He left the army to pursue a career in acting and appeared as an extra in several British productions before getting his first major role in The Flying Scotsman (1929).

He was lent to Universal for the Deanna Durbin musical Three Smart Girls (1936), and its success led to Milland's playing the lead role in The Jungle Princess (also 1936) alongside new starlet Dorothy Lamour.

Milland appeared in many other notable films, including Easy Living (1937), Beau Geste (1939), Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor (1942), opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), The Uninvited (1944), Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear (1944), The Big Clock (1948), and The Thief (1952)—for which he was nominated for his second Golden Globe.

[3] Once Paramount Pictures' highest-paid actor, Milland co-starred alongside many of the most popular actresses of the time, including Gene Tierney, Jean Arthur, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Maureen O'Hara, Ginger Rogers, Jane Wyman, Loretta Young, and Veronica Lake.

After some unproductive extra work, which never reached the screen, he signed with a talent agent named Frank Zeitlin on the recommendation of fellow actor Jack Raine.

[11] His prowess as a marksman earned him work as an extra at the British International Pictures studio in Arthur Robison's production of The Informer (1929),[14] the first screen version of the Liam O'Flaherty novel.

Milland made a favourable impression on director Castleton Knight, and was hired for his first acting role as Jim Edwards in The Flying Scotsman (also 1929).

[16] His work on The Flying Scotsman resulted in him being granted a six-month contract over the course of which Milland starred in two more Knight-directed films, The Lady from the Sea and The Plaything (both 1929).

[23] While in this first period working in the United States, Milland met Muriel Frances Weber, whom he always called "Mal", a student at the University of Southern California.

Then, in 1933, Roosevelt's reforms to the U.S. banking sector led to a temporary weakness in the dollar, allowing Milland to afford a return to the United States.

He decided to find regular employment and through connections made during his time in the UK, he was offered the job of assistant manager of a Shell gas station on Sunset and Clark.

Paramount was filming the George Raft picture Bolero (released in February 1934), but an injury to another British actor had left the studio looking for an urgent replacement.

After completing Bolero, Milland was offered a five-week guarantee by Benjamin Glazer to work on an upcoming screwball comedy starring Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard entitled We're Not Dressing (also 1934).

During filming, he appeared in a scene with George Burns and Gracie Allen, which Milland recalls as falling into an "ad-libbed shambles" that he felt was better than the original script.

The film's director Norman Taurog was so impressed, he rang the chief production executive and suggested that Milland be placed on a long-term contract.

Milland was then in Wings over Honolulu (1937) with Wendy Barrie, and then in Easy Living (1937), a classic comedy with Jean Arthur directed by Mitchell Leisen.

[38] Milland believed that the injury left him with only 50% usage of his hand, but within weeks of the incident, he flew to Britain to star in French Without Tears.

[40] When the United States entered World War II, Milland tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Forces, but was rejected because of his impaired left hand.

[46] After the cast and crew had arrived on location in New York, Milland was allowed to spend a night in a psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, where the patients were suffering from alcoholism and delirium tremens.

[53] Milland found the initial feedback to his role congratulatory but hushed, leading him to feel that the film would bomb as a piece of cinema and would be seen as a social document.

He was one of many Paramount stars who made a cameo in Variety Girl (1947) then went to England to make So Evil My Love (1948), produced by Hal Wallis for director Lewis Allen.

[63] Milland was directed by Jacques Tourneur in RKO's Circle of Danger (1951); set in the United Kingdom, it was the only time he filmed in his home country of Wales.

Milland gave a strong performance in Close to My Heart (1951) at Warner Bros, in which he and Gene Tierney starred as a couple trying to adopt a child.

Although never admitted by either, rumours were rife at the time that Kelly and Milland were engaged in an affair, fuelled by notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.

[72] Milland then retired for six months before deciding to go back to work, commenting, "my wife told me I'd better get a job of some kind because I was making her a nervous wreck ... hanging around the house.

He enjoyed the experience, and in 1966, he took the lead role as Simon Crawford QC in the Broadway play, Hostile Witness, directed by Reginald Denham.

One was Frogs, co-starring Sam Elliott and Joan Van Ark,[82] in which Milland played a wealthy, cantankerous plantation owner who dumps waste materials in a swamp, causing an enormous disruption of nature.

(1976), The Last Tycoon (1976), Seventh Avenue (1976), Oil (1977), Testimony of Two Men (1977), The Uncanny (1977), Slavers (1977), and The Pyjama Girl Case (1978), an Italian giallo set in Australia.

[84] He reprised his role as Ryan O'Neal's father in Oliver's Story (1978) and appeared in some action films, including Spree (1979) and Game for Vultures (1979).

He was top billed in The Attic (1980), but usually had supporting roles in TV movies like The Dream Merchants (1980), Our Family Business (1981), The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982), Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (1983), Cave In!