"BLIMEY! THE WHOLE BLOOMIN' BUNCH HAS BEEN BITTEN BY THE BLOODY BUG!"

(Article by Chrys Haranis, Photoplay magazine, August1962)

Soft-spoken, merry Hayley Mills was flubbing her lines and doing everything wrong. It wasn't at all like the fifteen-year-old charmer, whose flawless performance before the cameras in her first smashing, starring role in TIGER BAY had earned her the accolades of the movie world. Perhaps Hayley had good reason to be nervous. This was the blond-haired, rubber-faced pixie's first day before the Hollywood cameras. She was in a strange land, 6,000 from her native England. Strange people - cameramen, lighting technicians, electricians, grips, even the actors and director - surrounded her.....Hayley's fright was visible to all, but most especially to the man on the sidelines watching her performance - her father, noted British actor John Mills. With great concern he watched Hayley's uncomfortable, awkward moves, her faltering steps, her uncertainty as she went through her paces.

...Then came the lunch break. The director approached Mills and said, "John, Hayley's very nervous. Why don't you try to comfort her? Talk to her and assure her she has nothing to worry about?"... Mills took his daughter to lunch, and they sat at the table without saying a word to each other. Then Hayley finally broke the silence. "I'm not doing very well, am I Dad? Mills glanced pensively at Hayley for a moment. Then he spoke. "Hayley, I've been watching you all morning and I can never remember being so thoroughly bored in my life. You certainly were a crashing bore." Hayley's eyes grew misty as she gazed stunned, wordless, at her dad.

"I want you to do me a favor," Mills went on. "When you go back on the set this afternoon, do please try not to bore me." Tears trickled down Hayley's pretty cheeks. Her father had never spoken to her that way. But coming from him, the admonition meant a lot, for he was eminently qualified to be her critic. Later, she went back before the cameras and was tremendous - positively wonderful.

This episode was recounted to me by John Mills, in his suite at New York's Algonquin Hotel. I'd gone there to get the facts about the sophisticated, multitalented Mills family - a family that is perhaps the most unique in show business. They are piling up achievement upon achievement and seem bent on taking over the show-business world. No, there's no doubt about it - the whole bloomin' bunch of them has been bitten by the acting bug. And they couldn't be happier about it.

The day I visited John, he was resting up between the matinee and evening performances of the smash Broadway play, "Ross." Mrs. Mills, who is writer Mary Hayley Bell, was right alongside her husband. She seemed perfectly relaxed and unhurried - but it was a pose that could fool people who didn't know her. She had just finished writing a new play for her husband (the fourth she'd written for him), and only months before she'd written the film WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND for daughter Hayley.

When Mrs. Mills came to New York she brought along her older daughter, twenty-year-old Juliet. Juliet had since returned to London to open in a play, "A Sad and Sorry Season," and to be with her bridegroom, Russell Alquist.

Jonathan Mills, ten, the youngest of the tribe - and the last to be bitten by the bloody bug - had come along too, for his dad's opening. After a week in New York, he returned to prep school.

And Hayley?

"She's now in finishing school outside Geneva," Mills explained. "Although she's a star in films, her education cannot be neglected. I want her to learn at least one language other than English. She has five years of French behind her, but she is only beginning to do well in it. She studied it in England, but never picked it up the way she should. The school she attends now teaches everything in French - writing, reading, speaking - everything. Hayley loves it absolutely. I'm sorry I never learned another language, and I'm seeing to it that my children do."

"A normal childhood..."

I wanted to find out how Mills felt about the career his two daughters had chosen, since many Hollywood stars refuse to let their children follow in their footsteps. From all indications, Mills' outlook was refreshingly different from most.

"Mary and I," Mills began, "have always been determined to give our youngsters a normal childhood - as normal as possible under the circumstances, since their father and mother are involved in the theater and movie-making. We have not tried to push the children into the business. But neither have we sought to discourage them."

Mrs. Mills, a petite woman with carefully groomed red hair, interrupted to put the family policies on record.

"We have made it a strong point," she said, "to ease the way for our children if they wanted to go into show business. So we gave the children names that would look good on a marquee."

It was obvious that John and Mary Mills were privately hopeful that all their children would follow careers in the theater or films, even if they wouldn't come right out and say so.

Much had been written about the Mills' "togetherness" and I wanted to see what made them so close-knit.

"It's the way we are," Mills said. "If I'm in Australia making a movie, the family follows me there. If Hayley is doing a picture in Hollywood, the rest of the family follows her there. We spend a small fortune on plane fares and travel expenses every year, but there is no dividend so rich as having everyone together."

Mills also said that the family farm in Sussex is probably the strongest factor in keeping everyone together.

"We have a herd of Guernsey cows, which we keep for dairy products, and a herd of Aberdeen Black Angus which we sell for beef. The house is a Thirteenth Century, eleven-room, five-bathroom structure made of clay and wattle. The fireplace in the living room is large enough to seat a half-dozen people - but we haven't put anyone in it - yet!

"It's such an adorable farm that when we leave it for any length of time, we all yearn to get back to it. Although we may be away for a good part of the year, we always return there for Christmas - it's the most wonderful place to be during the Yule season."

The farm, Mills explained, is managed by a "dear old friend of the family - the son of the past owner, a man born on that very farm."

They also grow wheat, barley and oats - and sell them too.

Besides the farm, they have a cottage in the heart of London's West Side, the theater district.

"We are in love with this place, too," chimed Mrs. Mills. "It is in a delightful mews, but it has the added advantage of being near Juliet's cottage. Although she is married, we can still see her as often as we wish - when we are home."

That last part was indicative of the emphasis that the family places on its strong theme of "togetherness." Yet as much as they want - and try - to be together, they don't always succeed. The time I was with them in New York probably pointed up best of all how the family does get split up. Of course, the children had to be where they were - especially Jonathan, who had been having some difficulties with his studies.

"A bit of trouble..."

"We want him to go to Eton," Mills said, "but there's been a bit of trouble. Jonathan is a fantastic athlete, very good at cricket and riding, and a marvelous swimmer. But he has been neglecting his studies. I am afraid he shall need special tutoring this summer to make the grade."

"How about Hayley?" I asked. "Is she having trouble with her studies? After all she is a child and she is stretching herself thin between an active movie career and an education. Can she do so much?"

John Mills smiled. "Hayley is now making one film a year by strict schedule. We will not allow her to exceed that budget until she is well out of school and grown into adulthood. Otherwise, she'll be involved in long, tedious arguments about contracts, percentages, agents' fees and the other headaches that are synonymous with the film industry."

I wanted to know what word of advice Mills had given his daughters when they decided they wanted an acting career.

"There was very little advice I could give Juliet," he chuckled. "You see, she was just eleven weeks old when she made her first stage appearance in one of my plays. Appropriately, I played her father in that one. Then all throughout her childhood, Juliet had small bit parts in my movies and plays.

"But, of course, when she was old enough to understand, I gave her the fatherly advice that I felt was owed to her. In fact, I made the same speech to both Juliet and Hayley, at the appropriate time in both their careers. What I did was to put all the arguments against acting as a life's work that I could think of - and that Mary could think of - before them.

"I remember saying, 'The sort of world you'll have to cope with in this business is a jungle. But if you want to go into the jungle and get your face cut up, your heart torn out - that's up to you.'

"They both said that was what they wanted."

Despite her universal acclaim Hayley still has her feet on the ground.

Quite a girl!

`"She is absolutely unspoiled," said her mother. "She has a wonderful character and personality, and she is very friendly."

"Hayley," Mills added, "has none of the standard adolescent problems. In fact, I am afraid she is still a bit naive. When were were in Hollywood, someone asked Hayley if she had a 'steady.' The meaning of the word was strange to Hayley in the framework of the question, so her reply was, 'No, I only do one film a year.' To our knowledge, she has not dated boys, although she is friendly with boys her age whom she knows in the theatrical world."

The profound parental praise John and Mary Mills have for Hayley is heaped in equal measure upon their daughter Juliet.

"Juliet more than Hayley," says Mills, "is a dedicated actress. But given time, Hayley should achieve that plateau."

Juliet made the Mills American stage debut with "Five Finger Exercise," in 1960. Papa was next with "Ross" in 1961.

Papa was scared

"It had been seven years since I'd been on the stage," he said, "and I was terribly scared - not of the critics or the audience, but of myself. I didn't know if I could project. After all, seven years is a long time to be away from the stage."

But Mills projected like the master that he is and New York's dramatic critics hailed his performance.

He would have beaten daughter Juliet to the New York stage by twenty-three years if it had not been for World War II. Just before the war, he was playing in the London production of "Of Mice and Men." He performed so superbly, he was invited to play the lead in Maxwell Anderson's "Key Largo" on Broadway. Because of the war, Mills couldn't accept and Paul Muni got the role.

Two years later, on January 16, 1941, John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell were married.

"We had met in China," Mills explained, "when I was on tour with the company of 'Journey's End' back in the early 1930's. It was at a tennis party. I never forgot her. Ten years later I met her again in London and we fell in love."

After they were married, Mary wrote two hits for her husband, "Men in Shadow" and "Duet for Two Hands." Both had long runs on the London stage. In 1954, she wrote another play for John, "The Uninvited Guest," which was his last legitimate bit until "Ross." Mrs. Mills' latest play, which she has not yet given a title, may be produced some time this summer.

"I always like to appear in Mary's plays," Mills said with sincerity. "They're very good."

Although Mrs. Mills has written plays and films now for both her husband and Hayley, she has yet to provide a script for Juliet. But that will come.

It was Hayley's movie debut in TIGER BAY, when she was only ten, that led directly to her role in POLLYANNA. I asked her father, who also was starred in TIGER BAY, what he thought of Hayley's first efforts.

He shook his head in pretended dismay. "She stole the show," he said in a voice that proved he was delighted about it. "It was the best thing she's ever been in. After the second day of shooting, I knew Hayley was going to steal it - and she did."

Since then, she's been a regular trouper. When she was offered POLLYANNA, Mills was concerned about whether it wasn't too soon to introduce Hayley to the frenetic world of Hollywood.

Hayley should decide

"Mary and I paced the floor nights wondering whether we should let her do it," Mills said. "Finally, we decided the person who should really decide was Hayley herself. At breakfast one morning, I asked her if she wanted to go to Hollywood.

"Her reply was, 'Natch, Daddy.'"

I brought up Jonathan. Has he been bitten by the bloody bug? Would he make the Millses a five-star family?

"I suspect he has," Mills said. "When he was on his vacation recently, he came to the States and saw me in 'Ross' every night. At the end of the week, he knew every part of the play by heart. He would storm around the hotel quoting great portions of the play. I think his day in show business isn't far off."

Although Hayley's and Juliet's lives have been filled with much of the excitement and frenzy of show business, their private lives always have remained private and out of the range of intruding newsmen and photographers.

"We never give out the names or addresses of our children's schools," Mills told me. "We know the moment we did, their lives would cease to be their own - their privacy would evaporate.

"We even try to keep our home life as private as possible. We don't make it known to everyone where our cottage is in London, or where the farm is located in Sussex. If we did, we might be overrun with curiosity seekers who would descend on the place to rip down nameplates, fenceposts and even pieces of the buildings as souvenirs. I could be very annoying, you know."

I wondered how Hayley spent her time when she's at home.

"Hayley writes, plays records and watches television," Mrs. Mills related. "She is madly in love with Elvis Presley and probably isn't aware that any other singer exists."

The down-to-earth naturalness of all the Mills children is indeed a tribute to their parents. In the world today, it is no easy feat to raise children, but John and Mary Mills have managed to do it beautifully - even in the spotlight of fame. It would be hard to find another family anywhere so well suited to the title: "First Family of Show Business!"

- Chrys Haranis

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