Excerpt from Chapter 20, "Juliet and Hayley Up In Lights", from

Up In the Clouds, Gentlemen Please, the autobiography of actor John Mills,

1st published with George Weidenfeld and Nicholson, Ltd., Great Britain 1980

Ticknor and Fields, 1981.

In 1956 I made what I thought was one of my cleverest moves which, several years later, proved to be not only not clever but totally stupid. I sold the Wick. It seemed at the time ridiculous to own a farm of 500 acres as well as a house with a large garden which needed a full-time gardener. Mary was not keen on the idea, but I pressed ahead with the plans. I then added a large, beautiful drawing-room to the farmhouse and bought a small but attractive Regency house in St Leonard's Terrace to live in and work from during the week when I was filming at the studios.

September brought me a chance to work with that great director Willie Wyler. We flew on the Monarch night flight to New York and the next day started rehearsals for The Letter by Somerset Maugham. Willie, having conquered the medium of film, had decided to try something new - live television. I'd been so anxious to work with the great man that although I was scared to death at the prospect, after an hour's conversation on the transatlantic telephone, I had allowed myself to be talked into it. 'Hell,' Willie had said, 'we've got to try everything once. Come on in with me.' And here I was 'in it.'

The first set-back happened a few days before we started rehearsal. Paul Scofield, who was cast to play the other leading part, had to back out. The film he was making was running over schedule, and Willie, in trouble, engaged Michael Rennie, who had never tackled anything quite as difficult in his life. The leading lady was that lovely Irish actress, Siobhan McKenna, who was so keen to be directed by Willie that she agreed to take on the long and difficult part in spite of the fact that she was giving eight performances a week of St Joan on Broadway.

Rehearsals were as far as I was concerned a nightmare. Willie had blinkers on: he could only see Michael Rennie, who had his entire attention. Siobhan and I were left to work out our own salvation. My nerves by this time were in such a state that I was certain I was being ignored because my performance was beyond salvation. Mary had a bad time with me. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and for the first time in my life the lines refused to stay in my head. On the last day before we moved from the rehearsal rooms to the NBC studios, I said to Willie: 'Well, I'm sorry. You've made a mistake, haven't you? I'm ghastly in the part, and there's nothing you can do about it. I just don't think I'll get through the show, that's all.'

He looked at me. 'What the hell are you talking about? You're terrific. So's Siobhan. I didn't have to bother with you two. You didn't need me. Michael's the one that needed help.' I was, however, too far gone by this time to believe him.

NBC had suggested to Willie that as he had never directed a live television play before he should have an experienced young TV director to help him block the show (i.e., arrange the camera positions and movement from the control room). At the first technical rehearsal all went fairly smoothly until Willie, who was up in the control box and suddenly confronted with his actors on the monitor screens, began to alter some positions. Our young director pointed out deferentially that they had to be locked in with what they had; there simply wasn't time to make any major alterations. Willie, however, insisted, and several camera angles and positions were changed.

A few hours later, Mary found me in my dressing-room in a complete state of panic, gabbling lines from the script that I knew but that refused to come out on cue. What had really finished me was the moment when the stage manager had come on to the floor at the end of rehearsal and said, 'Well everybody, don't forget there'll be forty million people watching you tonight; but don't worry, you're all great. Good luck.'

'Darling, I'm not going to make it. I can't remember the bloody lines. What am I going to do?'

'I know exactly what you're going to do. I have talked to the ASM. You're coming with me.'

A few minutes later we were in a doctor's consulting room. 'Mr John Mills? Yes, I know all about it.' The doctor then filled an enormous syringe with a pale liquid and injected it into my arm. 'Now Mrs Mills, take him back to his dressing-room, give him these two pills, put a blanket over him, put out the light and don't let anyone disturb him until fifteen minutes before he goes on.'

What the injection was, or what the pills contained, I have no idea. What I do know, however, is that when Mary woke me, my brain was clear and my nerves were under control. It was just as well. If they hadn't been the events of the next two hours would have undoubtedly been the cause of a severe nervous breakdown.

The countdown started. We were on the air. In the first scene of the play Siobhan, during a violent row on the verandah, picks up a revolver and shoots a man dead. I was standing off-stage waiting for my entrance, feeling calm, cool, collected and obviously as high as a kite on the doctor's wonder-drug. I saw her aim the revolver and pull the trigger. There was a faint click; the blank cartridge was a dud. Siobhan looked at the revolver then back at the man, 'You swine,' she said, and pulled the trigger once more. Another faint click. In desperation, but with the adaptability of a true professional, Siobhan reached for a large paper-knife that happened to be within reach.

'You swine,' she shouted, approached her victim, and raised the knife to stab him. At that split second the property man fired a shot off-stage. The actor playing with her, who throughout this unrehearsed piece of drama had been staring at Siobhan with a strange 'I can't believe it's happening' look on his face, came to slowly, and after the count of three, gasped, clutched his heart, and collapsed in a heap on the stage. Not one of those forty million viewers would, I was sure, be switching over to another channel. They had to be hooked.

After this hilarious opening things proceeded smoothly, but were comparatively dull until my big scene with Michael Rennie which took place in a replica of the Conservative Club. I was blackmailing him. the tense moment arrived when he looked me in the eye and said, 'How much do you want?'

'Sixty-four thousand dollars. That's what I want.'

At that moment two cameras, whose positions had been changed at the last minute, collided with a crash a few feet from us and a large painting of King George V behind us on the wall fell with a thud to the floor. The Letter was my first and last live play on TV.

Amazing though it seemed to me, the evening was a big success for Willie and for everybody concerned with the production. I was stopped every few minutes the next morning on Fifth Avenue. The public had loved it, and to my astonishment nobody mentioned the gun or King George V.

We sailed on the Queen Mary for England two days later, and had a farewell party aboard with Willie, the cast, and Douglas and Mary Lee Fairbanks. My diary entry states, '17 October 1956: sailed on the Queen, 11.30 p.m. Survived it all. Decided after much thought to stay in the profession.'

*

In 1957 I made four more films - DUNKIRK, again with Dickie Attenborough, and that excellent actor, Bernard Lee; and ICE COLD IN ALEX which was directed by J. Lee Thompson, who was, although I didn't know it at the time, to have a great influence on all our lives. In the cast there were two actors I greatly admired and had never worked with - Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews. We spent six weeks in the desert together, outside Tripoli, and have remained firm friends ever since. The leading lady in the film was a young and talented actress, Sylvia Sims.

I had never in the past, in films at any rate, had the chance to play a full-blooded love scene. I made up for this omission in ICE COLD IN ALEX. Sylvia and I rolled around in the sands of the desert in the moonlight with no holds barred. Lee Thompson was very happy with the scene and I personally enjoyed every minute of it. I found it a refreshing change from 'Up periscope'. Nine months after we had finished this purple, passionate passage, among the notices, which I'm glad to say were excellent, appeared a piece in the Daily Express by Tom Lambert, with a large picture of myself and Sylvia in a tight clinch in the moonlight. The heading was, 'Yes, this is John Mills, and his hottest scene yet hits censor trouble':

"John Mills, usually the most unswervingly upright of British screen heroes, has come up against censor trouble. His love scenes with Sylvia Sims in ICE COLD IN ALEX are said to be too scorching. Mills is unrepentant; says he, 'It's a sheer relief to play a real love scene with a girl for a change, after so many years of giving them polite pecks on the cheeks between battles.' But he is riled at the censorship: 'Love scenes in British films are often condemned as cold,' he says. 'But often it's because the actors are not given the chance to warm up. The Censor's scissors get clipping too quickly.' Why? 'Because he thinks that love scenes are all right so long as they are imported. Look at what the Americans get away with. Some of their current epics are just two hour smooching sessions with dialogue. As soon as a British actor takes a girl in his arms the scene has to fade out.'"

When I saw the film the scene had totally disappeared. Lee fought for it but it ended up at the Censor's request on the cutting room floor. Of course it was very daring. Sylvia had two, not one, of the buttons of her khaki blouse undone! This explicit sex-scene took place only twenty-two years ago. How times have changed.

ICE COLD did one marvellous thing for me - it destroyed for ever that ridiculous stiff upper lip image I had been stuck with. Captain Anson was a man driven by nervous exhaustion to drink. During the trip across the desert he and the other characters discuss the ice-cold lager they will drink if they ever reach Alex. We shot the famous scene at the bar in the studio on our return to Elstree. The property master mixed everything he could think of to look like lager. Nothing worked. Lee decided I would have to drink the real thing. At 8.30 one morning on the set I took a deep breath and downed, without pausing, a pint of continental lager. Six takes and six pints later I was completely plastered; shooting was postponed until after lunch to give the gallant captain time to sober up. I still reckon that to be the happiest and most enjoyable morning I have ever spent in any film studio.

In the same column in the Daily Express there was another heading, 'Problem for Miss Mills':

"Meanwhile, John's sixteen-year-old daughter Juliet has been facing an awkward dilemma. She had just won a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, hard to get these days if you're a girl. Then 'just for fun' she went to an audition called by Sir John Gielgud in search of a very young girl for the new play Five Finger Exercise by Peter Schaffer. Embarrassing result. She got the part."

Her problem was, should she accept, or should she learn some more about acting? She plumped for the part. Mary and I went to the first night; Juliet had made the right decision. We were highly nervous, but a few minutes after her first entrance we relaxed. She gave a brilliant, completely professional performance, and seemed thoroughly at home on the stage. We both felt very proud. The first filly out of the stable looked remarkably like a winner.

In August 1958 during a lunch party at Sussex House Farm something happened that was to change our way of life completely. Lee Thompson had sent me a script called TIGER BAY; I liked it, and the part. Lee had come down to the farm to discuss it. Shooting was scheduled to start in six weeks' time. There was a part in the film for a small boy of twelve, and I could see straight away that if Lee managed to get the right little boy he could easily walk away with the picture. This didn't worry me. The script was the thing, and I was more than anxious after ICE COLD to work with Lee again, whom I thought brilliant.

Our friend seemed slightly distrait during lunch. He didn't really talk about the film. Most of his conversation seemed to be with Hayley, who was only too happy to regale him with the latest news of her pony, her white mice and the three new calves she had seen born that morning. After lunch Lee suggested a walk around the farm. There was something important he said he wanted to discuss. 'Listen, this may seem quite mad to you, but I've got a terrific hunch. I want to make a switch and change the little boy into a little girl. I know it's right. The whole story will be much more touching and moving in every way.'

'Well, I can see that's possible,' I said, 'but isn't it a bit late for a major change? It's a difficult part. A star part, really. The picture will stand or fall on that character, and it could take you weeks to find the right girl.'

'It won't, you know,' said Lee, 'I've already found her.' He stopped and looked at me. 'It's Hayley.'

I stared at him. 'Hayley? but listen, Lee, she's never been in front of a camera in her life. She might be ghastly. And then how do you think I should feel?'

'Johnnie, I told you I've got a terrific hunch. I think she'll be sensational. She's got the most divine personality. Anyway, I want her. Will you let her at least make a test?'

The moment of truth had arrived. Mary and I had long ago decided that we would never persuade any of the kids to join our frantic profession. In fact we were determined to put them off by pointing out what a rough, tough, heart-breaking job it can very often be. But if they insisted, if it was the only thing in the world they wanted to do, then we would give them our blessing, cross our fingers and hope for the best.

My daughter was exercising her pony in the long meadow. She was lovely to watch on a horse - she had good hands like her mother, and rarely bothered about stirrups or a saddle. I waved. She galloped over to us. 'Get off, darling. Lee has something to ask you.'

'Hayley,' said Lee. 'Have you ever done any acting?'

'Oh, nothing very much. Just a few lines in school plays at Elmhurst. Why?'

'Well, I was just wondering, would you like to act with your father in the next film I'm making?'

'Oh Lee, I'd absolutely love to. When?' She paused. A thought struck her. 'Will it be during term-time?'

'Now listen, Hayl,' I said, 'this is serious. It's a big part. It's about the best part in the film. You must think seriously about it. You're only twelve, and I can't let you do this unless you really, honestly want to.'

'I see, Daddy. Well, I'll think about it seriously.'

Lee broke in: 'Well, Hayley, it is important. When can you let me know?'

'Now,' said my daughter. 'I've thought about it seriously, and I want to do it. Lee, will you please excuse me, I've got to rub her down, she's sweating. See you at tea-time.'

That was typical of Hayley. We'd always found it difficult to get her to take anything seriously or to concentrate on anything for long. She lived in a very happy world of her own and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. Juliet had always been the dedicated one. She finished up at Elmhurst as head girl, and landed the first job she went after. She made things happen. Hayley, on the other hand, always seemed to sit back and let things happen to her.

After a long discussion with Mary we decided that we would at least give Lee the chance to make the tests. We would then take it from there. I rang him and told him of our decision. 'That's great, Johnnie, but I don't want to test her. I don't want to make it look important.'

'But Lee,' I protested, 'you're taking an awful chance. Don't you even want to see how she photographs?'

'No, I don't. I could photograph her myself with a Number Two Brownie Kodak box camera with my eyes shut, and she'd still look good. Oh, and by the way, don't let her read the script, even if she asks you. I'll send the wardrobe department down to the farm, and they'll sort out a few old things for her to wear. Just keep her relaxed; that shouldn't be difficult.'

*

A few weeks later Hayley and I were in the car heading for the little studios at Beaconsfield. At Lee's suggestion we read the scene we had to do together a few times. I was surprised; my enfant terrible seemed to have a photographic memory. It was a long and difficult scene, for me at any rate. I was playing a detective investigating a murder, and therefore had all the questions, which of course made it slightly easier for her.

We started shooting the first take at 9 a.m. I simply couldn't believe what was happening. She looked as if she'd been born in front of a camera. All the other children I had suffered with in films had to be told continually not to look into the lens. Lee shot close-ups with the camera two feet away from her face. She looked left, right, over it, below it, but never at it. I am usually very secure on my lines, but that morning I was so astonished at what was going on that I dried up at least three times.

'All right. Let's break for lunch.'

'Lee. It's only twelve o'clock. We don't break till one,' I said.

'I know. I think we've done enough.' He called Hayley's dresser. 'Take my leading lady to the canteen, give her some lunch and then make her put her feet up for half an hour. I'm taking Mr Mills off. I want to talk to him.'

'Where are we going, Lee?'

'To the Bull at Beaconsfield. I want to get out of the studio for a bit.'

Not a word was spoken until we reached the bar at the Bull Hotel.

'One bottle of the best champagne you have in the cellar, please.' Lee stood fiddling with one of the paper darts he made daily from a copy of The Times throughout all his films. A bottle of Dom Perignon was opened. He raised his glass. 'Well Johnnie,' he said, "I've made a lot of films, but I'm going to drink to the most exciting and magical morning I've ever spent in any studio. That child is going to be a bloody sensation. Here's to her. Cheers!'

'Cheers!' I said. I knew without any shadow of doubt that J. Lee Thompson was right.

TIGER BAY was an experience. Hayley was extraordinary. She never seemed to be listening and hummed quietly to herself while Lee was explaining the scenes. I asked him if this was driving him mad. 'Good God no,' said Lee, 'as long as she keeps humming we're OK.' He didn't allow her to see any of the rushes of the previous day's work until the time came when she had to re-enact for me, as the detective, the murder she had watched through the keyhole.

Hayley sat in the theatre enthralled. When the lights went up, she turned to Lee and said, 'Oh Lee, it's terribly exciting. Am I in this film?'

'Yes, Hayley, I believe you are. And now let's get back on the set and shoot the scene.'

It was Take One, Cut, Print. All Lee did was to ask the little monster to act the scene she had just watched. With no rehearsal she just did it. One second she was Horst Bucholz with a gun and the next second the girl. At the end of it, she did a grotesque fall ending up flat on her back. It was one of the best pieces of mime I've ever seen.

We finished the picture bang on schedule after some very tough, rather dangerous locations in Cardiff Docks and at sea in dreadful weather. Lee and I both felt that we had something very exciting in the can, but neither of us, I am sure, quite visualised the enormous impact that Hayley Mills was finally going to make not only in Britain but in the rest of the world.

*

In December I flew off to Australia to make THE SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL with Ernest Borgnine, Angela Lansbury and Anne Baxter. Leslie Norman was directing. Mary, Hayley and Jonathan, plus Nanny, arrived ten days later, when the school holidays started. Their flight took a week. Engine trouble started at Prestwick where they were grounded for thirty-six hours. Elvis Presley's picture JAILHOUSE ROCK was playing at the local cinema. The kids were all Elvis fans; Mary was forced to sit through it six times. Luckily, she was a fan too.

We enjoyed our first visit to Australia and made many friends. We rented a house on Point Piper, which was always full of the cast, and the English cricket team, Peter May, Colin Cowdrey, Freddie Trueman and co, who were taking it on the chin in that particular Test, not only from the Aussie bowlers but from the English critics who were hammering them - quite unfairly, in my opinion. I was able to watch quite a lot of cricket. Keith Miller invited us to the members' stand, and the first person I walked into was my old chum Trevor Howard who had flown out especially to see the Test.

I enjoyed making the picture, although we were the forgotten men. Hecht Hill and Lancaster had bought the subject after the play had become a smash hit in Australia and London, and intended to make an expensive epic with Burt Lancaster and myself playing the leading parts and Carol Reed directing. When the play opened in New York, it flopped. Burt pulled out of it and so did Carol, after hearing they intended cutting the budget to the minimum, which meant losing all the big exterior cane-cutting scenes. At this point I also wanted to withdraw, but Carol persuaded me to make the film. 'Parts like that don't grow on trees,' he said. 'You're an actor. Go ahead and play it.' I'm glad I took his advice.

I took enormous trouble to get the rather difficult Australian accent absolutely right. I worked with tapes for hours before I was satisfied. The dailies were sent back to Hollywood to be processed, which meant that we had to shoot blind for four weeks without having any idea how the stuff was coming out. Finally Leslie Norman received a cable from the production company. It read: 'Dailies good. Atmosphere excellent. Photography OK. Mills's accent entirely unintelligible. Regards.' Leslie looked at me. 'Well, what are we going to do about it, Johnnie?'

'Absolutely sweet f.a.,' I said. 'That's the first word we've heard from them. I'm damned if I'm going to muck up my performance. Ernie Borgnine can understand me, and if they can't, bad luck.' The accent stayed, and that was the last we heard of it.

We flew home via Singapore where we were guests of Sir Run Me Shaw, staying at his beautiful house on the ocean; then on to the wonders of Bangkok and finally home at the end of February.

TIGER BAY opened in March. The picture got great notices, but Hayley's were nothing short of sensational. She was acclaimed as the most exciting and brilliant child actress since Shirley Temple. An entry in my diary of 27 March reads: 'H's press quite amazing. Never seen better for any young actor. Hayley unimpressed. Her only concern is for the new chicks just hatched out at the farm.'

One or two of the critics said that she acted the entire cast including her father off the screen, and suggested that I might be perhaps a little jealous of her success. This seemed to me to be an idiotic assumption. If a filly that you've bred comes out of the stable and wins the Derby, how is it possible to be anything but very proud and delighted with the result? Juliet was the one who, at her tender age, found it difficult to cope with the sudden overwhelming success of her younger sister. I didn't know anything of Juliet's problem at the time. It wasn't until much later on that she confided in me that she couldn't help feeling jealous. She had had quite a big success with Five Finger Exercise, but because Hayley had clicked in a film the publicity was, of course enormous. She told me that she had made herself see TIGER BAY six times. That apparently did the trick. The feelings of jealousy were finally swamped by her enormous admiration. When she told me this, I remember feeling very proud of her. It showed, I thought, a strength of character far beyond her sixteen years.

Hayley was apparently also concerned. The weekend after the premiere I couldn't find the Sunday papers. It wasn't until nearly lunch-time that Mary found them hidden in a cupboard. Hayley had got up early, read the notices, decided that I would be upset by them saying that she had 'acted me off the screen' and that it would be better for my morale not to see them. I thought that was one of the nicest things anyone, especially at that age, could ever do. It took me some time to persuade her that I expected the result, wanted it, and was thrilled to death by it. 'But Daddy, it's not true. It's so stupid.'

I looked at my offspring, and said, 'All right, my darling, if you go on thinking like that, you'll never become big-headed and conceited.' She never has.

After the premiere life settled down to normal. Hayley went back to school at Elmhurst, Jonathan to Fonthill, and Juliet was playing in Five Finger Exercise which was still running in the West End.

It was, I'm afraid, typical of the British film industry that after TIGER BAY had laid that small golden egg none of the producers seemed to be aware of it. We were surprised and frankly relieved when no offers for any other film materialised. Mary and I took deep breaths and relaxed.

Not for long, however: Laurie Evans, our agent, rang to say that Walt Disney was in town; he'd seen the picture and was anxious to talk to us. We knew what it meant. Walt Disney, apart from being a genius, was one of the most charming, immediately likable men I have ever met. His enthusiasm for anything he was concerned with was enormous. Hayley's performance in TIGER BAY had bowled him over. It would, he said, be a crime if we didn't give him the chance to build her into a big, international star. He had never seen a child like her. And how could we deprive the public of all that talent and pleasure? Walt Disney was genuinely fond of children. It didn't need Disneyland to prove that to us. Hayley adored him from the first meeting.

A few days later Laurie rang us with a firm offer - a contract for five years, a picture a year, three to be made in Hollywood, two in England. Financially the deal was fantastic; the contract was worth a fortune. it was, for us both, a hideously agonising decision to make. I spent hours with Hayley trying to make her understand the importance of it and how much it would alter and influence her whole life and, incidentally, her parents'. I begged her to think hard before she made up her mind, because if she had any doubts at all we would turn it down in a flash. But Hayley, being Hayley, was I could see approaching it in much the same way she had approached TIGER BAY.

'Yes, Daddy darling, I would love to do it. I would really.'

'Are you sure, Hayl? I won't be in the pictures with you, you know.'

Her face fell a little. 'Oh I see. But you'll be there, won't you Daddy?'

'Well, when I can. Mummy of course would be there all the time.'

That was the part we dreaded most. After weeks of heart-searching and brain-bashing and with Hayley seeming very keen, we agreed. The deal was signed. Her first picture for Walt was to be POLYANNA (sic) with shooting beginning in Hollywood in July. By a strange coincidence (later on, when I'd got to know Walt Disney well, I wondered if coincidence was exactly the right word), soon after H's deal was completed, I was offered the part of the father in SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON that Walt was making in Tobago in August.

For the past eighteen years Mary and I had never been separated for more than a week or so at one time. From now on we knew life was going to present a very different picture. But we were determined, even if it cost us a fortune in air fares (which it did), that we would make the gaps as short as possible, and keep the family together. We hoped that the education of travelling in foreign countries would, in a way, compensate for the disruption of school-life.

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