Hayley Mills

Her performance in Whistle Down the Wind (a 1961 adaptation of the novel written by her mother) received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress and she was voted the biggest star in Britain for 1961. In the late 1960s, Mills began performing in theatrical plays, making her stage debut in a 1969 West End revival of Peter Pan. She also played in more mature roles. For her success with Disney, Mills received the Disney Legend Award. She has continued to make films and TV appearances during adulthood, including a starring role in the UK television mini-series The Flame Trees of Thika in 1981, the title role in Disney's television series Good Morning, Miss Bliss in 1988, and as Caroline, a main character in Wild at Heart (2007–2012) on ITV in the UK. She published her memoirs, Forever Young, in 2021.

Hayley Mills studied at Elmhurst Ballet School. The recorded working language is English. Works named in the authority record are Arthur's Whisky and Good Morning, Miss Bliss. Distinctions recorded are Academy Juvenile Award, Theatre World Award, Disney Legends and Academy Honorary Award.

Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills was born in Marylebone, London, to British actor Sir John Mills and actress Mary Hayley Bell. Her sister is actress Juliet Mills and her brother is writer and producer Jonathan Mills.

Mills was 12 when she was cast by J. Lee Thompson, who was initially looking for a boy to play the lead role, in Tiger Bay (1959) which co-starred her father. The movie was popular at the box office in Britain.

Bill Anderson, one of Walt Disney's producers, saw Tiger Bay and suggested that Mills be given the lead role in Pollyanna (1960). The role of the orphaned "glad girl" who moves in with her aunt catapulted her to stardom in the United States and earned her a special Academy Award of Juvenile Oscar, the last person to win the accolade. Because she could not be present to receive the trophy, Annette Funicello accepted it on her behalf. Disney subsequently cast Mills as twins Sharon and Susan who reunite their divorced parents in The Parent Trap (1961). In the film, she sings "Let's Get Together" as a duet with herself. The song was a hit around the world, reaching number 8 in the US. Mills received an offer to make a film in Britain for Bryan Forbes, Whistle Down the Wind (1961), based on a novel by her mother Mary Hayley Bell, about some children who believe an escaped convict is Jesus. It was a hit at the British box office and she was voted the biggest star in Britain for 1961. Mills was offered the title role in Lolita by Stanley Kubrick, but her father turned it down. "I wish I had done it", she said in 1962. "It was a smashing film." Mills returned to Disney for an adventure film, In Search of the Castaways (1962), based on a novel by Jules Verne. It was another popular success, and she was voted the fifth biggest star in the country for the next two years. In 1963, Disney announced plans to film an adaptation of Dodie Smith's novel I Capture the Castle, with Mills in the role of Cassandra. Disney ended up dropping the project while still retaining film rights to the book when the novelist and the selected screenwriter Sally Benson did not get along; Mills grew too old for the part before the project could be revived. Her fourth movie for Disney did less well than her previous Disney films but was still successful: Summer Magic (1963), a musical adaptation of the novel Mother Carey's Chickens. Ross Hunter hired her for a British-American production The Chalk Garden (1964), playing a girl who torments governess Deborah Kerr. Back at Disney she was in a film about jewel thieves, The Moon-Spinners (1964), getting her first on screen kiss from Peter McEnery. Mills had a change of pace with Sky West and Crooked (1965), set in the world of gypsies, written by her mother and directed by her father, but it was not commercially successful. In contrast, her last film with Disney, the comedy That Darn Cat! (also 1965), did very well at the box office. During her six-year run at Disney, Mills was arguably the most popular child actress of the era. Critics noted that America's favourite child star was, in fact, quite British and very ladylike. The success of "Let's Get Together" (which hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, No. 17 in Britain, No. 1 in Mexico, and No. 29 in Canada) also led to the release of a record album on Disney's Buena Vista label, Let's Get Together with Hayley Mills, which also included another hit song, "Johnny Jingo" (Billboard No. 21, 1962; Canada No. 19). In 1962, British exhibitors voted her the most popular film actress in the country. A third single, "Castaway", reached No. 14 in Canada. In her 2021 autobiography, Forever Young: A Memoir, Mills reflected on the high points of her early career while also discussing her struggles with self-esteem and an eating disorder. She wrote that she had declined roles in Doctor Dolittle and Stanley Kubrick's Lolita because they were inconsistent with the image cultivated during her years with Disney. Although she acknowledged the opportunities afforded by her contract with Walt Disney, she stated that it had restricted her access to a broader range of roles and had, in time, affected her confidence in her own abilities. At age 20, she declined a new Disney contract, believing that the roles assigned to her by the studio had become repetitive. She also wrote that, at 21, she had lost most of her Disney earnings as a result of a 90 percent tax rate imposed by the Inland Revenue in England. Her appeal to recover the funds was unsuccessful, and she recalled that she had feared following the path of Judy Garland by becoming, in her words, a "studio asset".

Following her departure from Disney, Mills continued her film career with a series of diverse roles. For Universal Pictures, she starred alongside her father, John Mills, in The Truth About Spring (1965), which also featured Disney regular James MacArthur. While the film achieved modest success, her next role was in The Trouble with Angels (1966), which proved to be a major box office hit. In the film, directed by Ida Lupino, Mills portrayed a mischievous student at a Catholic boarding school opposite Rosalind Russell. That same year, she provided the voice of the Little Mermaid in the Rankin/Bass animated feature The Daydreamer (1966). Mills subsequently starred in The Family Way (1966), directed by Roy Boulting. The film, which explored the challenges of a newlywed couple, was noted for its mature themes and featured a musical score by Paul McCartney with arrangements by Beatles producer George Martin. During the production, Mills began a romantic relationship with Boulting; the two married in 1971. In 1967, Mills appeared in Pretty Polly, a romantic drama set in Singapore, opposite Indian film star Shashi Kapoor. She next starred in the psychological thriller Twisted Nerve (1968), reuniting with The Family Way co-star Hywel Bennett. The controversial film, directed by Boulting, attracted attention for its unsettling themes. She followed this with the romantic comedy Take a Girl Like You (1970), co-starring Oliver Reed, and made her West End stage debut in a 1970 production of The Wild Duck. Mills continued her collaboration with Boulting in Mr. Forbush and the Penguins (1971), stepping into the lead female role after the original actress was replaced during production. In 1972, she again starred opposite Bennett in Endless Night, a mystery-thriller based on the novel by Agatha Christie, featuring Britt Ekland, George Sanders, and Per Oscarsson. Throughout the mid-1970s, Mills took on roles in several British and international productions, including What Changed Charley Farthing? (1974), Deadly Strangers, and The Kingfisher Caper (both 1975), the latter co-written by Boulting. Following The Kingfisher Caper, Mills significantly reduced her feature film work but continued to act in occasional roles over the ensuing decades. She appeared as Miss Quinton in the television adaptation Appointment with Death (1988), and as Sally Ryan in the horror anthology film After Midnight (1990). In 1994, she contributed her voice to the animated feature A Troll in Central Park, portraying the character Hillary. In the 2000s, Mills took part in independent productions, including 2BPerfectlyHonest (2004), in which she played Terri, and the short film Stricken (2005), where she portrayed Hildy. She later appeared in the family adventure Mandie and the Cherokee Treasure (2010) as Mary Elizabeth Taft, adapted from the Mandie book series, and in the drama Foster (also known as Angel in the House, 2011) as Mrs. Lange. Mills continued to appear sporadically in film thereafter. In 2021, she played Celia Towers in the time-travel drama Last Train to Christmas, and in 2023, she portrayed Karen Walters in Arthur’s Whisky. In 2024, Mills appeared in a major American theatrical release in a supporting role as FBI profiler Dr. Josephine Grant in M. Night Shyamalan's psychological thriller Trap. Her casting in the film was highlighted by Shyamalan and in media coverage as a notable and unexpected return for the actress. Trap marked Mills's first major role in a mainstream American film in nearly 60 years, following her performance in The Trouble with Angels (1966). Mills's post-Disney career was marked by a conscious shift toward more adult and diverse roles. As one critic observed, "She was a movie star for about a decade... a genuine, old-school, above-the-title movie star: listed in box-office polls, the focus of a carefully-protected public image, signatory to a long-term contract with a studio who would try to craft vehicles for her. In fact, you could make an argument that Hayley Mills was one of the last stars for whom that last factor applied, at least in English-speaking cinema".

Mills made her stage debut in a 1969 West End revival of Peter Pan. In 1991 she appeared as Anna Leonowens in the Australian production of The King and I. In 1997, Mills starred in the U.S. national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I. In 2000 she made her Off-Broadway debut in Sir Noël Coward's Suite in Two Keys, opposite American actress Judith Ivey, for which she won a Theatre World Award. In 2001, Mills starred as Desiree Armfeldt in a production of "A Little Night Music" in Seattle, Washington. It was a co-production with the city's A Contemporary Theatre and the Fifth Avenue Theatre. In December 2007, for their annual birthday celebration of "The Master", The Noël Coward Society invited Mills as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's Gershwin Theatre, thereby commemorating the anniversary of the 108th birthday of Coward. In 2012 she starred as Ursula Widdington in the stage production of Ladies in Lavender at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, before embarking on a national UK tour. In 2015, she toured Australia with sister Juliet Mills and Juliet's husband Maxwell Caulfield in the comedy Legends! by James Kirkwood. Mills starred in the 2018 Off-Broadway run of Isobel Mahon's Party Face at City Center.

In 1966, while filming The Family Way, 20-year-old Mills met 53-year-old director Roy Boulting. The two were married in 1971 and owned a flat in London's Chelsea and Cobstone Windmill in Ibstone, Buckinghamshire, which was later sold. Their son, Crispian Mills, is the lead singer and guitarist for the raga rock band Kula Shaker. The couple divorced in 1977. Mills had a second son during a relationship with actor Leigh Lawson. She and Lawson split up in the early 1980s. In the 1980s, following her breakup with Lawson, Mills developed an interest in a number of Eastern religions. She wrote the preface to the book The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking, published in 1984, although she was not a member of Hare Krishna. In 1988, Mills co-edited, with Marcus Maclaine, My God: Letters from the Famous on God and the Life Hereafter (Pelham Books, 1988). Mills's partner since 1997 and as of 2023 is actor/writer Firdous Bamji, who is 20 years her junior. They met when touring playing the lead roles in The King and I.

In April 2008, Mills was diagnosed with breast cancer. She told Good Housekeeping magazine in January 2012 that she had fully recovered.

Mills published a memoir about her life and career, Forever Young: A Memoir, in September 2021.

Let's Get Together with Hayley Mills, released in 1962, was Mills' only solo album. It had the million-selling song "Let's Get Together" and "Johnny Jingo". Side one "Jeepers Creepers" – 1:37 "Green and Yellow Basket" – 1:59 "Sentimental Sunday" – 2:04 "Ding Ding Ding" – 2:18 "Side by Side" – 1:36 "Cranberry Bog" – 1:50 Side two "Little Boy" – 2:19 "Cobbler Cobbler" – 2:14 "Johnny Jingo" – 1:38 "Pollyanna Song" – 1:57 "Jimmie Bean" – 1:53 "Let's Get Together" – 1:29