmless by today's standards, The Family Way hurt Mills' film career.
It was while filming The Family Way that 20-year-old Mills met 53-year old director Roy Boulting, 33 years her senior. The two married in 1971, divorced in 1977. The couple had one child, Crispian, who became a vocalist and lead guitarist for the band Kula Shaker. Mills' second son, Jason Lawson, is the product of a 1970s relationship with British actor Leigh Lawson.
Later starring roles for Mills include the title character in Good Morning, Miss Bliss (the short-lived precursor to Saved by the Bell), and as Anna Leonowens in the British production of The King and I. She made her Off-Broadway debut in Sir Noel Coward's Suite in Two Keys in 2000 opposite American actress Judith Ivey.
[edit] Filmography
- So Well Remembered (1947)
- Tiger Bay (1959)
- Pollyanna (1960)
- The Parent Trap (1961)
- Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
- In Search of the Castaways (1962)
- Summer Magic (1963)
- The Truth About Spring (1964)
- The Chalk Garden (1964)
- The Moon-Spinners (1964)
- That Darn Cat! (1965)
- Gypsy Girl (1966)
- The Trouble with Angels (1966)
- The Daydreamer (1966) (voice)
- The Family Way (1966)
- Africa - Texas Style! (1967)
- Pretty Polly (1967)
- Twisted Nerve (1968)
- Take A Girl Like You (1970)
- Cry of the Penguins (1971)
- Endless Night (1971)
- The Bananas Boat (1974)
- Deadly Strangers (1974)
- The Kingfisher Caper (1975)
- The Parent Trap II (1986)
- The Parent Trap 3 (1989)
- The Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989)
- Appointment with Death (1988)
- After Midnight (1990)
- A Troll in Central Park (1994) (voice)
- 2BPerfectlyHonest (2004)
- Stricken (2005) (short subject)
- Life Is a Dream in Cinema: Pola Negri (2006) (documentary)
