This Is Your Life: Juliet Mills

Juliet MILLS (1941-)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Juliet Mills, actress, was surprised by Michael Aspel during the curtain call of the play Fallen Angels at the Richmond Theatre, from where the programme was then recorded.

Juliet, the eldest child of actor John Mills, and sister of actress Hayley Mills, began her career as a child actress, making her debut as an 11 week-old-baby in the 1942 film In Which We Serve. Her first major role came in 1958, when she was 16, in the Peter Shaffer play Five Finger Exercise which earned her rave reviews and a Tony Award nomination.

She progressed into films with appearances in No My Darling Daughter in 1961, Nurse on Wheels in 1963 and Avanti in 1972, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination. After relocating to Hollywood, she appeared mostly on television, and is perhaps best known for playing the lead role on the sitcom Nanny and the Professor in the early 1970s.

"Well, what a shock!"

programme details...

Edition No: 841
Subject No: 831
Broadcast date: Wed 28 Oct 1992
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Thu 1 Oct 1992
Venue: Richmond Theatre
Series: 33
Edition: 5
Code name: Romeo

on the guest list...

Hayley Mills - sister
Marcus Maclaine
Crispian - nephew
Ace - nephew
Melissa - daughter
Maxwell Caulfield - husband
John Mills - father
Mary Hayley Bell - mother
Susie Blake - cousin
Jenny Wren Linnet
Doreen Timmins
Peter Shaffer - via telephone
Sean - son
Jonathan - brother
Michael Denison
Dulcie Gray
Jack Lemmon

production team...

Researcher: Mandy Nixon
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Brian Klein, Malcolm Morris
Associate Producer: John Graham
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

An Actor's Life For Me

spotlight on the stars

Family Life

keeping it in the family

Screenshots of Juliet Mills This Is Your Life

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...

Sir John Mills... despite failing eyesight and having to use a stick... appeared with the rest of that remarkable theatrical dynasty when we surprised daughter Juliet at the Richmond Theatre on 1 October 1992.

Both he and Juliet's big sister Hayley had been 'booked' some years before, so they knew what it would mean to Juliet. She was starting a tour – with Hayley – of Fallen Angels, a play written by her godfather, Sir Noel Coward. Her godmother, by the way, was Vivien Leigh, then married to Laurence Olivier. Their telegram on her birth read, 'From Uncle Sub-Lieutenant Olivier and Aunt Puss'.

Noel Coward wrote and directed In Which We Serve, in which the eleven-week-old Juliet made her screen debut, as the daughter of a member of the crew of the famous HMS Kelly (played by Sir John). He recalled that in the middle of a deeply moving scene the baby Juliet 'let rip a report from her cot which would have done justice to any one of HMS Kelly's guns'. The whole film studios dissolved into hysterics.

When the storm subsided, Sir John and Lady Mills (authoress Mary Hayley Bell) looked at the director, totally mortified.

'The Master' muttered, 'Hereditary, I fear.'

Series 33 subjects