April 9, 2000
She's Grown Up Now but Still a Natural
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By STEVEN DRUKMAN
Given her theatrical pedigree, Hayley Mills must be aware of more than a few show business maxims.
For example: try to avoid following a tough act, and, there is no tougher act
than a cute kid.
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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
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Hayley Mills who is to be opening in "Noel Coward's Suite in Two Keys."
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But what happens when you're your own
toughest act to follow?
In one way, Ms. Mills has already found
out, having worked on the London stage for
the last 30 years. But in this country she is
still best known as that saucer-eyed little
girl in such popular Disney films as "Pollyanna" (for which she won a special 1960
Academy Award), "The Parent Trap"
(1961) and "That Darn Cat" (1965).
If Ms. Mills has her way, her New York
stage debut will begin the third act of what
has already been a long career. The London-born actress, who turns an impossibly
young-looking 54 next week, opens tomorrow at the Lucille Lortel Theater in "Noël
Coward's Suite in Two Keys," an evening of
two one-act plays directed by John Tillinger.
The cast also includes Judith Ivey and Paxton Whitehead.
"I've got my green card and I'm not
leaving," she warned over tea after a rehearsal. "I always knew I'd end up here. Not
that I'm not terrified. But as someone said,
if it doesn't terrify you, it's not worth doing."
Ms. Mills still exudes the charm of a
precocious child. Blonde and spritelike, she
playfully drums her heels when she forgets
a line, or tilts her head and smiles coyly
when she wants an interview to end. She
wears a heavy silver bracelet with which
she fidgets. Lacking a spoon, she stirs her
tea with the stem of her sunglasses and
giggles.
Ms. Mills is the daughter of the celebrated
English actor John Mills and the novelist
and playwright Mary Hayley Bell. She made
her acting debut in the 1958 British film
"Tiger Bay" at the ripe old age of 12. In his
autobiography, Ms. Mills's father, who was
also in the cast, wrote of that experience,
"She looked as if she'd been born in front of
a camera." To those old enough to remember, it never seemed otherwise. After seeing
her in "Tiger Bay," Walt Disney called her
"the greatest movie find in 25 years" and
his company signed her to a five-year contract. In 1961 she starred with Alan Bates in
"Whistle Down the Wind," based on the
novel by her mother. A song she performed
in "The Parent Trap," titled "Let's Get
Together," made her a minor recording star
at the age of 15.
But while the young Hayley enjoyed being
a well-known juvenile performer, she found
the plucky persona limiting. She continued
to make movies on both sides of the Atlantic,
receiving a spotty education (arithmetic
between takes, according to Ms. Mills), but
"always feeling a hunger to read and learn
what an educated person should know."
"And I was desperate for roles that American audiences were unprepared to see me
play," she added. At the age of 14, she was
offered the title part in Stanley Kubrick's
film "Lolita." "But it was made quite clear
to me by Disney, my parents, everyone, that
that wasn't going to happen," she said.
In 1968, she looked to the British stage for
professional fulfillment. Cutting back on
film work, Ms. Mills said she taught herself
how to act for the theater: "My debut,
'Peter Pan,' was not that far off from what I
had done in film. But then I was cast in 'The
Three Sisters'!"
This baptism-by-Chekhov was daunting
for Ms. Mills, then 23, but she remembers it
as the beginning of a second chance at
gaining an education as well as the inaugural moment of a successful second career.
"I had been in film since I was 12, and had
hit a wall," she said. "I learned about literature and about life through the theater."
This self-education has paid off, Mr. Tillinger said: "There is none of the usual
overly broad style one often sees when a
Hollywood star gets onstage. It's partly
intuitive and partly because she comes from
a theatrical family -- not only her father but
her sister as well." Juliet Mills, an actress
best known as the Nanny in the television
sitcom "Nanny and the Professor" and now
starring in the NBC soap opera "Passions,"
is five years older.
About his current production, Mr. Tillinger said: "Hayley brings proper restraint to two very different roles in these
Coward plays. In the first, she is a sort of
faded English rose. In the second, she is this
rigid German figure."
The two plays that make up "Suite in Two
Keys" are "Shadows of the Evening," a
drama about a publisher, his wife and mistress, and "A Song at Twilight," a breezy
play about a novelist (based loosely on W.
Somerset Maugham), his German wife and
a former mistress who possesses passionate
letters the novelist once wrote to a male
lover. While both bristle with Coward's
heightened language, they are, Mr. Tillinger
said, widely different in tone: " 'Shadows of
the Evening' ends up a very quiet play,
really Coward's farewell to the world. 'A
Song at Twilight' is very, very funny, more
to do with life."
The plays were originally performed in
London in 1966 as "Suite in Three Keys"
(with a third short play, "Come Into the
Garden, Maud") and a cast that included
Coward, Lilli Palmer and Irene Worth. A
longer version of "A Song at Twilight"
recently ran in London's West End in an
acclaimed production starring Vanessa
Redgrave and her brother, Corin.
While touring the United States in 1997 as
Anna in "The King and I," Ms. Mills
learned, with a mix of delight and bemusement, that Americans still see her as a
spunky little girl. "And it's all generations,"
she said. "Grannies remember me from my
Disney days and now a whole new generation of 6-year-olds from videotapes."
Ms. Mills has two grown sons: Crispian,
27, from her marriage to the film director
Roy Boulting, and Jason, 23, whom she had
with the actor Leigh Lawson. It is partly the
empty-nest syndrome that has made her
take the plunge in New York, she said, as
well as a new romance with a Persian-American actor, Firdous Bamji, who lives
in the city.
Ms. Mills said that her nervousness about
her New York debut has been reduced by
the fact that she feels at home in the world
of Coward. No wonder: he was the godfather
of Juliet Mills, and the two sisters toured
Britain and Australia in his "Fallen Angels"
in 1994-95.
"What's more," Ms. Mills said, "Coward
really gave my father his first big break in
the theater. After seeing him make an entrance on roller skates and fall, in a small
touring production of 'Hamlet' in Singapore,
Coward went backstage. My father sat in
the dressing room, hand bandaged up, and
Coward said, 'Good entrance.' " When John
Mills returned to London, Coward cast him
in some roles, and his career took off.
At 92, John Mills still performs a one-man
comic memoir that his daughter describes
as hilarious. "He's quite good, although he
can't see," she said. "So there are big lines
painted on the stage to keep him from
disappearing into the orchestra pit."
If this theatrical longevity is inherited,
then Ms. Mills is only about halfway through
her career. "Who knows?" she asked.
"Maybe you can be young again."
Steven Drukman's most recent article for Arts & Leisure was about the performance artist Paul Zaloom.
