Alec Mills, Cinematographer on ‘The Living Daylights’ and ‘Licence to Kill,’ Dies at 91

Alec Mills, who served as a camera operator on five James Bond films before graduating to cinematographer on the Timothy Dalton-starring The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, has died. He was 91.

Mills died Monday, his son, Simon Mills, announced. He battled dementia and was living in an assisted care home in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, he said.

For 007 movies, Mills operated a camera on Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Lewis Gilbert’s The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), and John Glen’s For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983).

Glen then made him his director of photography on the only two Bond films to star Dalton, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), with the latter shooting mostly at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City.

Mills also was a camera operator on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1969), Roman Polanski’s Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), Gulliver’s Travels (1973), John Guillermin’s Death on the Nile (1978) and Richard Marquand’s Eye of the Needle (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1982).

Born in London on May 10, 1932, Mills said he and his friends used to sneak into movie theaters, but that ended when the kids got caught. “My parents were questioned by the police, leaving Dad to read the riot act to me, but this incident was a clue to where my future lay,” he said in an undated interview.

He worked for three years as a clapper and loader at Carlton Hill Studios on films like Joseph Losey’s The Sleeping Tiger (1954) before entering the British Navy for his national service, then was a focus puller on Swiss Family Robinson (1960) and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).

Mills’ first major production as a camera operator came in 1966 on the ITV series The Saint, starring future Bond actor Roger Moore. His work as the cinematographer on the 10-part 1984-85 South African miniseries Shaka Zulu convinced 007 producer Albert Broccoli he had what it took to move up to D.P. on The Living Daylights, he said.

Mills helped found the Guild of British Technicians in 1978 and served on the board of governors of the British Society of Cinematographers from 1998-2009. The BSC said in a statement that “he will be remembered [as] a kind, warm and generous man who gave his time freely and always offered encouragement.”

Mills also taught at the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield, England, and wrote the 2014 book Shooting 007: And Other Celluloid Adventures, complete with a foreword from Moore.

Survivors include his wife, Suzy, an assistant director whom he married in 1977.

Rhett Bartlett contributed to this report.