Sir John Mills | Funeral | Last Will | Lady Mills Dies

Sir John Mills

Funeral
H I S D E A T H

Date: 27th April 2005 The weather is no respecter of titles or celebrity, as the stars who gathered for Sir John Mills' funeral discovered on Wednesday.

'We shall miss him desperately. But we shall have him with us always in the deep love and unmatched joy that he has bequeathed to all of us.'
- Lord Attenborough, - Funeral Service

As the heavens opened and the hailstones fell, Sir Roger Moore, Dame Judi Dench and Lord Attenborough were among those who took cover inside St Mary the Virgin church in Denham, Buckinghamshire. Actresses Helen Mirren and Nanette Newman also attended...more

His chldren Hayley, Jonathan, and Juliet

"Theatrical to the last," remarked director and family friend Marcus Dillistone as he surveyed the inclement scene.

Not everyone was so stoic, however. "Does anyone know the way in?" mumbled a bedraggled Stephen Fry as he picked his way through the massed ranks of photographers and well-wishers assembled outside.

Few of the celebrities dallied in the downpour, though actor Robert Powell and cinematographer Jack Cardiff genially posed for snaps under their respective umbrellas.

So did the prime minister's wife Cherie Blair, to some locals' audible displeasure.

Thankfully the rain had abated by the time Sir John's coffin arrived in a horse-drawn Victorian-style hearse decked with flowers.

COMPOSURE

With grandson Crispian as one of his pallbearers (pictured above), the actor knight made his final journey into the church, followed by his children, Juliet, Hayley and Jonathan, and the rest of the family.

The mood was sombre, though thanks to the choice of opening music - You Make Me Feel So Young by Frank Sinatra - hardly funereal.

Loudspeakers broadcast the service to the onlookers outside, though a lucky few were permitted to watch the proceedings from the portico.

And some were seen to dab their eyes as Hayley fought to maintain her composure while reading What Shall We Do Tomorrow? - a poem written by her mother, Lady Mills, who was unable to attend the service due to poor health.

Parish rector Rev Adrian Hirst paid tribute to Sir John's work "which touched the lives of all of us here and the lives of millions of others who saw him over the years in theatre and in films"

Lord Attenborough was visibly moved during a heartfelt oration in which he spoke warmly, if sometimes inaudibly, about his friend and colleague "Johnny".

"We shall miss him desperately," said the 81-year-old director. "But we shall have him with us always in the deep love and unmatched joy that he has bequeathed to all of us."

With Stephen Fry reading from Ecclesiastes and Juliet Mills reading from Shakespeare, the service ran like clockwork - though not everything went exactly according to plan.

APPLAUSE

Crispian Mills, former lead singer of Britpop band Kula Shaker, had chosen to sing Forever the Best of Friends, a song from the musical Great Expectations that Sir John used to sing to his grandchildren.

Unfortunately he was not on the best of terms with his ukulele, forcing him to start again after a fumbled first verse.

But he still received a round of applause in a service filled with happy memories for Mills' army of fans.

And nowhere more so than in the reading of John Pudney's Do Not Despair for Johnny-head-in-air - the poem he memorably recites in 1945 wartime drama, The Way to the Stars

Afterwards Sir Roger Moore said he thought the funeral service was beautiful.

"How can you do justice to a life of 97 years? He was a great man," he said.

"It was a lovely ceremony," said actress Anita Harris as she stepped gingerly through the puddles afterwards.

A fitting summation of a day where the great British weather paid its own special tribute to one of Britain's acting greats.

A memorial service will be held on 30 June at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

John Mills Dvds @ amazon.co.uk
John Mills - Still Memories Book
Scott of the Antarctic Movie Review

Last Will
J O H N M I L L S

Date: 24th July 2005

He was one of Britain's most successful screen actors, starring in more than 100 films in an enviable 70-year career. But when Sir John Mills died in April at the age of 97, he left an estate worth less than Ł400,000, it was revealed yesterday..

Although he had earned a fortune over the decades, it was consumed by the crippling cost of caring for his beloved wife Mary through the Alzheimer's disease that has blighted her later life

'He was totally dedicated to Mary and she has needed 24-hour care for some time. This has meant a very substantial amount of money because the medical costs are extremely high,' a family friend said last night, as details of his will were published.

'If the amount he left seems small for a man of his stature and long career, that was the reason.'

In 2003, the couple moved from the 17th Century family mansion, Hills House in Denham, Buckinghamshire, into a modern bungalow in the same village.

While the bulk of his relatively modest estate goes to 94-year-old Mary, to whom he was married for 64 years, and his three children, his loyalty to his closest friends was also evident in his will.

Sir John insisted his personal assistant Patricia Horrocks be given Ł2,000 and a picture he painted of Weymouth in Dorset.

And one of his greatest friends away from the world of showbusiness, businessman John Casson, was left Sir John's beloved 30-year-old Rolls-Royce.

His actress daughters Hayley and Juliet Mills and his film producer son Jonathan were left shares of the estate in trust.

Funeral | Grave Gallery & Promo Photos

John Mills' Moving Memories Dvd

Lady Mills Dies
J O H N M I L L S

mills

Mary Hayley Bell, actress, writer and widow of the actor Sir John Mills, has died at 94, according to a family death notice.

Lady Mills died on 1st December, according to the notice published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday. The cause of death was not given, but she had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and was confined to a wheelchair.

The funeral will be held Thursday at St. Mary's Church at Denham, west of London, and she will be buried in the graveyard next to her husband.

Gallery
J O H N M I L L S

May 2014: Added shots of Gravesend in trying to find filming locations for the 1953 John Mills British noir classic, The Long Memory. Very difficult. See here.

Lady Mills & Sir John Graveside Photo

Mary Hayley Bell Mills (1911-2005) (left) & Sir John Mills (1908-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK
January 2006

Lady Mills & Sir John Graveside Photo

Mary Hayley Bell Mills (1911-2005) (left) & Sir John Mills (1908-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK
January 2006

Lady Mills & Sir John Mills Graveside Photo

Mary Hayley Bell Mills (1911-2005) (top) & Sir John Mills (1908-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK

(Above the graves you can make out the back of Hills House,
the home of Sir John and Lady Mills from 1975 to 2003)

January 2006

Lady Mills Graveside Photo

Mary Hayley Bell Mills (1911-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK
January 2006

Sir John Mills Graveside Photo

Sir John Mills
(1908-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK
January 2006

Sir John Mills Graveside Photo

Sir John Mills
(1908-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK
January 2006

Sir John Mills Graveside Photo

Sir John Mills
(1908-2005)
St Mary the Virgin Church, Denham, Bucks, UK
January 2006

Hills House

Hills House, Denham, Buckinghamshire
Home of Sir John Mills & Lady Mills from 1975 to 2003
Previously it was the home of Merle Oberon and her husband Sir Alexander Korda

January 2006