Spoli Mills; Actress daughter of Mischa Spoliansky
Hyfler/Rosner
Spoli Mills
Actress daughter of Mischa Spoliansky
07 April 2004
Irmgard Spoliansky, actress: born Berlin 5 September
1923; married 1944 Tony Kelly (died 1953; one son), 1956
Major Paul Mills (died 1997; one son); died London 11 March
2004.
Spoli Mills was a one-time actress, a confidante and friend
to such diverse celebrities as Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner
and Dame Edna Everage, and the eldest daughter of the
distinguished composer Mischa Spoliansky.
In her later life, Mills devoted much of her time to
creating the definitive indexed catalogue of her father's
work. Many of his original film scores, including North West
Frontier (1959) and Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957), she
donated to the music department at York University. Other
material was given to the Berlin Academy of Arts. She was
instrumental in reviving Spoliansky's 1931 musical comedy
Send for Mr Plim at the Battersea Arts Centre in 1999; it
was warmly received and has since been restaged at theatres
throughout Europe, including a production at the Covent
Garden Festival in 2000 and a broadcast in 2001 on BBC Radio
3. But Mills's proudest moment was in unearthing and editing
Spoliansky's autobiography, which he had haphazardly been
writing in fits and starts for some 20 years. Shortly before
her death, she learned that a German publisher will bring
the book out this summer and an English translation is set
to follow.
She was born Irmgard Spoliansky in Berlin in 1924 - she
hated the name Irmgard, and would answer only to "Spoli".
With the rise of Hitler Mischa Spoliansky, who had already
been forced to flee his native Russia, had to take refuge
yet again and in 1933 the family moved to England. Almost
immediately he was taken up by the flamboyant film-maker
Alexander Korda and commissioned to write the scores of
Sanders of the River and The Ghost Goes West (both 1935) for
London Films.
While still a schoolgirl at Sarum Hall in north-west London,
Spoli would accompany her father to the studios where her
pretty blonde looks resulted in walk-on parts in several
films. The Hungarian-born Korda decided that the German-born
teenager was a "typical English rose". This slightly bemused
her family and they were even more perplexed when she was
given her first role - in The Thief of Bagdad (1940). "I
think it was the first time I heard the phrase 'identity
crisis'," she said later.
A brief period followed as a nurse during the early years of
the Second World War, a calling she managed to double up
with appearances in amateur stage productions. "As a nurse I
was an unmitigated disaster," she admitted. "I passed out
when I assisted at my first operation. And the poor chap was
only in for an impacted wisdom tooth."
Her imperfect English proved a blessing when she landed a
major role with the Viennese actor and fellow refugee Anton
Walbrook in a West End production of Lillian Hellman's Watch
on the Rhine in 1942. The piece ran for many years at the
Aldwych Theatre. It was during this time that Spoli met Tony
Kelly, a dashing RAF bomber pilot who was to become her
first husband.
Their courtship was cut short when Kelly was posted to
India. Communication would have been all but impossible had
it not been for General Bernard Montgomery, later Field
Marshal Montgomery of Alamein, who went backstage at the
Aldwych one evening to meet the cast. He revealed he was
going to India and was there anything he could take there
for anyone? Spoli gave him a letter, which was duly
delivered. "I am convinced this is what clinched the
marriage," she said later. "Tony must have reasoned if I
could get field marshals to run errands for me then he was
on to a good thing."
Tony Kelly returned from the war a squadron leader and Spoli
now devoted her life to being wife and mother; their son
Christopher was born in 1947. This idyllically happy
marriage ended tragically when Kelly, working as an
assistant director on the Dana Andrews film Duel in the
Jungle (1954), disappeared while shooting second-unit
footage along the Zambesi in Rhodesia. When the boat
overturned, the other two crew members were able to swim to
safety but Kelly, although the strongest swimmer of them
all, disappeared in the water. It is thought he was trying
to save the camera equipment and many theories were offered
for the disappearance - the most fearful being that he had
been taken by crocodiles. No body was ever found.
Spoli's second husband was Major Paul Mills, who had fought
with distinction at Monte Cassino, where he had been
severely wounded. On leaving the Army, he took a job in
charge of publicity and public relations for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at their studios in Borehamwood,
Hertfordshire. They married in 1956 and from then until his
death in 1997, their London home became open house for
guests from around the world. Many were Mischa Spoliansky's
fellow exiles from Germany and Austria, among them the
actors Conrad Veidt, Paul Henreid, Albert Lieven and the
tenor Richard Tauber, whom Spoliansky had accompanied at the
piano in happier days. Paul Robeson was another welcome
face.
One of the most frequent visitors was the actress Marlene
Dietrich, who had begun her career as a violinist
accompanied by Spoliansky in the early days of Berlin
cabaret. He had written several of her songs. As her
health - and fortunes - declined, she was unable to leave
her Paris home so, every other week, Spoli Mills would fly
out to her house on the Avenue Montaigne bearing food, gifts
and what Dietrich prized most - news from the outside world.
A great friend to the end was Barry Humphries, creator of
Dame Edna Everage and a long-time admirer of her father. So
was the actor Roger Lloyd Pack, whose mother had been a
fellow refugee.
In 1955 Paul Mills went to India to work on the George Cukor
film Bhowani Junction and a new name was added to their
guest list - Ava Gardner. The Hollywood star and Spoli
became particularly close friends and confidantes. "So
confidante," Spoli said, "it was bloody alarming on
occasions." Among her possessions was a box of letters from
Gardner, which would have any tabloid journalist foaming at
the mouth, particularly the letters covering the Sinatra
years. Spoli's younger son, Gregory, remembers Ava Gardner
with affection. When she stayed overnight unexpectedly, she
would regularly share his bed. Though he was only four at
the time, this gave him a certain notoriety among the
kindergarten chattering classes.
One of Spoli Mills's favourite anecdotes concerned the day
she was returning home and found her eccentric father
standing, rather sheepishly, in the subway at Hyde Park
Corner. On the ground beside him was a flat cap containing a
few coins. When she asked what he thought he was doing, he
explained that the harmonica player who usually stood there
had gone for a drink and he was keeping an eye on the pitch.
"But why you?" his daughter pressed.
"He's a fellow musician," her father replied.
Bill Edwards