Mills, John 1908–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born February 22, 1908, in Felixstowe (some sources say North Elmham), Suffolk, England; died April 23, 2005, in Denham, England. Actor and author. Mills was an award-winning actor whose career spanned nine decades. With a strong desire to be an actor on the stage from an early age, he left home when he was nineteen years old and moved to the West End in London. He then changed his name from Lewis Ernest Watts Mills to John Mills and studied tap dancing. He earned money as a salesman while he tried to break into acting. His first job on the stage came in 1929 when he broke into the chorus line at the Hippodrome. After working as a dancer for a time, his first acting opportunity came when he joined the Quaints, a repertory company with which he went on tour. This experience resulted in an important friendship with Noël Coward, who helped Mills by putting the actor in some of his plays, including the 1931 production of Cavalcade. The actor spent much of the 1930s building his career on stage, culminating in his 1939 performance in Of Mice and Men, for which he gained critical acclaim. When England entered World War II, Mills enlisted in the Royal Engineers and later was commissioned in the Royal Monmouthshire Rifles. He was honorably discharged in 1942 due to a severe ulcer and returned to acting. During the 1940s and 1950s, Miller became especially well known for his parts in war movies, in which he often played regular, unspectacular men forced into spectacular acts of heroism because of the war. Among these films were In Which We Serve (1942), This Happy Breed (1944), Way to the Stars (1945), and Dunkirk (1958). Refusing to move to Hollywood, Mills remained a devoted English actor, though sometimes he appeared in American television productions, including The Letter (1956), The Interrogator (1962), and the series Dundee and the Culhane (1967). In 1971, Mills won an Academy award for his supporting role in Ryan's Daughter (1970), in which he played a deaf mute. With the exception of occasional stage productions such as 1961's Ross, in which he played T. E. Lawrence; 1976's Great Expectations; and a 1982 production of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, in which he had the title role; Mills focused more on films than theater after the 1960s. Of the many later films in which he had parts, he appeared in Trial by Combat (1976), A Woman of Substance (1983), and A Tale of Two Cities (1991). Increasingly assigned to supporting rather than starring roles, Mills nevertheless continued to act into the twenty-first century, even when his eyesight began to fail him. He appeared in such later films as Hamlet (1996) and Bright Young Things (2003). Named a commander of the British Empire in 1960 and knighted in 1976, Mills recorded many of his personal experiences in two books: Up in the Clouds, Gentlemen Please (1980) and Still Memories (2000).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, April 25, 2005, p. A20.

Times (London, England), April 25, 2005, p. 47.

Washington Post, April 24, 2005, p. C11.