Still memories - John Mills

The amazing John Mills, although with failing eyesight and partially deaf, continued to work right up to the end of his life - with a cameo performance in Stephen Fry's film, BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS. And this year he was appearing as a tramp in a short film, called LIGHTS2.

Lewis Ernest Watts Mills was born on February 22nd, 1908 at the Watts Naval training academy in Norfolk.When he was twelve years old his father, Lewis Mills, gave him his first camera, a Kodak Box Brownie and they went down to the beach at Great Yarmouth to take his first photograph.It was September 21st, 1920.79 years later he is still taking pictures.

Still Memoriesis, first of all, an intimate look at his family, his wife Mary Hayley Bell and his three children, Juliet, Hayley and Jonathan.Second of all it is a testament to his art as a photographer.If he hadn't been an actor it is quite obvious that he could have had a successful career as a cameraman.Thirdly,Still Memoriesis the extraordinary record of a man's life and his career during the golden age of the cinema and theatre.All of this made all the more poignant due to the near total loss of his eyesight in the last two years.

Rarely has a man had a life so full of photographic memories, a life so rewarding, with close friends such as Noel Coward, Laurence Olivier, Vivian Lee, Rex Harrison, David Niven, James Mason, Frank Sinatra, David Lean, Walt Disney, Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Montgomery Cliff, Richard Attenborough, Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, Tyrone Power, John Gielgud, the list goes on and on.