Click on a name below to take you to that page
Hayley Mills
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivian Mary Mills was born in London in 1946. She is the daughter of the actor Sir John Mills and the playwright Mary Hayley Bell. Hayley has an older sister, the actress Juliet Mills (b.1941) and a younger brother, Jonathan Mills (b.1949). Her Godfather
Juliet & Hayley Mills with their parents
Annette Mills & Muffin the Mule
Godfather was the playwright, actor and singer Sir Noel Coward, her Godmother was the Oscar-winning actress Vivien Leigh and her aunt was Annette Mills, whofo
who found TV fame in the 1950s with Muffin the Mule.
Sir John Mills
In Search of Castaways
Hayley Mills & Richard Egan in Pollyanna
Hayley Mills as Ellie in Endless Night
After 12 films in which she played children or teenagers, Hayley Mills was persuaded by her father and director Roy Boulting to play an adult role in the film The Family Way (1966). Jenny Fitton (Hayley Mills) and Arthur Fitton (Hywel Bennett) are newlyweds, forced by financial necessity to live with their parents, and unable to find the privacy to consummate theirmarriage
June Harding & Hayley Mills in
With Oliver Reed in Take a Girl Like You
As Nikky Ferris in The Moon-Spinners
As Nancy Carey in Summer Magic
The mystery drama The Chalk Garden (1964), also produced by Universal Pictures, was adapted from the Broadway
Hayley was brought up surrounded by famous people from the world of films and the theatre and, like her sister Juliet, had aspirations to become a ballet dancer. She went to boarding
boarding school when she was nine, and although she studied ballet there, she considered herself too clumsy, and much preferred being involved in the theatre productions.
J Lee Thompson
Hayley Mills
When Hayley was 12, the British director J. Lee Thompson one day visited her father. Thompson had just cast him as a detective inthe
in the film Tiger Bay (1959), and was looking for a boy for the lead
lead role, when he 'spotted' Hayley acting out TV commercials in the garden. Hayley recalls, "He (Thompson) just suddenly got the idea that maybe it didn't have to be a boy, maybe it could be me!"
Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay
Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay
Hayley Mills & Megs Jenkins in Tiger Bay
Hayley & John Mills in Tiger Bay
Hayley played Gillie in the film,
film, and won a BAFTA Award for the 'Most Promising Newcomer to Film'. Further good fortune came Hayley's way when Walt Disney's wife, Lillian, saw Tiger Bay in London. She was thrilled by Hayley's performance that she got Disney to fly over
over to audition her for his new film based on Eleanor Porter's novel..
Hayley Mills as Pollyanna
novel Pollyanna. Disney met Hayley and her parents at the Dorchester hotel, and she was given the role of Pollyanna there and then! Whisked off to Hollywood, Hayley starred alongside Jane Wyman, Richard Egan,
Egan, Karl Malden and 11 year old Kevin Corcoran. Hayley's performance in Pollyanna (1960) wonheraminiature
With Walt Disney & Kevin Corcoran
With this young sensation on his hands, Disney then cast Hayley in the two roles of the identical twins separated at birth, Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick, in The Parent Trap (1961).
The Parent Trap
Hayley Mills playing both Sharon and Susan in
(1961). The film was another big hit for Hayley who wasno
was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
She made four more very successful films for Disney over the following four years - playing Mary Grant in the adventure In Search
Maurice Chevalier & Hayley Mills in
Search of the Castaways (1962) with Maurice Chevalier and George Sanders; Nancy Carey
Hayley Mills in That Darn Cat
Carey in the comedy Summer Magic (1963); Nikky Ferris in the mystery The Moon-Spinners (1964) with Eli Wallach and Patti Randall in the comedy thriller That Darn Cat! (1965).
During her six-years at Disney Studios, Hayley Mills was arguably the most popular child actress of the era. Her song Let's Get Together from The Parent Trap reached No.8 in the American
American singles chart and led to the release of her album Let's Get Together with Hayley Mills on Disney's
During her time at Disney, Hayley Mills
Disney's own Buena Vista record label.
Alan Barnes
Hayley Mills
Diane Holgate
in Whistle Down the Wind
Hayley Mills
Mills made several other notable films. The Beaver Films production of Whistle Down the Wind (1961) in which she plays Kathy Bostock, is based on a book of the same title written by her mother, Mary Hayley Bell. Kathy, her brother Charles and her sister Nan discover a wanted man (played by Alan Bates) hiding out in their father's barn. They are convinced that he is Jesus Christ and try to hide him from their father and aunt, before the police eventually catch up with him!
Hayley & Alan Bates in Whistle Down the Wind
John & Hayley Mills in The Truth About Spring
In Universal Pictures production of The Truth About Spring (1965) John Mills plays a sailor Tommy Tyler, with Hayley Mills cast as his daughter, Spring, as they go in search of buried treasure.
Hayley Mills as Spring Tyler
Deborah Kerr & Hayley Mills in
The Chalk Garden
Broadway play of the same name, which ran for 182 performances. The film, which was shot mostly in Brighton, had a cast that included Deborah Kerr, Edith Evans and Hayley's father John Mills.
Hayley Mills' contract with Walt Disney expired in 1965, after which she teamed up with Rosalind Russell for the comedy The Trouble with Angels (1966) in which two high-spirited teenage girls wreak havoc in a convent school.
The Trouble With Angels
In complete contrast to her'
school.
her 'girl next door' roles of her Disney years, Hayley appeared as a mentally retarded teenager Brydie White in Sky West and Crooked (1966), written by her mother Mary Hayley Bell and directed by her father
father John Mills. Sadly, this film remains largely forgotten.
Sky West and Crooked
Hayley Mills & Ian McShane in
As Brydie White in Sky West and Crooked
Marjorie Rhodes, Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett & Avril Angers in The family Way
their marriage! The film was shot mostly in Bolton, and has John Mills in one of his finest roles. The supporting cast included host of well-known character actors like Marjorie Rhodes,Liz
Rhodes, Liz Fraser, Avril Angers, John Comer and Wilfred Pickles. The film's original music was written by Beatle Paul McCartney.
The Family Way was also an important turning point in Hayley's life, as she married the film's director Ray Boulting (33 years older than her) in 1971. They separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977. They had one child, Crispian Mills (b.1973), who became famous in the 1990s as the lead singer and guitarist for the rock group Kula Shaker.
Hayley Mills, RoyBoulting and son Crispian
Hayley Mills teamed up again with Hywel Bennett for the horror thriller Twisted Nerve (1968) and the Agatha Christie mystery Endless Night (1972) and co-starred with Oliver Reed in the romantic comedy Take a Girl Like You (1970). However, after two 1976 films directed by Sidney
Hayley with Hywel Bennett in Twisted Nerve
Sidney Hayers - What Changed Charley Farthing? and Deadly Strangers - Hayley Mills turned her back on the big screen to concentrate on stage work.
Hayley Mills made her stage debut in the title role of Peter Pan at the New Victoria Theatre in London in 1969 andhas
and has starred in many shows and plays since. Notable productions include Rebecca in Guildford
Guildford (1977); The Importance of Being Earnest in Chichester (1979); Dial M for Murder at the West End's Vaudeville Theatre (1983-84) and Dead Guilty at the Apollo Theatre (1995-96).
Hayley Mills
in Dead Guilty
In 1991, Hayley toured Australia
Australia with a British production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical The King and I, in which she starred as Miss Anna Leonowens. The following year she toured Australia, New Zealand and the UK with her sister Juliet, in a production of Noel Coward's Fallen Angels (1992). From April 1997 Hayley again starred as Anna
Hayley Mills as Anna Leonowens in
Anna in the year-long US touring production of The King and I. She made her off-Broadway debut in 2000 in Noel Coward's two one-act plays Suite in Two Keys. The reviews however were not good and the show was quickly cancelled.
The King and I
In 2001, Hayley played the lead in sold-out performances of Sister Mozart at the Museum Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut. Her character, Nannerl, was the older sister of the composer.
Juliet Mills, Julie Godfrey & Hayley Mills in
costume for Noel Coward's play Fallen Angels
Hayley Mills & Paul Hecht in Humble Boy
In 2012, Hayley Mills toured the UK with the play Ladies in Lavender an obscure short story later turned into a 2004 film by actor Charles Dance. The tour began at Northampton, and went on to theatres in Guildford, Oxford, Malvern, Bath, Richmond, Nottingham and Truro. Hayley starred alongside Belinda Lang as one of two spinsters who find a half-drowned young Polish violinist washed up on the beach near their Cornwall home, and tthen proceed to squabble over him like a pair of teenagers
teenagers! I saw this gentle, funny and poignant play when it came to Nottingham's Theatre Royal in June 2012. Ladies in Lavender was Hayley's first stage play since 2003, when she appeared in the National Theatre production of Humble Boy on its UK tour.
Belinda Lang & Hayley Mills in
Ladies in Lavender
Since the mid-1980s, Hayley has made appearances in a small number of TV productions, notably as Miss Carrie Bliss in 14 episodes of the American
Robert Rees, Hayley Mills & Carol McCready in
Ladies in Lavender
American comedy Good Morning, Miss Bliss (1987-89) and as Caroline Du Plessis in 40 episodes of the South African
wildlife drama series Wild at Heart (2007-12). She has also appeared in three made-for-TV Parent Trap sequels - The Parent Trap II (1986), The Parent Trap III (1989) and Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989).
Hayley has signed my programme for
Ladies in Lavender
Hayley Mills as Caroline Du Plessis in Wild at Heart
Since her divorce from Roy Boulting in 1977, Hayley Mills had her second son, Jason (b.1977), from her relationship
relationship with British actor Leigh Lawson, which ended in 1984. In the mid-1990s, Hayley ended
ended a longtime relationship with the rock musician Marcus Maclaine, who is also her brother-in-law (his brother, Maxwell Caulfield, is her sister Juliet's husband). Her current partner is the American actor Fridous Bamji,
Bamji, whom she met during the tour of The King and I. They
Hayley with her sons Jason & Crispian
Juliet & Hayley Mills
Hayley has signed this photograph to me
Hayley Mills was a child filmstar for Walt Disney, many years before I was born. She is now a superb stage actress, and I was able to see her at her best in the play Ladies in Lavender which came to the Theatre Royal in Nottingham in June 2012.
I met her afterwards, and she was quite delightful! She signed my programme and two 10x8 photographs, and then dad took this photo of us together.
They live in New York. For many years, Hayley has been a vegetarian. She enjoys scuba diving, and has been a lifelong admirer of Elvis Presley!
(1960) won her a miniature Academy Award (specially designed for her American introduction) and she became famous
famous overnight!
