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Mavis Villiers, born Mavis Clare Cooney (18 January 1911, Sydney, Australia — March 1976, Paddington, London, England), was an Australian-born British actress of stage, film and television. Her brother was Cecil Cooney, a camera operator and cinematographer. Her stage name, Villiers, was taken from her maternal grandfather. She began her career as a child film actress in Australia, but no specific credits or references can be found. After apparently being 'discovered' by Mary Pickford, her family emigrated to Hollywood in 1921, where she began a successful career as a child actress; and where she received much of her theatrical training. In 1933 she migrated again to London and began a long career in British film and theatre, as well as in television and radio. She appeared once on the American Broadway stage in 1966, in Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come!

Life and career
Mavis emigrated to the United States with her family in 1921, aged 11. The family settled in Hollywood, where her father became a technician at a film company. Both Mavis and her brother Cecil began their careers in the silent era; her first accredited film role was as 'the Girl' in a 1927 short comedy, The Bum's Rush, featuring expat Australian star Snub Pollard. Following her parents' divorce, Mavis and her mother Clara migrated to London, England, in 1933. Her brother Cecil followed at some stage; her father remained in California where he died at Ventura in 1960.

Her stage roles included that of Mrs Van Mier in the 1962 London production of Noël Coward's Sail Away at the Savoy Theatre. She was also in the cast of the 1957 West End production of Damn Yankees at the London Coliseum; this production featured Australian actor Bill Kerr as Mr. Applegate. Her sole appearance on the American Broadway stage, was in the role of Aunt Lizzy Sweeney, in the first Broadway production of Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come! at the Helen Hayes Theatre in 1966; she also played the same role in the 1975 film version of that play, her last role before her death. She had appeared in films from 1927 to 1975. Some of her more prominent film roles, that best showcase her talent, were in: The Bum's Rush (1927) starring Snub Pollard; Saloon Bar (1940) starring Gordon Harker; South American George (1941) starring George Formby; One Exciting Night (1944) starring Vera Lynn; Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) (based on Tennessee Williams' play) starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift; Victim (1961) starring Dirk Bogarde; and Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1975).

Her television appearances between 1938 and 1972, include roles in various productions, series and episodes. They include the BBC's Sunday Night Theatre, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents, The Vise, The Twilight Zone, The Saint (TV series), From a Bird's Eye View and Night Gallery.

Background
Mavis’s father John was born at Ellenborough in Cumbria north-west England, the son of an Irish family that laboured at the Solway Ironworks there. In 1887, when John was aged 5, his family emigrated to the gold-mining town of Ravenswood, Queensland, Australia. Mavis’s mother Clara was born at Ravenswood to an Anglo-Irish family; her father, Robert Villiers Smythe, was a miner and engine driver.

John Cooney followed his father to become an industrial steam engine driver at Ravenswood; following his marriage to Clara, the couple managed Messes Finlayson & Son, a refreshment rooms and fruiterer in Macrossan Street. It was at Ravenswood that their first child Cecil was born in 1906. In 1909, the extended Cooney family migrated again to Mosman on Sydney's lower North Shore, where they established a dairy and milk-vendor business, Cooney & Sons. It was here at nearby Neutral Bay that Mavis was born in December 1909.

In 1913, John left the family fold to take his family to the mountain-resort town of Katoomba, where he became the proprietor of a branch of the ‘New South Wales, Fresh Food & Ice Company’. This incorporated a dairy-food distribution business and an American style deli-confectionary shop, located opposite the Empire Picture Palace in Katoomba Street.

A short road to Hollywood
Mavis began performing at the age of 7, at eisteddfods and benefits, and in local amateur-vaudevillian productions. Her performances consisted of elocutionary recitations and ‘lilliputian song and dance'. It soon became apparent that “Little Mavis Cooney” had a rare talent, and she began to receive extraordinary praise. In reviews of her performances, she was variously described as: a little genius, a born artist, astonishing, gifted, natural, a revelation. At the age of 9, she was being trained for the professional stage by her tutor Mr Richard Allen.

In 1918, Mavis entered a ‘screen test’ competition, conducted by Sydney’s ‘The Green Room’ magazine, in conjunction with Paramount Studios; “a contest calling for both brains and beauty”. Despite her age and strong competition, Mavis was given a score of 98 out of 100, was awarded a consolation prize and was picked out for special mention.

The following year, she was invited to perform at a similar promotional event named the 'Making Movies Matinee' held at Sydney's Tivoli theatre. Following her performance, the director of the event, actor Claude Flemming, introduced her to the full house. He referred to her as having "a perfect picture face for expression in film work", and asked the audience to particularly note her facial expression.

This event was covered in the Sydney theatrical press, where it was reported that Mavis had: electrified the audience with her recitation, 'The Day', which she rendered with remarkably convincing expression; received several beautiful floral tributes and a lovely basket of flowers from the Tivoli artists; and had given an encore performance.

After this event Mavis came to the attention of Sydney's theatrical heads, and her tutor Mr Allen received several very good professional offers for his clever pupil, both in moving picture work and on the legitimate stage. It is known that Mavis began her career as a child actress in Australia, but no specific references or credits can be found.

The exact sequence of events that followed is not clear, but these events then led to Mavis coming to the personal attention of the celebrated silent screen actress and film producer Mary Pickford. In April 1921, the Cooney family travelled to the United States via Canada, arriving in the US on 5th May. On 15th September Mavis appeared in Pickford's new film Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921).

Hollywood
This began a child-actress experience in Hollywood for Mavis that lasted 12 years. The following year she appeared in Pickford's next film, Tess of the Storm Country (1922). In an interview given to an English newspaper in 1939, Mavis said that she (Pickford) took a fancy to me; we lived near to to her Studio and she asked me if I would like to watch her making pictures; she gave me my first job in Hollywood.

The Cooney family settled in Hollywood, where her father became a technician at a film company; her brother Cecil began his career as a Camera Operator, working at MGM studios. They lived on Cahuenga Boulevard and owned their own home. Curiously, her father John became a key player in the Los Angeles cricket club team. Mavis finished her education at the Marta Catman School, and furthered her theatre training and performance skills at the Pasadena Playhouse and the Little Theatre of Beverly Hills.

Most of Mavis's activities as an actress in Hollywood are uncredited, undocumented, or lost. She was playing such things as leading-lady roles in Western movies when she was 14. One credited role is as the 'the Girl' in the 1927 short comedy, The Bums Rush, featuring expat Australian star Snub Pollard. In a letter sent to a friend back in Katoomba on the occasion of Rudolph Valentino's death in 1926, Mavis refers to him in familiar terms: Rudy.... Her last documented film role in Hollywood was the silent role of Selma in the musical A lady's Morals (1930), the story of Jenny Lind, 'The Swedish Nightingale'.

Following her parents divorce, Mavis and her mother Clara migrated to London, England, in 1933. Her brother Cecil followed at some stage; her father remained in California where he died at Ventura in 1960.

Marriage and death
Mavis met her future husband, Captain Donald E. Miller, at the American Eagle Club in Charing Cross Road, London, in 1941. The club was one not dissimilar to that depicted in her film One Exciting Night; and Mavis was working at the club at that time. Donald was a Pilot Officer in the American Eagle Squadrons attached to the Royal Air Force. He was subsequently shot down over Germany and taken prisoner for two years until released on VE day in 1945. The couple were married in London on 16 June 1945 and planned to settle in the United States after Mavis had completed a contractual obligation to appear in a French film, Le Battalion du ciel (1946). Before they could be reunited, Donald, now working for Pan-American Airways in San Francisco, died from injuries sustained in a car accident on 4 April 1946, nine months after their marriage. The union was childless and Mavis never remarried. Mavis died from pneumonia at her Paddington flat in 1976, aged 65.