John Mills, 1908 - 2005.

Sir John Mills, one of Britain's best-known and best-loved actors, has died at the age of 97. He starred in more than 100 films since the early 1930s including Great Expectations, War and Peace, and Ryan's Daughter - for which he won an Oscar.

The BBC.

There was nobody comparable really who gave such a variety of absolutely impeccable performances. He never stopped work - work was everything. He was immensely proud of his profession and he brought great honor to it.

Richard Attenborough.

He's 95, you know, and he said, "Oh, this film you're doing, is there a part in it for me?" And I said, "Oh, gosh. Now that you mention it, there is. There's an old man, it's very small, it's not a speaking part," and he said, "Oh good, I'm 95, I don't want to learn lines at all." And I explained what happens, snorting cocaine at a party, and he said, "Oh good, my first coke movie."

Stephen Fry, talking to Sean Axmaker just last year.

Updates: In the Observer, David Smith and Anushka Asthana; and Philip French: "To anyone born before the Second World War, Mills is part of their experience of British life as they grew up."

In the Telegraph, Chris Hastings and Roya Nikkah; and Stephen Fry: "He really was one of the last of a certain kind of Englishman: modest, honourable and unconcerned with vanity or ego.... For 20 or 30 years, he was cinema's only authentic British leading man."

In the Independent, Helen McCormack: "Perhaps more than any other of his performances, Sir John Mills will be remembered for his role as a village mute in Ryan's Daughter."

In the New York Times, Robert D McFadden: "Sir John delivered touching, restrained performances that caught cherished notions of what it meant to be a Briton - self-effacing, decent, sentimental, even mawkish, but reliable, cool under fire, the ordinary seaman who pins down a German battleship, the schoolmaster-turned-RAF pilot."

In the Guardian, John Patterson: "I've rented Ice Cold in Alex and Tiger Bay to watch later tonight in honour of Sir John. I'll be doing it alone - it feels like an utterly private, quintessentially English eccentricity - but I know I'll be ecstatically happy every minute of the way."

Posted by dwhudson at April 23, 2005 2:12 PM