Mary Hayley Bell

Mary Hayley Bell
Born	22 January 1911 Shanghai, China
Died	1 December 2005(2005-12-01) (aged 94) Chiltern, Buckinghamshire, England
Occupation	Writer, actress
Spouse	Sir John Mills (m. 1941; d. 2005)
Children	3 (Jonathan, Juliet, Hayley)

Mary Hayley Bell, Lady Mills (22 January 1911 – 1 December 2005) was an English actress and writer, married for 64 years to actor Sir John Mills. Her novel Whistle Down the Wind was adapted as a film, starring her teenaged daughter, actress Hayley Mills.

Mary Hayley Bell was born in Shanghai International Settlement, Shanghai, China, where her father, Colonel Francis Hayley Bell, served in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service with postings to various Treaty Ports, and Agnes (née McGowan). Her father, a Boer War veteran, served, from 1925-1928, as Customs Commissioner for Kowloon (within Hong Hong, although this position had no connection with the British colonial administration). During this period Mary attended school in Hong Kong and frequently spent weekends of leisure at the Commissioner's official country bungalow near Fan Ling Golf Club. The family later (1930) moved to Tianjin (then known as Tientsin). In the run-up to World War II, Francis Bell was the Defence Security Officer in Singapore in 1936 MI5; he is believed to have hunted down and executed Japanese spies by 'unorthodox methods', causing him to be sacked in 1939 despite penetrating a Japanese spy ring and learning of the Japanese plans to invade from Siam and Northern Malaya.

Mary Hayley Bell first appeared on Broadway on 9 April 1928, in the comedy Volpone. In 1935 she appeared in the film Vintage Wine. She subsequently played the part of "Miss Wingate" in the film The Shrike (1955), which starred José Ferrer and June Allyson. She recreated the same part on Broadway in 1958. She had a small uncredited role as a nursing home resident in the 1993 Eric Sykes film The Big Freeze, opposite her husband. She appeared in her son's documentary Sir John Mills' Moving Memories (2000).

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