Matinee Classics - Hayley Mills Biography & Filmography

Hayley Mills ACTOR

PHOTOS

HAYLEY MILLS BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:

Hayley Mills was born on April 18th, 1946 in London, England with the birth name Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills. Her father, Sir John Mills is a well know actor and her mother, Mary Hayley Bell was a novelist and playwright. She also has a brother Jonathon and a sister, Juliet Mills who also pursued a career in acting.

At the age of nine her parents sent her to boarding school and she developed an interest in acting in school plays. In 1958, director, J. Lee Thompson chose to cast her opposite her father in her first film, "Tiger Bay". The entertainment industry began to take notice of her immediately and Walt Disney approached her and signed her to a five year contract.

Soon she was appearing on such films as, "Pollyanna" (1960), "The Parent Trap" (1961), "In Search of Castaways" (1962) and "Summer Magic" (1963). Disney also loaned her out to other studios where she was seen in such features as, "Whistle Down the Wind" (1961), "The Truth About Spring" (1965) and "The Chalk Garden" (1964).

As her career progressed she left Disney and continued to take on more adult and challenging roles such as, "The Family Way" (1966), "Endless Night" (1972) and "The King Fish Caper" (1975).

However, as time went on she was not making good career choices and film roles were becoming less available to her. She had also made an interesting personal life decision when she married director, Roy Boulting who was thirty three years older then her and together they had one son, Crispian Mills. He began controlling her career and when she realized she had made a mistake marrying him, they divorced and she soon moved in with another man, actor, Leigh Lawson. They never married but did have another son together, Jason before this relationship came to an end in 1984.

Mills returned to acting, this time focusing on television roles as well as theatrical stage work. She has been seen on such series as, "The Love Boat" (1979-1985), "The Flame Trees of Thika" (1981), "Murder, She Wrote" (1986), "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" (1987) which later changed names to, "Saved by the Bell" (1989) and most well known were her roles on the sequels, "Parent Trap II" (1986), "Parent Trap III" (1989) and "Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon" (1989).

Hayley Mills is also well known for her stage role of Anna in, "The King and I" and has performed on stage in other productions such as, "Suite in Two Keys". In addition to her acting, she has followed in her mother's footsteps and taken on writing. She wrote the preface to the book titled, "The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking" which was published in 1984. Mills also co-edited the book, "My God".

She continues to work in the film and television industry with a re-occurring role on the television series, "Wild at Heart" (2007-present) and soon to be released in 2012, a role in the film, "Foster".