Hayley Mills(I)

Born Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills in London in 1946, she is the daughter of the great actor Sir John Mills and the well-known novelist-playwright Mary Hayley Bell. Her sister is the actress Juliet Mills. She grew up in her parents' home, an outgoing, funny child, and, because she spent so much time with her parents and their friends, very intelligent. When she went to boarding school at age nine, however, she became very shy around kids her own age. She found solace in theater productions at her school. She was noticed playing at her parent's home in 1958 by director J. Lee Thompson, who immediately cast her opposite her father in the thriller Les yeux du témoin (1959). Her debut performance turned heads around the world, from Germany, where she won an award at the Berlin Film Festival, to Hollywood, when Walt Disney came knocking at her door. He signed her to a five-year contract. For her first film for the studio, Pollyanna (1960), she won critical raves, box-office success, and a special Juvenile Academy Award. Her second Disney film, La fiancée de Papa (1961), in which she played twins, was even more popular. She continued to appear in routine Disney films like Les Enfants du capitaine Grant (1962) and L'été magique (1963), as well as films outside the studio like Le vent garde son secret (1961), based on her mother's novel, and Mystère sur la falaise (1964), again co-starring with her father. Though Disney gave her a somewhat more adult role in the mystery film La baie aux émeraudes (1964), she had begun to tire of her sunny, innocent Pollyanna image. After completing L'Espion aux pattes de velours (1965), she left the studio for good. L'Espion aux pattes de velours (1965) was still a success, as was her first post-Disney film, Columbia's Le dortoir des anges (1966). Then, she shocked her fans by appearing in the comedy Chaque chose en son temps (1966) with her father. There was an even bigger surprise in store when she fell in love with the film's director, Roy Boulting, who was 33 years her senior. She lived with Boulting for five years after he divorced his wife. They married in 1971 and had a son, Crispian Mills, in 1973. She separated from Boulting in 1975 and moved in with actor Leigh Lawson, with whom she had a son, Jason, in 1976. They split up in 1984. She appeared in three TV-movie sequels to La fiancée de Papa (1961) in the 1980s, and also appeared in the BBC miniseries The Flame Trees of Thika (1981) and the TV series Bonjour, Miss Bliss (1987), later re-titled Sauvés par le gong (1989). She hasn't done much film work in several years, preferring to concentrate on theatre. Her greatest theatrical success has been the role of Anna in "The King and I", which she played in many touring stage productions throughout the 1990s.