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Sir John Mills (born February 22, 1908) is a British actor. Born
John Lewis Ernest Watts Mills in Felixstowe, Suffolk, he took an early interest in acting, making his professional debut at the London Hippodrome in 1927.
Mills made his film debut in
The Midshipmaid (1932), and came to prominence as Colley in the 1939 film version of Goodbye, Mr Chips, opposite
Robert Donat. He took the lead in Great Expectations in 1936, and subsequently made his career playing traditionally British heroes such as Sir Robert Falcon Scott in
Scott of the Antarctic (1949). In 1941, he married the dramatist, Mary Hayley Bell, and their two daughters, Juliet and Hayley, are both actresses.
For his role as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter (1970) - a complete departure from his usual style - Mills won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Altogether he appeared in over a hundred films. In 1976, he was knighted. In recent years, he has appeared on television only on special occasions. His most famous television role is probably as the title character in Quatermass for ITV in 1979.
He also starred as Gus the Theatre Cat in the filmed version of the musical Cats in 1998.
In 2002 he received a Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), the highest award given by the Academy, and was named a Disney Legend by The Walt Disney Company.
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