John Mills - Biography - IMDb John Mills Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trivia (44) | Personal Quotes (8) Overview (5) John Lewis Ernest Watts Mills Nickname 5' 8" (1.73 m) Mini Bio (1) Sir John Mills, one of the most popular and beloved English actors, was born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills on February 22, 1908, at the Watts Naval Training College in North Elmham, Norfolk, England. The young Mills grew up in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where his father was a mathematics teacher and his mother was a theater box-office manager. The Oscar-winner appeared in more than 120 films and TV movies in a career stretching over eight decades, from his debut in 1932 in Midshipmaid Gob (1932) through Bright Young Things (2003) and The Snow Prince (2009). After graduating from the Norwich Grammar School for Boys, Mills rejected his father's academic career for the performing arts.

After brief employment as a clerk in a grain merchant's office, he moved to London and enrolled at Zelia Raye's Dancing School. Convinced from the age of six that performing was his destiny, Mills said, "I never considered anything else." After training as a dancer, he started his professional career in the music hall, appearing as a chorus boy at the princely sum of four pounds sterling a week in "The Five O'Clock Revue" at the London Hippodrome, in 1929. The short, wiry song-and-dance man was scouted by Noël Coward and began to appear regularly on the London stage in revues, musicals and legitimate plays throughout the 1930s. He appeared in a score of films before the war, "quota quickies" made under a system regulating the import of American films designed to boost local production. He was a juvenile lead in The Ghost Camera (1933), appeared in the musical Car of Dreams (1935), and then played lead roles in Born for Glory (1935), Nine Days a Queen (1936) and The Green Cockatoo (1937).

His Hollywood debut was in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) with Robert Donat , but he refused the American studios' entreaties to sign a contract and returned to England. Mills relished acting in films, finding it a challenge rather than the necessary economic evil that many English actors at the time, such as Laurence Olivier , felt it was, and it was the cinema that would make him an internationally renowned star. He anchored his film career in military roles, such as those in his early pictures Born for Glory (1935) (a.k.a. "Forever England") and Raoul Walsh 's You're in the Army Now (1937). He appeared in the classic In Which We Serve (1942), where he worked with his mentor Coward and with Coward's co-director David Lean , who would go on to direct Mills in some of his most memorable performances. Throughout his film career Mills played a wide variety of military characters, portraying the quintessential English hero. He later tackled more complex characterizations, such as the emotionally troubled commander in Tunes of Glory (1960). He also played Field Marshal Haig in the satire Oh!

What a Lovely War (1969) that mocked the entire genre. However, it was in his World War II films, which included We Dive at Dawn (1943), Waterloo Road (1945) and Johnny in the Clouds (1945), that Mills established himself as an innovative English film star. With his ordinary appearance and everyman manner, Mills seemed "the boy-next-door," but the Mills hero was decent, loyal and brave, as well as tough and reliable under stress. In his military roles, he managed throughout his career to include enough subtle variations on the Mills heroic type to avoid appearing typed. He could play such straight heroes as Scott of the Antarctic (1948) as well as deconstruct the type in Ice Cold in Alex (1958) and "Tunes of Glory." The latter film features one of his finest film roles, that of the brittle Col. Basil Barrow, the new commander of a Scots battalion. Mills superbly played an emotionally troubled martinet in a role originally slated for Alec Guinness , his Great Expectations (1946) co-star, who decided to take the flashier role of the colonel's tormentor.

It was one of Mills' favorite characters. No male star of English cinema enjoyed such a long and rewarding career as a star while appearing predominantly in English films. As an actor, Mills chose his roles on the basis of the quality of the script rather than its propriety as a "star" turn. Because of this, he played roles that were more akin to character parts, such as shoemaker Willy Mossop in Hobson's Choice (1954). As he aged, his proclivity for well-written roles enabled him to make a seamless transition from a lead to character lead to character actor from the 1950s to the 1960s. Almost 40 years after his film debut, Mills won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for playing the mute village idiot in Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), an uncharacteristic part. In addition to "In Which We Serve" and "Ryan's Daughter," Lean had also directed Mills in memorable performances in This Happy Breed (1944) and "Hobson's Choice". He gave one of his finest turns as Pip in Lean's masterpiece "Great Expectations", in which Mills' performance was central to the success of the picture.

(1932 - 1940) (divorced) Trivia (44) Although his eyesight failed almost completely in 1990, he continued to act, playing both blind and seeing characters. Ranked #88 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997] Grandfather of Crispian Mills , lead singer of Kula Shaker and Melissa Caulfield . Supported the Labour Party during the 2001 General Election campaign. At age 92, he and wife Mary, age 89, renewed their marriage vows at St. Mary's Church, next to their home, Hills House, in Denham, England. When they had wed 60 years earlier, he was denied a church service because he was serving in the Army during World War II. [January 2001] He was voted ninth in the 2001 Orange Film Survey of greatest British actors.

He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1960 Queen's New Year Honours List and became a Knight Bachelor in the 1976 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours for his services to drama. A council member of RADA, he was also a life patron of the Variety Club. When he won the 1971 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, Mills was the only winner present at the ceremony to accept his acting award. The other three winners of Academy Awards for acting that year, George C. Scott , Glenda Jackson , and Helen Hayes , didn't attend the awards. ceremony. Younger brother of Annette Mills . His first wife, Aileen Raymond , survived him by five days and she was the mother of the actor Ian Ogilvy . He was educated at Norwich Grammar School for Boys. Was nominated for Broadway's 1962 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Ross." Hospitalised with a severe chest infection in August 2002. Suffered a bad fall at his Buckinghamshire home, breaking two ribs, and was kept overnight in hospital as a precaution.

(November 2001) More than 400 stars of stage and screen took part in an event organized by the Lord's Taverners charity, of which he was the founding president in 1950, at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, south east London to honor his illustrious career and recent Diamond wedding anniversary. (21 February 2001) He always maintained his favorite movie was Tunes of Glory (1960), in which he co-starred with Alec Guinness . Prior to his death he had planned on attending The 32nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards (2005) where his daughter Juliet Mills was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for playing Tabitha Lennox in Passions (1999). Despite being two of Britain's most distinguished actors of their generation, he appeared in only two films with Alec Guinness : Great Expectations (1946) and Tunes of Glory (1960). Enlisted in the Royal Engineers in 1940 but received a medical discharge after a year and a half due to a duodenal ulcer.

Died seven days after his In Which We Serve (1942), The October Man (1947), This Happy Breed (1944) and Tunes of Glory (1960) co-star, Kay Walsh . Of the Oscar-winning father-daughter couples, he and his daughter Hayley Mills are one of two couples (the other is Jane Fonda / Henry Fonda ) where the daughter won an Academy award before the father did. He was a close friend of the English actor/director Richard Attenborough , who read the eulogy at his funeral. His wife of 64 years, Mary Hayley Bell , suffered from Alzheimer's disease for many years. Due to the advanced stage of her illness, she was unable to attend his funeral on April 27, 2005. He was a close friend of Stephen Fry . He is credited with playing more military roles than any other star. In 31 of his movies, almost a third of his whole cinematic output, he portrayed soldiers, usually officers. He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.

There is 16mm footage of Mills in the 1932 stage show "Words and Music" alongside Doris Hare . The show was written by Noël Coward . In 1967, he appeared in "The Great Escape" themed episode of The Golden Shot (1967), hosted by Bob Monkhouse . Father-in-law of Maxwell Caulfield . He and his first wife Aileen Raymond both died in April 2005, approximately 78 years after they were married. Mills was rejected by the army during World War II because of a duodenal ulcer. According to Mills, the only reason he saw his quota quickie "The Lash" is because it was on a double bill with something that Spencer Tracy was acting in. Mills' first professional appearance was as a chorus boy in a Hippodrome show "The Five O'Clock Revue" with Ernest Truex in 1927. Mills' greatest American stage success was as T. E. Lawrence in "Ross." Mills had met the real Lawrence in 1931 through good friend Noel Coward when he was appearing in "Cavalcade.".

Acording to Mills in the 'Films in Review' career article on him in August 1971, he was offered the Burgess Meredith role in "Of Mice and Men" and the Humphrey Bogart role in "The African Queen.". He was considered for the roles of Dr. Hans Fallada, Dr. Armstrong and Sir Percy Heseltine in Lifeforce (1985). He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and Gandhi (1982). John Gielgud and Trevor Howard also appeared in both films. Laurence Olivier offered Mills the role of one of the murderers in Richard III (1955) but he turned it down, believing that it could be seen as stunt casting. He played the uncle of his real life daughter Juliet Mills in Nanny and the Professor: The Human Fly (1971). In the encyclopedic compendium "OSCAR A to Z" by Charles Matthews, it is falsely stated that Mills died in 1982.

Sir John Mills | Films | Movies | Cinema | Biography of this British actor - Sir John Mills Sir John Mills John Mills was also much admired in ‘Morning Departure’ (1950) as a similarly inspirational leader, this time a submarine captain who has to encourage three of his crew, trapped with him in their stricken craft, to face death calmly. Despite his versatility as an actor, Mills continued to achieve his greatest success in similar roles: as Commander Fraser in ‘Above Us the Waves’ (1955), and as Pat Reid, the head of the escape committee, in ‘The Colditz Story’ (1955). It was however as the captain in 'Ice Cold in Alex' (1958) that pushed by exhaustion into alcoholism, which really brought out the best in Mills. A superb piece of film-making that embodied most of the key characteristics of ‘being British’. There are two lovely scenes, the first being at the sand hill and ensuing tension when Syms and Mills meet at the bottom after the Landover rolls back down. The second I feel is at the bar where Mills drinks the Carlsberg and his character courageously addresses post war attitudes.

In return Qualye’s character admits that the British were not what he had supposed them to be. Both of these statements would both have been very conciliatory at the time. Why ‘Ice Cold’ did not win Oscars…. Typically, then he got the Oscar for a grotesque piece of facial and vocal distortion in the inflated Ryan's Daughter (1970) - supporting actor Oscars have always been drawn to this sort of cosmetic display - when one could nominate a dozen far less showy, more worthy contenders among his roles. Even in perfectly ordinary films like The Vicious Circle (1957), one never stops believing in him. The later decades saw him many in character roles such as Gandhi (1982); Kenneth Branagh then enlisted him for Hamlet (1996) to play the mute role of `Old Norway', for whom Shakespeare had thoughtlessly failed to produce lines. Though partially now deaf and blind, he still evidenced the chipper persona honed below the decks in those films half a century earlier.

The achievement is there in the CV and it has been recognised with a CBE (1960), a Knighthood (1976) and the BAFTA Special Tribute Award (1987). A British film actor par excellence, he was the last of his generation. Gone is Sir Alec, Sir John, Sir Peter and Lord Olivier and now alas is Sir John Mills. Quotes: I've never considered myself to be working for a living; I've enjoyed myself for a living instead. Autobiographies: 1970 Academy Awards® Winners and History M*A*S*H (1970) Actor: GEORGE C.

SCOTT in "Patton" , Melvyn Douglas in "I Never Sang For My Father", James Earl Jones in "The Great White Hope", Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" , Ryan O'Neal in "Love Story" Actress: GLENDA JACKSON in "Women in Love", Jane Alexander in "The Great White Hope", Ali MacGraw in "Love Story" , Sarah Miles in "Ryan's Daughter", Carrie Snodgrass in "Diary of a Mad Housewife" Supporting Actor: JOHN MILLS in "Ryan's Daughter", Richard Castellano in "Lovers and Other Strangers", Chief Dan George in "Little Big Man", Gene Hackman in "I Never Sang For My Father", John Marley in "Love Story" Supporting Actress: HELEN HAYES in "Airport", Karen Black in "Five Easy Pieces" , Lee Grant in "The Landlord", Sally Kellerman in "M*A*S*H", Maureen Stapleton in "Airport" Director: FRANKLIN SCHAFFNER for "Patton" , Robert Altman for "M*A*S*H", Federico Fellini for "Fellini Satyricon", Arthur Hiller for "Love Story" , Ken Russell

 for "Women in Love" The films nominated for Best Picture in 1970 covered a wide range, reflecting the deep divides in society during the Vietnam era with its anti-war protests.

There were two competing Best Picture nominees about wartime: director Franklin P. Schaffner's and 20th Century Fox's commercially-successful Patton (subtitled A Salute to a Rebel - to gain the youth market) - the great, multi-faceted film portrait or film biography of the controversial, complex, yet fascinating, flamboyant and temperamental, non-conformist World War II American commander. It took major honors with ten nominations and seven wins - Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (co-writers Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing. [The big-budget Patton (at about $12 million) was the first war film to win Best Picture since 1962, when Lawrence of Arabia (1962) won the Best Picture award.

It was also the first PG-rated film to win Best Picture since the institution of the MPAA rating system.] the outrageously-irreverent, subversive black comedy and bloody anti-war film satire by director Robert Altman - a pre-cursor to the popular TV series, titled M*A*S*H (with five nominations and one win - Best Screenplay Adaptation by Ring Lardner, Jr.) about a group of medical personnel at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. [Veteran Ring Lardner, Jr.'s win for M*A*S*H, his second Oscar, came 28 years after his first Oscar win for Woman of the Year (1942). Earlier in 1965, Lardner - who had been blacklisted since 1947, was given credit for screenwriting The Cincinnati Kid (1965). His 1970 Oscar was generally regarded as a rectifying 'apology' for the many years that he was blacklisted as one of the original 'Hollywood Ten'.

However, very little of his M*A*S*H script was actually used by Altman.] The other three nominees included: the enormously-successful, manipulative tearjerker, Love Story (with seven nominations and only one win - Best Original Score) about a tragic love affair between a preppie, upper-crust Harvard student and a poor Catholic-Italian student at Radcliffe who succumbs to leukemia the trail-blazing disaster film Airport (with ten nominations - tying Patton ! - and one win - Best Supporting Actress) - an old-fashioned smash, box-office hit with a large all-star cast about a doomed passenger airliner Five Easy Pieces (with four nominations and no wins!) - a dramatic and shattering character study of a talented, but alienated concert pianist who gave up his career for an oil rig job Three of the five Best Picture directors were also nominated for Best Director honors. The award was presented to Franklin Schaffner (with his sole nomination and Best Director win) for Patton . He defeated Arthur Hiller (with his sole nomination) for Love Story , and maverick Robert Altman (with his first of five unsuccessful nominations as director) for his break-through film M*A*S*H.

The additional two directors (whose films were not Best Picture nominees) included controversial Ken Russell (with his sole nomination) for Women in Love, an exploration of two destructive love affairs. And Federico Fellini was nominated for his visionary, grotesquely decadent interpretation of ancient Rome based on Petronius' novel Satyricon in Fellini Satyricon (the film's sole nomination), a film about two young men's adventures through decadence. Actor George C. Scott (with a total of four career nominations), who had previously been nominated twice for Best Supporting Actor (for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and The Hustler (1961) ), finally won his first Best Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance as the eccentric, enigmatic, vain "Blood and Guts" George S. Patton, the victorious, genius, and uncompromising general in strategic campaigns in N. Africa and Europe (Anzio landings in 1943) in the panoramic World War II film, Patton . The film's pre-title sequence begins with his memorable, six-minute address to the troops, while standing in front of a large American flag.

[However, Scott with his sole Oscar win, was AWOL and didn't attend the ceremony. He refused the award claiming that the competitiveness was demeaning to actors - "a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons." Some speculated that Scott, after twice losing the Best Supporting Actor Oscar previously - for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and for The Hustler (1961) - didn't want to be embarrassed and lose again. This made Scott the first actor to deny the Oscar in the history of the Academy.

Brando would follow suit, two years later for The Godfather (1972) .] The defeated co-nominees included: Jack Nicholson (with his second consecutive and unsuccessful nomination) in his equally impressive character study of drifter/exile Robert Eroica Dupea who makes a journey home after twenty years to his ailing father for a reconciliation in Five Easy Pieces Ryan O'Neal (with his sole career nomination) in his star-making role as the preppie Harvard law student Oliver Barrett IV whose girlfriend Jenny (Ali MacGraw) dies in the weepy adaptation of Eric Segal's Love Story James Earl Jones (with his sole nomination) re-creating his Broadway role as boxer Jack Jefferson - the first black heavyweight champion of the world in 1910, based upon real-life Jack Johnson in Martin Ritt's emotional character study and semi-fictional biography The Great White Hope (with two nominations and no wins) Melvyn Douglas (with his second of three career nominations) as Tom Garrison - the aging, selfish and demanding father (of son Gene Hackman) in the powerful, yet depressing film adaptation of Robert Anderson's play, I Never Sang For My Father.

[Douglas had already won a Supporting Actor award for Hud (1963) and would win a second Oscar in 1979.] London stage actress Glenda Jackson won the Best Actress Award (with her first of four nominations and her first of two Oscar wins) as 1920s emancipated, free-thinking, and ill-fated sculptress/artist Gudrun Brangwen in Ken Russell's adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's novel Women In Love (with four nominations and one win - Best Actress) - the sister of teacher Ursula Brangwen (Jennie Linden) who both pursue passionate relationships with macho Oliver Reed and Alan Bates. Her win marked the fourth Best Actress Oscar (in seven years) for an English actress. It also was notable that she became the first actress to win a Best ActressOscar for a role in which she appeared nude. [The other three winners were Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins (1964), Julie Christie in Darling (1965), and Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).

Two wins by American actress Katharine Hepburn and one win by Elizabeth Taylor in the intervening years prevented the sweep.] Another British actress nominated in the Best Actress category was Sarah Miles (with her sole nomination) as Rosy Ryan - the spoiled, lusting, flirtatious woman in David Lean's critically-assailed epic Ryan's Daughter (with four nominations and two wins - Best Supporting Actor and Best Cinematography). The other nominees were: Jane Alexander (with her first of four unsuccessful nominations and in her film debut) as Eleanor Bachman - Jack Jefferson's white lover/wife in The Great White Hope surprise nominee Ali MacGraw (with her sole nomination) as Jenny Cavalleri - the dying, terminally-ill Radcliffe musical student and star-crossed lover in Love Story Carrie Snodgrass (with her sole nomination and in her film debut) as Tina Balser - the 'mad', unfaithful housewife who is married to detestable Richard Benjamin in director Frank Perry's low-budget Diary of a Mad Housewife (the film's sole nomination) John Mills (with his first and sole nomination - and only career Oscar) was a surprise winner in the Best Supporting Actor category.

He won for his role as Michael - the mute, gentle, mis-shaped village idiot in Ryan's Daughter, who is saved from the Irish village's anger by the priest (Trevor Howard). It was Mills' fifth film for director David Lean (he appeared in Lean's In Which We Serve (1943, UK), Great Expectations (1947, UK), This Happy Breed (1947, UK) and Hobson's Choice (1953, UK)). His award was not so much for his performance in Lean's film but a 'career Oscar' for many fine, but un-nominated performances. [His daughter Hayley had received an Honorary Oscar award ten years before.] Mills' win made him the first 'silent' winner in the sound era - and he appropriately accepted his award in silence.

The other Best Supporting Actor nominees were: Richard Castellano (with his sole nomination) who reprised his Broadway role as Frank Vecchio in Cy Howard's comedy about love and marriage Lovers and Other Strangers (with three nominations and one win - Best Song) the favored nominee - Indian Chief Dan George (with his sole nomination) as Dustin Hoffman's wise patriarchal mentor Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man (the film's sole nomination). [Chief Dan George was the first Native-American to receive an Oscar nomination] Gene Hackman (with his second of five career nominations) as forty year-old Gene Garrison (Melvyn Douglas' son) in I Never Sang for My Father (with three nominations and no wins) John Marley (with his sole nomination) as working-class Italian Phil Cavalleri (Ali MacGraw's father) in Love Story And the "First Lady" of the theatre, seventy year-old Helen Hayes (with her second nomination and second Oscar win) received the Best Supporting Actress award as Ada Quonsett - the aged, stowaway passenger onboard a mad bomber-threatened airliner flying in a snowstorm in Airport. Her Oscar has often been interpreted as a sentimental award for her 'last' performance.

[It was a record Oscar win - she was the first performer to win Academy Awards in both the major and minor categories. Her previous win was as Best Actress for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931/2), thirty-eight years earlier. It was the longest stretch between performance Oscars, until being subsequently tied by Jack Palance - between Sudden Fear (1952) and City Slickers (1991), and then surpassed by Henry Fonda - with a 41 year gap between the films The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and On Golden Pond (1981). Coincidentally, Jack Lemmon won a similar victory to Hayes' in 1973 - a Best Actor win for Save the Tiger (1973) after a previous win as Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955).] The other four Best Supporting Actress nominees included two who were denied awards for probably their best career performances ever: Karen Black (with her sole nomination) as waitress Rayette Dipesto (Jack Nicholson's witless girlfriend) in Five Easy Pieces Sally Kellerman (with her sole nomination) as chief nurse Maj.

"Hot Lips" Houlihan in M*A*S*H, the target of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital's pranks while taking a shower in a make-shift tent and making love - over the PA system Lee Grant (with her second of four career nominations) as Mrs. Enders in Hal Ashby's The Landlord (the film's sole nomination) Maureen Stapleton (with her second of four career nominations, all for supporting roles) as frightened Inez Guerrero (the mad bomber's distraught and dim-witted wife) in Airport This was the notable year in which the English pop group the Beatles received their sole Oscar win - Best Original Song Score for Let it Be (1970). However, they were not present at the awards ceremony. In this year, Lillian Gish received an Honorary Oscar "for superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures") - it was her only Academy laurel. (She had received only one nomination during her entire career, a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Duel in the Sun (1946) ).

In addition, enfant terrible film-maker Orson Welles also received an Honorary Oscar "for superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures." His only career nominations were for his debut film, Citizen Kane (1941) - as Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (a co-win with Herman J. Mankiewicz). Many of his films were neglected by 'Oscar', such as Touch of Evil (1958) . Iconic Swedish film-maker Ingmar Bergman received the Irving G. Thalberg award for his long career of making contemplative and oft-times bleak sagas set in his native land. During his career, he made 56 films, of which three won Best Foreign Language Film Oscars (The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), and Fanny and Alexander (1983)).

He and his films received nine other nominations, including three for Best Director (Cries and Whispers (1973), Face to Face (1976) and Fanny and Alexander (1983)), four for Best Original Screenplay (Wild Strawberries (1959), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Autumn Sonata (1978), and Fanny and Alexander (1983)), one for Best Adapted Screenplay (Cries and Whispers (1973)), and one for Best Picture (Cries and Whispers (1973) - only the fourth foreign-language film to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture). Oscar Snubs and Omissions: As in the previous year, two more westerns were ignored in virtually every awards category: Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad of Cable Hogue (with no nominations), and Arthur Penn's Little Big Man (with only one unsuccessful nomination for Best Supporting Actor). This was amazing, in a year when two of the five Best Picture nominees were the weakly inferior Airport and Love Story , both with a large number of nominations in many categories.

Dustin Hoffman's lead performance as Jack Crabb in Little Big Man went unrecognized by the Academy, as did Richard Mulligan's role as arrogant Gen. George A. Custer, and Faye Dunaway as the beautiful, manipulative, and sexually-obsessed reverend's wife Mrs. Louise Pendrake. There was no recognition for Jason Robards as Cable Hogue and Stella Stevens as Hildy in The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Director David Lean's Ryan's Daughter, his first film since Doctor Zhivago (1965) (and his second-to-last film in his career) was not nominated in the Best Picture or Best Director categories. Bob Rafelson, the director of Five Easy Pieces (with no wins!) was also not nominated as Best Director, nor was Susan Anspach nominated in a supporting role as the sister-in-law of self-loathing renegade Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson). Jennie Linden was not nominated for her role as Glenda Jackson's sister and schoolteacher Ursula Brangwen in Women in Love.

Neglected also were the acting performances of Ben Gazzara as Harry in director John Cassavetes' improvised, cinema verite Husbands (with no nominations), Tony Lo Bianco as criminal opportunist Ray Fernandez in the low-budget crime film The Honeymoon Killers (with no nominations), and George Segal as desperate young lawyer Gordon Hocheiser, the victim of a nagging, senile Jewish mother (un-nominated Ruth Gordon as Mrs. Hocheiser) in Carl Reiner's black comedy Where's Poppa? (with no nominations). BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Sir John Mills: A very English actor Sir John Mills: A very English actor By Nick Higham BBC News John Mills was a very English actor, who made his name in a string of patriotic war films. Sir John won his only Oscar in 1971 for Ryan's Daughter He played officers and other ranks with equal aplomb, crossing class barriers with an ease rare for actors of his generation, who were usually typecast as one or the other. In one of his earliest wartime films, In Which We Serve (made in 1942), he played the cocky Able Seaman Shorty Blake.

In one of his finest, Tunes of Glory (made in 1960) he played a neurotic colonel cracking up, as one critic put it, as if from "the strain of too many stiff upper lips". His range was a tribute to his versatility and his skill - but also to that indefinable quality that made audiences want to watch him, and directors to cast him, over and over again. Even before the outbreak of World War II he was an accomplished screen actor with almost 20 films to his credit, not to mention a promising stage career. One of his great regrets was that the war put paid to his prospects as a Shakespearean actor - he never got a chance in later life to play Hamlet or Henry V. Blossoming career He was fortunate that his screen career blossomed at a time when the British film industry was also flourishing - he never had to move to Hollywood, nor particularly wanted to. And he worked with a series of great British wartime directors: Anthony Asquith (We Dive at Dawn and The Way to the Stars), Carol Reed (The Young Mr Pitt), Sidney Gilliat (Waterloo Road) and the documentary maker Paul Rotha.

He made countless performances on both stage and screen Perhaps the most successful partnership was with David Lean. They first worked together on Noel Coward's tale of a destroyer under attack off Crete, In Which We Serve, with Coward himself playing the ship's captain. They went on to make another four films together, including some of Mills' best work. There was Great Expectations in 1946, in which he played Pip, the former orphan who becomes a gentleman of means. There was the comedy Hobson's Choice in 1954, in which he played a cheeky chappy, Willie Mossop - Mills sometimes said it was his favourite role, in which he adopted an impressive Lancashire accent (he was good at accents - in other films he played a convincing cockney, and in one film, The Rocking Horse Winner, a stable-hand who sports the accent of his own native Suffolk).

And in 1970 there was his memorable part as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter, for which Mills won an Academy Award - it was, as he used to observe, a little ironic that after a lifetime learning lines he should win an Oscar for a role in which he didn't speak and scarcely made a sound beyond whimpering. Over the top When required, he could go over the top as an actor - indeed some critics thought he had in Ryan's Daughter, which was generally a rather overblown and overwrought affair. But he could also bring a mild-mannered and understated diffidence to parts like the policeman investigating a murder in Tiger Bay - in which his 13-year-old daughter Hayley Mills made her acting debut. In all he made more than 120 screen appearances. In later years there were lots of character parts and cameos, and inevitably many of the films and television programmes in which he appeared weren't all that good. But his own performances were always impressive and sometimes memorable, even when Mills himself did not appear. One of his most moving roles was as the husband in the animated version of Raymond Briggs's cartoon fable of nuclear war, When the Wind Blows.

John Mills Sir John Mills (1908 - 2005) He's was a part of British cinema for almost seventy years, and if there's one word to describe him it's "dependable". He was never the flashiest of actors, yet he was able to play across class barriers far more than his contemporaries. He was born in Felixstowe. His elder sister Annette (famous in the 50s for Muffin the Mule) got him involved in acting and he became a chorus boy. This lead to juvenile roles in the West End including the original production of Cavalcade. Like many West End actors he slummed in films for a while, and made his first impact in Forever England. From then on there was scarcely a glitch in his career. The war brought several great films; and Mills, with his slight figure and youthful looks, represented every mother's son fighting a decent war. After the success of Great Expectations , he was allowed to play grown up heroes such as Scott of the Antarctic or disillusioned war veterans ( The October Man ). The fifties brought a boom in war films and plenty of work for Mills.

At the end of the fifties he appeared in Tiger Bay in which daughter Hayley made her debut. His other daughter Juliet had made her debut as a baby in In Which We Serve . He started the sixties with a good film, Tunes of Glory, but then made a total stinker The Singer Not the Song . His career gradually declined in the sixties and he frequently appeared as support for Hayley. In 1966 she appeared in the only film he directed, Sky West and Crooked, based on a book by her mother Mary Hayley Bell. He got an Oscar for his supporting role in Ryan's Daughter, but his subsequent films are best forgotten. His TV work was excellent however: he made an interesting Quatermass, and did three series of the sitcom Young at Heart. Towards the end of his life his sight became poor, and his wife suffered from Alzheimer's, though he still made the occasional appearance. Filmography (features only) John Mills - IMDb IMDb Actor | Soundtrack | Producer Sir John Mills, one of the most popular and beloved English actors, was born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills on February 22, 1908, at the Watts Naval Training College in North Elmham, Norfolk, England.

The young Mills grew up in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where his father was a mathematics teacher and his mother was a theater box-office manager. The ... See full bio » Born: a list of 26 people created 20 Aug 2012 a list of 29 people created 23 Oct 2012 a list of 28 images created 20 Apr 2015 a list of 25 people created 11 Oct 2015 a list of 31 people created 16 Oct 2015 Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of John Mills's work have you seen? User Polls Won 1 Oscar. Another 8 wins & 5 nominations.

See more awards » Known For 2001 The Gentleman Thief (TV Movie) Arthur Rosehip 1998 Great Performances (TV Series) Gus the Theatre Cat 1993 Harnessing Peacocks (TV Movie) Bernard Quigley 1993 The Big Freeze (TV Movie) Dapper Man 1992 Perfect Scoundrels (TV Series) Praeger 1989 Ending Up (TV Movie) Bernard 1986 Hold the Dream (TV Movie) Henry Rossiter - Galloping Foxley (1980) ... William Perkins 1979 Quatermass (TV Mini-Series) 1979 The Love Boat (TV Series) Bertram MacDonald 1998 Great Performances (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Cats (1998) ...

(performer: "Gus: The Theatre Cat") 1960 Swiss Family Robinson (performer: "O Christmas Tree" - uncredited) 1956 The Baby and the Battleship (performer: "Way Back in Tennessee", "That Old Tattooed Lady" - uncredited) 1935 Car of Dreams (performer: "Car of Dreams") Hide 2005 The 100 Greatest War Films (TV Movie documentary) Himself (as Sir John Mills) 2004 The Ultimate Film (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2004 Bob Monkhouse: A BAFTA Tribute (TV Special documentary) Himself (as Sir John Mills) 2003 Arena (TV Series documentary) Himself 2003 Living Famously (TV Series documentary) Himself 2002 Forever Ealing (TV Movie documentary) Himself - Interviewee 2002 Breakfast with Frost (TV Series) Himself 1962-2002 This Is Your Life (TV Series documentary) Himself 2002 Heroes of Comedy (TV Series documentary) Himself 2002 Judi Dench: A BAFTA Tribute (TV Movie documentary)

 Himself (Guest in audience) 2002 Hollywood History (TV Series documentary) Himself 2001 Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration (TV Special documentary) Himself (as Sir John Mills) 1999 Best of British (TV Series) Himself - Co-Star Cottage to Let / Co-Star Morning Departure - George Cole (1999) ...

Himself - Co-Star Cottage to Let / Co-Star Morning Departure (as Sir John Mills) 1999 An Audience with Cliff Richard (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1999 Biography (TV Series documentary) Himself 1992-1997 The South Bank Show (TV Series documentary) Himself / Himself - Presenter, Cinema Award 1994 An Audience with Bob Monkhouse (TV Special documentary) Himself - Audience Member (uncredited) 1987-1994 Best of British (TV Series documentary) Narrator 1992 The Late Show (TV Series documentary) Himself 1990 The British Comedy Awards 1990 (TV Special documentary) Himself - Presenter 1987 Aspel & Company (TV Series) Himself 1987 The Best of British Cinema (Video short documentary) Narrator (voice, as Sir John Mills) 1986 Favourite Things (TV Series documentary) Himself - Interviewee 1985 The Golden Gong (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1980 Secombe with Music (TV Series) Himself 1980 The British Greats (TV Series) Himself -

 Interviewee 1979 Late Night Story (TV Series short) Himself - Reader 1979 Peter Couchman Tonight (TV Series) Himself 1978 Filmharmonic '78 (TV Movie) Himself - Introduced by 1977-1978 Stars on Sunday (TV Series) Himself 1976 The Elstree Story (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1971 Cinema (TV Series documentary) Himself 1970 Film Night (TV Series) Himself 1966 Film Preview (TV Series) Himself 1961 Film Profile (TV Series) Himself 1960 This Is Your Life (TV Series documentary) Himself 1960 Here's Hollywood (TV Series) Himself 1956 Film Fanfare (TV Series) Himself 1939 Happy Families (Documentary short) Fred 2013 Talking Pictures (TV Series documentary) Himself 2007 Bean: Scenes Unseen (Video documentary short) Chairman 2005 Tribute to John Mills (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2001 The Sketch Show Story (TV Series documentary) 2000 Legends (TV Series documentary)

 Himself 1997 The Story of Bean (TV Special documentary) Chairman (uncredited) 1979 Clapper Board (TV Series) Various - Escape to Paradise/Water Birds (1960) ...

Father (edited from: Swiss Family Robinson) Related Videos Personal Details Other Works: Stage: Appeared in the Old Vic Theatre Season at the Old Vic Theatre in London, England, with Andrew Cruickshank , Alec Guinness , Anthony Quayle , Edward Chapman , Ursula Jeans , Roger Livesey , Pamela Brown , Hermione Hannen and Nora Nicholson in the cast. Tyrone Guthrie was the director. See more » Publicity Listings: 2 Biographical Movies | 4 Print Biographies | 6 Interviews | 59 Articles | 11 Pictorials | 25 Magazine Cover Photos | See more » Alternate Names: Johnny Mills | Sir John Mills Height: Did You Know? Personal Quote: Ryan's Daughter (1970) is not my best film, but it is the best thing that happened to me, professionally. It brought me the Academy Award, and that meant I could finally be known again as somebody other than Hayley Mills ' father. See more » Trivia: He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and Gandhi (1982). John Gielgud and Trevor Howard also appeared in both films.

See more » Nickname: John Mills Movies: 'Ryan's Daughter' Oscar Winner John Mills Movies: 'Ryan's Daughter' Oscar Winner By Andre Soares John Mills. Unfortunately, nine of the ten John Mills films to be shown on Turner Classic Movies as part of their month-long “ Summer Under the Stars ” series on Sunday, Aug. 22, '10, are reruns. The one exception is I Was Monty's Double, a 1958 John Guillermin-directed World War II drama. (See John Mills movie schedule below.) I Was Monty's Double sounds like a particularly curious effort because it's based on a sensational but true story as told in a book by M.E. Clifton-James, a stock actor/Royal Army Pays Corps junior officer hired to impersonate Gen. Montgomery (that's “Monty”) so as to mislead the Germans about the site of the planned Allied invasion. Even more curious is that in I Was Monty's Double, Clifton-James plays both himself and Montgomery.

For those who don't know… John Guillermin is the same guy who went on to direct The Towering Inferno (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). I Was Monty's Double's “taut” (as per Variety) screenplay was penned by Bryan Forbes , who'd later direct nearly 20 films, including Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), The Whisperers (1967), and The Stepford Wives (1975). Now, I've only seen five of the ten John Mills scheduled to be presented on TCM . Of those, my top pick is David Lean 's Hobson's Choice (1954), which has my favorite Mills performance. Just as good is love interest Brenda DeBanzie, while Charles Laughton is almost up there as DeBanzie's domineering father. Hobson's Choice is David Lean at his best, before he became enmeshed with bloated budgets and just as bloated narratives. Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), is, to put it mildly, bigger than it should have been.

Longer, too – though its second half, when things actually begin to happen, is quite good. In fact, I prefer Ryan's Daughter to the much more admired The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago . I'd say the chief reason for my preference is that the underused Sarah Miles has the title role in Ryan's Daughter. Miles is outstanding as the young Irishwoman who defies social conventions and real-world politics to have an affair with an English officer (Christopher Jones). Robert Mitchum, for his part, is just as good as a placid schoolteacher and the other man in Rosie's life. (In my view, Mitchum was at his best when not playing forceful characters, e.g., The Sundowners.) John Mills plays the village idiot in the film. Some find his acting forced; I think Mills fully deserved his Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I haven't watched The Rocking Horse Winner (1949), but this Anthony Pelissier drama (from a story by D. H. Lawrence) co-starring Valerie Hobson (Mills' leading lady in Great Expectations) and John Howard Davies has a good reputation.

As an aside: At the time Ryan's Daughter was made, Sarah Miles was married to the film's screenwriter, Robert Bolt. They were divorced a few years later, but remarried in the late '80s. They were to remain a married couple until Bolt's death in 1995. Check out this Tribute to John Mills. John Mills in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi Schedule (PT) and synopses from the TCM website: 3:00 AM Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939) A cold-hearted teacher becomes the school favorite when he's thawed by a beautiful young woman. Cast: Robert Donat , Greer Garson , Paul Henreid . Dir.: Sam Wood. Black and white. 114 min. 5:00 AM Hobson's Choice (1954) A widower father fights to control the lives of his three strong-willed daughters. Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda De Banzie. Dir.: David Lean. Black and white. 108 min. 7:00 AM Dunkirk (1958) True story of the Allied evacuation of occupied France at the start of World War II.

Cast: John Mills, Richard Attenborough, Bernard Lee. Dir.: Leslie Norman. Black and white. 135 min. 9:30 AM Way to the Stars, The ( 1945 ) A young flyer deals with the strains of wartime service and survivors' guilt during World War II. Cast: Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John. Dir.: Anthony Asquith . Black and white. 109 min. 11:30 AM Operation Crossbow (1965) Allied agents go behind enemy lines to destroy a German missile base. Cast: George Peppard, Sophia Loren , Trevor Howard . Dir.: Michael Anderson. Color. 116 min. 1:30 PM Gandhi (1982) The legendary Indian leader uses peaceful means to free his homeland from British rule. Cast: Ben Kingsley , Candice Bergen, John Gielgud . Dir.: Richard Attenborough. Color. 191 min. 5:00 PM Swiss Family Robinson (1960) Stranded on a deserted island, a close-knit family creates a tropical paradise. Cast: John Mills, Dorothy McGuire , James MacArthur. Dir.: Ken Annakin . Color.

126 min. 7:15 PM Rocking Horse Winner, The (1949) A young boy's talent for picking winning race horses threatens his life. Cast: Valerie Hobson, John Howard Davies, John Mills. Dir.: Anthony Pelissier. Black and white. 92 min. 9:15 PM I Was Monty's Double (1958) British intelligence hires a man to impersonate General Montgomery during World War II. Cast: John Mills, M.E. Clifton-James, Cecil Parker. Dir.: John Guillerman. Black and white. 101 min. 11:15 PM Ryan's Daughter (1970) An Irish lass is branded a traitor when she falls for a British soldier. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Trevor Howard. Dir.: David Lean. Color. 206 min, TV-MA If you liked the article John Mills Movies: 'Ryan's Daughter' Oscar Winner, please recommend it to your friends. See floating share buttons on the left.

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Obituary: Sir John Mills | Film | The Guardian Movies Sir John Mills Actor and screen star, he made over 100 films and was famed for his roles in Great Expectations, Hobson's Choice and Ice Cold In Alex Sir John Mills came to be known as an elder statesman of the British acting profession. More photos . Photograph: Paul Treacy/PA Monday 25 April 2005 09.42 EDT First published on Monday 25 April 2005 09.42 EDT Close This article is 11 years old Sir John Mills, who has died aged 97, began his acting career in the theatre and returned quite frequently, and with distinction, to the stage in later years. But it was in the cinema that his energies were most often expended, and it is as a dependable British screen personality, over several decades and more than 100 movies, that he will primarily be remembered.

Mills's background might be described as down to earth - he was born in Felixstowe, Suffolk, the son of a mathematics teacher, grew up in Norfolk, and worked briefly as a clerk before breaking into the theatre in 1929 in the chorus of a revue - and a quality of everyday realism seemed to cling to his best performances, without detracting from his stylistic range. The title of his 1981 autobiography, Up In The Clouds, Gentlemen Please, derived from a backstage direction in his revue days. His gift for comedy may not often have been given full rein, but though he appeared in many routine films, his range as an actor went well beyond the military stereotypes with which he was perhaps too readily associated in the popular mind. Possibly his public image, particularly in later years, of trim avuncularity set off by a Garrick Club tie, served to compound this association. Mills made his first film, The Midshipmaid, in 1932, and before the war appeared in juvenile leads and subsidiary parts in numerous pictures, some of them the once notoriously corner-cutting "quota quickies".

During the war, after being invalided out of the army, he made more substantial appearances in a variety of films, many of them service pictures such as In Which We Serve (1942), We Dive At Dawn (1943) and The Way To The Stars (1945). To some extent, these used him as a clean-cut officer-type, though not one devoid of irony or sensitivity. But at the same period, Waterloo Road (1944) showed him robustly at home in a working-class role, echoing his unpatronisingly drawn lower-deck character, ordinary seaman Shorty Blake, in In Which We Serve. And in one wartime picture, Cottage To Let (1941), he even characterised a Nazi fifth columnist, albeit in the guise of a dashing Spitfire pilot. It was just after the war, however, with his Pip in David Lean's film of Great Expectations (1946), that Mills fully came into his own as a screen performer.

The subtlety and variety of his playing in this role were shortly to be seen again in two further literary adaptations, The History Of Mr Polly (1949, after HG Wells) and The Rocking Horse Winner (1950, after DH Lawrence), both of which he produced. Mills later recalled: "I wasn't a very good producer because I was always dying to get on the floor and didn't really like the office work." He suggested that Mr Polly did not succeed popularly at the time because "I was a blue-eyed hero up to then and audiences hated seeing me as a little wizened chap with smarmed hair, being a henpecked husband.

But I wanted to make those two movies and now I'm rather proud of them." His "man on the run" in the thriller The Long Memory (1952) had a quality of grittiness more readily found in the French and American cinemas of the early 1950s than in the British - though he himself chose to describe the characterisation as "the old country's answer to Jimmy Cagney" - while his cameo as the shabby private detective in the 1955 adaptation of Graham Greene's The End Of The Affair carried the authentic whiff of Greeneland. The year before, reunited with Lean for the period comedy Hobson's Choice, he had provided a characterisation which had a representative blend of rumbustiousness and delicacy of detail. "It was the performance I have enjoyed most," he said later. "Willie Mossop was a wonderful part, an unglamorous chap, but he was a hero." Over the next few years, Mills offered incisively scaled down performances in genre films like Town On Trial (1957, as a convincingly chip-on-the-shoulder detective) and Ice Cold In Alex (1958).

He enjoyed making the latter, despite the gruelling desert heat of the location, but said with characteristically self-deprecating humour: "I was so disappointed in my love scene with Sylvia Syms. Up to then I had made love on the screen to virtually nothing but submarines and tanks, and this was my big chance - and then most of it was cut out." In 1960 came a full-blown, but far from self-indulgent, character study of a neurotically repressed army officer in Tunes Of Glory, in which he played opposite his friend of many years, Alec Guinness. "I've been asked a hundred times how I did the quivering eye bit," he said, "but I'm not telling." The performance brought him the best actor prize at the Venice film festival. However, Mills's later claim that he and Guinness had tossed a coin as to which role each should play was one that the film's director, Ronald Neame, was later at pains to deny. In 1961 he appeared on Broadway in Terence Rattigan's play about TE Lawrence, Ross (a role Guinness had played in the West End).

During the 1960s, Mills gravitated, along with many other British actors of his generation, toward international movies - some, unfortunately, of a less than distinguished sort. Often these were costume pictures about historical personages, ranging from Lady Hamilton (1967) - he played the cuckolded Sir William Hamilton - to Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), with Mills as George Canning. Mills never "went Hollywood", but he appeared in occasional American films, among them a role as a US cavalry officer in the western Chuka (1967). He even played in a western series on US television, Dundee And The Culhane, as a British lawyer on the frontier, though it only lasted for one season. A more memorable television venture came later, on home ground, in Quatermass 4 (1979). He also directed one film, Sky West And Crooked (1965), a rural melodrama conceived as a vehicle for his actor daughter Hayley Mills and written by his wife Mary Hayley Bell. The film proved a commercial flop. "You could have fired a shotgun in any Odeon where it was showing and not hit a soul," he philosophically remarked.

Hayley Mills had made her screen debut at age 13 with her father in Tiger Bay (1959). However, her elder sister Juliet first appeared on screen as a three-month-old baby in In Which We Serve. Both daughters progressed to successful acting careers. Perhaps Mills's most worthwhile acting role at this time was in Bryan Forbes's King Rat (1965). In a prison camp setting, Mills again, as in Tunes Of Glory (1960), delineated an outwardly correct figure succumbing to terminal strain. In 1969, his caricature of Haig in Richard Attenborough's film of Oh! What A Lovely War had a florid skill, and the following year he was rewarded with the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role as the village idiot in Lean's Ryan's Daughter, though this performance, with him smothered under grotesque make-up as an Irish village idiot, was not among his most notable. During the 1970s, he made several returns to the West End theatre, appearing opposite Judi Dench in a musical version of The Good Companions, in a revival of Separate Tables, and in Little Lies.

Later, he was content to essay supporting film roles, as with his portrayal of yet another military man, albeit in period garb, in the 1978 remake of The 39 Steps. He was made a CBE in 1960 and knighted in 1976. His last substantial role in the cinema was, somewhat incongruously, with Madonna in the comedy Who's That Girl? (1987), but even in these curious circumstances he showed that he had lost nothing of that practised ease which made him for so long such a durable presence in the British cinema's acting ranks. His sight was increasingly impaired in his last years and he had been almost blind since 1992, but he continued to make occasional television appearances, notably in the serial of Martin Chuzzlewit (1994). Subsequently, he returned to cameo roles in films as diverse as the comedy Bean (1997) and Kenneth Branagh's all-star version of Hamlet (1996). He also travelled the country in a one-man show of reminiscences, full of pawky anecdotage and even the occasional song.

When the interval arrived, he was apt to confide in the audience that he was repairing for "a Mars bar and a Guinness". Nor did he disappear from the public gaze in a more formal context. His 90th birthday was the occasion for several television interviews, and in the summer of 2000 he delivered an address in homage to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on her 100th birthday at a ceremony in Horseguards Parade, despite the fact that he was only eight years her junior. The following year, he "made it up" to his wife for the fact that their wartime wedding had been a somewhat utilitarian affair by "remarrying" her in fine style at the village church close to their Berkshire home. This happy occasion was a suitably theatrical gesture by a man who had come to be seen as an elder statesman of the British acting profession. He appeared earlier this year as A Tramp in a short titled Lights2. He is survived by his wife; their two daughters; and a son, Jonathan Mills, a screenwriter.

· John Lewis Ernest Mills, actor, producer and director, born February 22 1908; died April 23 2005 Ryan's Daughter: the inside story | The Independent Features Ryan's Daughter: the inside story Sir John Mills, who has died at 97, will be remembered for his Oscar-winning portrayal of a mute village idiot. But, reports Helen McCormack, the film changed more than his fortunes Sunday 24 April 2005 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Culture It helped to bring his talent to a worldwide audience and earned him his only Oscar. Perhaps more than any other performance, Sir John Mills will be remembered for his role as a village mute in Ryan's Daughter. It brought his talent to a worldwide audience and earned him his only Oscar. Perhaps more than any other of his performances, Sir John Mills will be remembered for his role as a village mute in Ryan's Daughter. But the film, an epic love story set in Ireland in 1915, against the backdrop of the burgeoning Republican movement and the First World War, did more than bring acclaim to Sir John, who was knighted in 1976.

It transformed utterly the lives of all in Dingle, the south-west of Ireland community in which it was set. In the near two years it took to make, the sleepy community enjoyed previously unimagined wealth. And they were to become accustomed to the antics of Hollywood actors, and to have their eyes opened to sex and drugs. The director, David Lean, kicked it all off more than 35 years ago, arriving in his helicopter, landing on the nearby mountaintop at Dunquin. This was a reconnaissance mission for his new project; a film about the wife of a local teacher who falls hopelessly in love with a British Army major stationed in the village. The project, Lean envisaged, would take three months, and compete in stature with his critically acclaimed Brief Encounter, which also starred Trevor Howard. But the project kept on growing until he, the producers, and a vast cast and crew, many imported from Hollywood, found themselves still there 14 months later, and hugely over-budget.

In the film, Rosy Ryan, played by Sarah Miles, has an affair with an English officer, Randolph Doryan, played by Christopher Jones, to escape the drudgery of her marriage to the dull schoolteacher Charles Shaughnessy, played by the legendary Robert Mitchum. Their affair is innocently revealed to the village by Sir John's mute, Michael. Shaughnessy ignores the scandal, assuming that the affair will pass. But tragedy ensues. Although Sir John won acclaim for his role, the film, released in 1970, was lambasted by critics and signalled a decline for Sarah Miles' career. Lean did not make another feature film for 14 years. Only in recent years has the film won plaudits. But the lives of the people of Dingle were changed forever when Lean's production team arrived in Land-Rovers to lay claim to the land they needed to film. A dozen families accepted the offer of £15 per family per week to rent the land for a few months, and the remaking of Dingle into the fictional Kirrary began.

Niall O'Brien, who played an IRA paramilitary, explained: "In Dingle then, it was all donkeys and carts. There was barely any street lighting. And there you had David Lean arriving in town in his Rolls-Royce Corniche. Robert Bolt and Sarah had their Lamborghini. I was standing in the street staring at it. I'd never seen one before. "They threw money all over the place and everyone wanted a bit of it. On the first day, they went into the local garage and ordered six Land-Rovers and six Zephyrs." While the rest of the crew took up residence in a local hotel, Mitchum took over Milltown House, a guest house overlooking Dingle Bay. From there, he set up a mini-marijuana factory in the greenhouse and entertained a string of women when his wife, Dorothy, was not there, Sarah Miles recalled in an interview with Ireland's Sunday Independent. She said: "Mitch's girls would fly in from all over the place, real rough-looking birds. It was convenient that all the rooms had a number because it was a useful way for him to remember who was who.

He'd often say to me something like, 'Number 11's hot, she flew in last night'". Another actor with a bit part said: "If someone couldn't sleep, instead of giving them barbiturates, he gave them Mogadon." What Londoners knew, but none of the locals did, was that after a few Mogadons and a glass of whiskey, as the actor put it: "You could fly without a plane." Sir John, in contrast, was always immaculately behaved, and was adored by the locals. But he is known to have become frustrated with Mitcham's antics, sparking tensions between them. Meanwhile, as the production ambled on, it was weather, rather than the excesses and trappings of fame, which preoccupied Lean and contributed to a budget £4m over its £9m limit, and dictated an ever-extending timetable. Lean insisted that many of the pivotal scenes as Rosy and the officer played out their love affair on the beach be shot in sunshine, a rarity on the west coast of Ireland in any season.

Heavy rain meant that for much of the time the cast and crew would be huddled up in caravans, and production was eventually moved to South Africa after a long search for a beach that looked similar enough to Dingle Bay. Then, back in Ireland, they were let down by insufficiently bad weather. A storm is the background of the scene in which a shipment of republican weapons are washed up after a shipwreck.Huge seas were required. O'Brien, now 72, said: "They had a cast and crew on standby for a year while they waited for the big seas". His weekly wages had risen from £15 to £100 when he landed his part: he had no complaints when his original contract of 12 weeks extended to 52. During the long waits, cast and crew would take refugee in local pubs. O'Brien said: "They had our names engraved on the stools. There was nothing else to do. I think it was the start of major alcohol problems for a lot of our young talent. Some didn't live for many years after." The scene, incidentally, was eventually pieced together from five separate storms, the last occurring in March 1970.

Unpredictable weather also posed a problem for the filming of the love-making scenes between Rosy and the officer. Shooting was planned in a field of bluebells after the lovers dismount from horses and begin a passionate embrace. Filming was hampered by two unanticipated events: a surprise downpour, and a flat refusal by the little-known American actor playing the officer to engage in a clinch with a stranger. The first difficulty was addressed by hiring the village hall, where the crew literally grew a field, with grass seeds planted under specially created humid conditions and butterflies and birds bought into the hall. The actor's reluctance, which enraged Lean and staggered Miles, required slightly more cunning; cue Mitchum, who saved the day, according to the actress, by buying an aphrodisiac from the local chemist and slipping it into his cornflakes. Mark Kerry, 59, owner of Milltown House, where Mitchum stayed, said last night: "The film transformed everything. It made Dingle world famous, and brought us real wealth. I knew Sir John well. He would often come in to the restaurant where I worked and stop for a pint and a chat.

He was a great actor, and, what's more, and a fine man. We have lost a very great gentleman, and many of us have raised a glass to his memory this weekend." The cast BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Obituary: Sir John Mills Obituary: Sir John Mills Sir John Mills: Gentleman of the English screen For nearly 70 years, Sir John Mills enjoyed a reputation as one of Britain's finest actors. Building on a catalogue of mild-mannered but iron-willed film characters in his youth, he made his name both on stage and television. With appearances in more than 100 films, he conveyed the quiet passion of the noble Englishman, intent on doing the decent thing. Mills was born in Norfolk on February 22 1908, and was brought up in Felixstowe, Suffolk. He headed for London as a teenager and, before long, his first appearance in revue. Determinedly English Soon, an overseas tour of Mr Cinders took him to Singapore, where Noel Coward spotted him. On his return to London, Mills appeared in a couple of "The Master's" musical stage productions.

When Coward was asked to find actors for his naval propaganda film In Which We Serve, Mills was an obvious choice. Martita Hunt and John Mills in Great Expectations He was the dashing military die-hard with the stiff upper lip of other such epics, including We Dive at Dawn, The Colditz Story and the film that made him a star, Brown on Resolution. In each, he typified all that was good, courteous and noble of the wartime spirit. And wide-eyed and brooding, he was the vulnerable Pip of David Lean's Great Expectations, as well as the heroic Scott of the Antarctic. Throughout his career, Mills remained determinedly English and resisted lucrative offers to tie him and his family to Hollywood. Showbusiness family When he married playwright Mary Hayley Bell in 1943, he entered a celebrity marriage of unusual endurance and devotion. The couple renewed their wedding vows as recently as 2001. They were also the creators of an acting dynasty. John Mills won an Oscar for Ryan's daughter Their elder daughter Juliet enjoyed a successful theatrical career before moving to America, and their younger Hayley was a cinematic child prodigy. Father and daughter appeared together in such British classics as Tiger Bay and The Swiss Family Robinson.

Mills went on to develop the character roles of Mossop in David Lean's Hobson's Choice and, for the same director, the Irish village mute Michael in Ryan's Daughter. For his comprehensive performance in the latter, he was awarded an Oscar for best supporting actor. Versatile veteran During his long career, he worked with everybody from Jessie Matthews in Midshipmaid to Madonna in Who's That Girl. Despite his success, Mills resisted offers from Hollywood Mills entertained no snobbery about different forms of entertainment and rejected John Gielgud's assertion that movies were "only to pay the income tax". Television later claimed his attention, too. As well as his own comedy series Young at Heart in the early 1980s, he appeared in Tales of the Unexpected and the adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit. The veteran star even lent his voice to the animated version of Where the Wind Blows, and toured with his one-man show An Evening with John Mills. Enduring appeal To mark his 80th birthday in 1988, the BBC televised a special tribute, as well as a season of his films.

Resisting this swansong, Mills worked on, appearing in Perfect Scoundrels in 1992 and, despite the onset of blindness, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in 1996. Sir John with wife Mary and daughter Hayley Mills received his knighthood in 1976 and saw the publication of his memoirs, Up in the Clouds, Gentlemen Please, four years later. As early as 1947, critic Peter Noble wrote that Mills possessed "the gift of combining all that is best in our national character". More than fifty years later, Sir John's enduring success on stage and screen proved that he never lost it.

Question: Which film brought John Mills his only Oscar?
Answer: RYAN'S DAUGHTER