The tradition of communal sing-alongs around a piano, the sort of entertainment that made Mrs. Mills a household name during the 1960s, stretches back hundreds of years. From the moment the instrument first appeared, audiences had gathered to join in on the “Old Joanna,” and the style enjoyed renewed commercial success in the 1950s through the hit recordings of Winifred Atwell and Russ Conway. Mrs. Mills arrived on the scene in the early 1960s. Born Gladys Jordan in Beckton, East London, on 29 August 1918, she married Bert Mills and relocated with him to Loughton in Essex. By day she supervised the typing pool at the Paymaster General’s office in London; after hours and on weekends she performed as the honky-tonk pianist with the semi-professional dance band the Astorians at local functions throughout the county. A theatrical agent and talent scout noticed her at one of these engagements, held at the Woodford Golf Club, and recognized an opening in the market that her style could fill. The scout arranged an introduction to manager Eric Easton, who oversaw her recordings and issued her debut single, “Mrs. Mills Medley,” on the Parlophone label in 1961—the same imprint that had recently enjoyed success with the nostalgic act the Temperance Seven. The single, a piano medley comprising “I Want to Be Happy,” “The Sheik of Araby,” “Baby Face,” “Somebody Stole My Gal,” “Ma He’s Making Eyes at Me,” “Swanee,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” and “California Here I Come,” reached number 18 and became the first Top 20 piano medley since Russ Conway’s Christmas 1959 entry.
Her cheerful public persona suited television and live appearances alike, prompting her to leave her civil-service post and devote herself entirely to touring and performing. Although popular music was evolving rapidly and Parlophone now also counted the Beatles among its roster, she continued to record for the next fifteen years, producing nearly forty albums at Abbey Road Studios. Her repertoire spanned standards such as “On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep,” “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” “Camptown Races,” “Knees Up Mother Brown,” “Carolina in the Morning,” “I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time,” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” alongside more recent numbers including “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Yellow Submarine,” “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Old Oak Tree.” Four of those albums entered the U.K. charts between 1964 and 1971, each appearing during the Christmas season; the highest-placing was Come to My Party, which reached number 17 in 1964.
The albums themselves became known for their vividly colored and playfully staged cover photographs. Look Mum, No Hands (1967) showed Gladys astride a horse; I’m Mighty Glad (1966) placed her head on a cardboard cut-out of a swimsuit-clad figure; Your One and Only Mrs. Mills (1967) depicted her as a housemaid wielding a feather duster; Another Flippin’ Party (1972) captured her among the penguins at Chessington Zoo; and What a Wonderful Party and Jumbo Party featured her with chimpanzees and an elephant, respectively. Gladys Mills, who openly acknowledged weighing under sixteen stone, once remarked, “People tell me laughing makes you fat. So I’m fat.” She suffered a fatal heart attack at her home on 24 February 1978.
