In Brief:
), appeared in more than 100 motion pictures and dozens of stage plays and television programs during a career that spanned some seven decades. His ability to portray "everyman" characters sincerely and believably-especially humble, decent military officers-endeared him to audiences and made him one of Britain's best-loved performers. Seeking a career in the theatre, Mills moved to London when he was 19, took a sales job to pay his expenses, and studied tap dancing. Noel Coward saw a production, was impressed with Mills's talent, and soon was casting him in his revues and plays. Mills enlisted in the Royal Engineers at the beginning of World War II, but by 1942 an ulcer had caused him to be declared unfit for service, and he began his long string of stiff-upper-lip war-hero roles, among them one that Coward wrote especially for him-Shorty Blake in the classic In Which We Serve (1942), in which his daughter Juliet also appeared, as Blake's baby.
