LONDON: British actor Sir John Mills, who won an Oscar in 1971 for his portrayal of a mute village idiot in ‘Ryan’s Daughter’, died on Saturday aged 97, a trustee for his estate said. “Sir John died this morning at 6:30. He’d been ill for about a month with a chest infection,” the trustee said. Mills made his name in patriotic films during and after World War II including

‘The October Man’, ‘Scott of the Antarctic’, ‘Dunkirk’ and ‘Ice Cold in Alex’. His first break came in 1946, when he played Pip in a film version of Charles Dickens’ novel ‘Great Expectations’. Mills, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1977, was divorced from his first wife, the actress Aileen Raymond, in 1940 after nine years of marriage. — Agencies