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MARY HAYLEY BELL was born in Shanghai where her father served in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and spent much of her youth in the Far East. She made her stage debut in Shanghai as Henrietta in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, and then came to London where she appeared with Seymour Hicks, before going on an Australian tour with Fay Compton and Michael Wilding. In 1941 she married John Mills, the actor and producer. That marriage lasted 64 years until his death on April 23, 2005. They had three children together.Mary Hayley Bell wrote four plays: Men in Shadow (1942), Angel (1947), Duet for Two Hands (1945) and The Uninvited Guest (1953). She wrote the novel Whistle Down the Wind (1961), co-wrote the screenplay and story of Sky West and Crooked (1966) (released as Gypsy Girl in the United States) and wrote additional dialogue for Scott of the Antarctic (1948). Whistle Down the Wind was made into a film in 1961 (starring daughter Hayley Mills) and an Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical in which Bell's original story and characters are considerably altered.
