John Mills (born February 22, 1908, Watts Naval Training College, North Elmham, Norfolk, England—died April 23, 2005, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England) was a British actor who appeared in more than 100 motion pictures and dozens of stage plays and television programs during a career that spanned some seven decades. His ability to portray “everyman” characters sincerely and believably—especially humble, decent military officers—endeared him to audiences and made him one of Britain’s best-loved performers.
Seeking a career in the theatre, Mills moved to London when he was 19, took a sales job to pay his expenses, and studied tap dancing. His debut came in 1929 in the chorus of a musical, and he then joined the Quaints repertory company on a yearlong tour in Asia. Noël Coward saw a production, was impressed with Mills’s talent, and soon was casting him in his revues and plays.
Mills enlisted in the Royal Engineers at the beginning of World War II, but by 1942 an ulcer had caused him to be declared unfit for service, and he began his long string of stiff-upper-lip war-hero roles, among them one that Coward wrote especially for him—Shorty Blake in the classic In Which We Serve (1942), in which his daughter Juliet also appeared, as Blake’s baby. Other notable military-themed films included Waterloo Road (1945), The Way to the Stars (1945), and Tunes of Glory (1960). Among the best of his nonmilitary films were Great Expectations (1946), in which he played Pip as a young man, Hobson’s Choice (1954), Tiger Bay (1959), in which his daughter Hayley made her debut, The Wrong Box (1966), Ryan’s Daughter (1970), for which he won a best supporting actor Academy Award, and Gandhi (1982). Mills married novelist and playwright Mary Hayley Bell in 1941. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1960 and was knighted in 1976. Mills published his autobiography, Up in the Clouds, Gentlemen Please, in 1980.