Cinecon Legacy Award honoree Juliet Mills has acted in nine decades of film and television. You read that correctly. Nine! Making her debut on screen at just 11-weeks-old, Mills was born into England’s premier acting family — an instant prodigy in a lineage spawned from her Oscar-winning father John Mills. He helped cast his daughter in her first movie, 1942’s “In Which We Serve,” playing, naturally, his own daughter.
“It was really a propaganda film for World War II. Noel Coward, of course, co-directed and wrote it and starred in it, and that was David Lean’s directorial debut,” Juliet Mills explained. “And so that was my debut too. And as a matter of fact, I’m billed in the cast list. It says ‘Baby Juliet.’”
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While she would grow up with her eyes always on the footlights, Mills’ dreams were initially geared toward a different kind of performance art.
“I was at ballet school. I realized that I wasn’t ever going to be the solo Swan in ‘Swan Lake.’ I was going to be in the corps de ballet. I was one of those cygnets, and I’d never quite make it. I wasn’t dedicated enough. I wasn’t good enough. And so that’s when I decided, when I was about 14, I wanted to be an actress. And my father… they certainly were very happy about it and encouraged me to a certain extent, but we never felt any pressure or anything. As long as we enjoyed what we were doing, and we realized also that it was a very insecure profession. There was a lot of luck involved. And if you get lucky, you can maybe make a living at it,” Mills said.
Mills first found a stroke of luck nabbing a role in the John Gielgud-directed “Five Finger Exercise” on London’s West End. At just 16, the actress had her big break, and when it transferred to Broadway in 1960, Mills earned a Tony nomination. “I didn’t even know what a Tony was. I didn’t. And my parents didn’t sort of make a big fuss about it or anything. So I wasn’t there for the awards or anything,” she recalled.
A series of films followed — several of which cast her opposite some of the biggest names on the planet. Simultaneously, her younger sister Hayley achieved child stardom with “Pollyanna” and “The Parent Trap.” The latter of those co-starred Brian Keith and Maureen O’Hara, who would also be cast in “The Rare Breed” with Juliet, whose mother would also be portrayed by O’Hara.
“It seems like ‘The Rare Breed’ is never spoken of, and it’s a film I’ve always been very proud of, and really enjoyed making it at the time, of course. I saw it recently on TCM, and it’s really good,” said Mills, who added that O’Hara had previously played her mother in a live TV production of “Mrs. Miniver” in 1960. “I kept in touch with her, always, ever since then, and in fact, the last time I saw her was at the TCM Film Festival, and she came over from Ireland, where she lived for a long time, and I saw her. We had tea at the Roosevelt Hotel. She was 90, and she was still so beautiful. You know, that alabaster skin, and just gorgeous woman. When I did ‘The Rare Breed’ with her, she was really breathtaking.”
Also in “The Rare Breed” cast was the legendary James Stewart, who Mills described as being the “creme de la creme” of the veteran performers she had an opportunity to act alongside. “My father was so jealous of me doing a Western with Jimmy Stewart. He always wanted to do a Western, and suddenly, there I am out in California, riding my horse and going on,” Mills chuckled.
The elder Mills sister was consistently cast on film and television, quietly building up a stellar career that included guest spots on popular series like “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” “Ben Casey,” and “12 O’Clock High.” She’d move permanently to the States to take the lead in “Nanny and the Professor,” the hit sitcom which made her known to generations as a whimsical, magical governess.
“I was doing a play in London with Tom Courtenay, ‘She Stoops to Conquer’…. It ran for almost a year, but I got the opportunity to do a test for ‘Nanny and the Professor’ when I was in the play in London. David Gerber, the producer, came and saw the play and said, ‘Will you do a screen test for this series?’ And I did, and I got the part, and so they let me out of the play for three weeks to do the pilot,” Mills remembered, adding that the series actually shot two pilots with two different male leads — “I can’t remember [the original actor’s] name, lucky for him I can’t.”
“And after the play was finished… I came over here to do the show. I thought I was just coming to do 13 episodes of a half-hour series, and it went on for 54 episodes. By which time I’d fallen in love with California and the sunshine and life in California… I started to get more work over here than I did over there.”
By the mid-’70s, she was an Emmy-winner (for her role in the acclaimed miniseries “QB VII”), well enough known by the masses to always earn the “Special Guest Star” credit whenever she appeared on television screens. In 1972, she starred in one of Billy Wilder’s twilight-era films, “Avanti!” (more on that one next week, stay tuned). She also kept appearing on the stage, and was in a 1980 production of “The Elephant Man,” in which she was cast opposite a dashing young actor named Maxwell Caulfield (that “Grease 2” cool rider).
“The actor who plays the Elephant Man… he doesn’t have makeup or anything. It’s all illusion. And Maxwell played the Elephant Man. He was 20 years old at the time, and absolutely dreamy looking, and yet he turned into the Elephant Man — this deformed creature in front of your eyes, really. The play was so brilliant. So that was definitely one of my favorite parts,” Mills related. “We had these wonderful roles and we were touring Florida. We actually rehearsed in New York on the 45th floor of the building above the Minskoff Theatre in Times Square. We used to watch the sun set every night over the Hudson River and it was very romantic. And I think we bonded on all levels, frankly, but certainly our love of the theater was one of those bonds.”
The couple married in 1980, and they will celebrate their 45th anniversary on December 2. Mills was 39 to Caulfield’s 21 when they were wed. “He’s wonderful to me. He treats me like a queen. We’ve been married 45 years this year. It’s quite a miracle. I can’t believe it’s that long,” Mills shared, adding with a wry tone, “And so many people said it wouldn’t last.”
In the ensuing years, Mills has continued to be a regular presence on screens big and small. Some of her most prominent credits have included “The Other Sister,” “Some Kind of Beautiful,” “Passions” (for which she received a Daytime Emmy nod), “Hot in Cleveland,” and a guest arc on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“I was supposed to do a lot more of [‘Grey’s’ episodes]. But, you know, the writers strike came along, and instead of 23 episodes, they only did 10. So my storyline went down the toilet, so I didn’t do as many as I should have done episode-wise. But I did enjoy working on that show, I have to say,” Mills said, adding she’d love to return in a future season (it’s about to start No. 22). But what she’d really like to do is get snatched up by Taylor Sheridan.
“All those wonderful shows on Netflix that he writes, and directs half of them himself… writes them all himself. And I don’t know how he does it, but Maxwell did a guest spot on ‘Landman,’ which is one of my favorite shows. I just love that,” Mills said.
On Labor Day weekend, August 29-September 1, Mills will be honored with the Legacy Award (introduced by her husband) at the Cinecon Film Festival at the Writers Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles, alongside a screening of the aforementioned “The Rare Breed,” which Mills is “looking forward to seeing on the big screen.” For tickets and information, visit the Cinecon website. Read our features on fellow honorees Mamie Van Doren and Ann-Margret, who will also be in attendance.
And Taylor Sheridan, if you’re reading this: Juliet Mills is ready for “Landman.”
