On January 4th, British actress Glynis Johns passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 100 due to natural causes. The news was shared by her manager of 25 years, who posted on Facebook about her passing.
According to the New York Times, Johns’s parents were both artists. Her mother was an Australian pianist, and her father was a Welsh actor. They were both on tour when she was born on October 5, 1992, in Pretoria, South Africa. Johns grew up in the UK, and had been in the entertainment industry since a very young age, making her stage debut at the age of 12. From then on, she participated in many plays. At around the age of 15, she made her film debut in a movie titled South Riding.
Johns attended London Ballet School from the age of five, and she even got a degree to teach dance by the age of 10 according to the waltdisneycompany.com. She is perhaps best known for playing the iconic role of an enthusiastic suffragette mother, Winifred Banks, in Mary Poppins (1964). In the movie, she sang “Sister Suffragette,” a protest song written for her by the Sherman brothers. Johns earned many accolades including awards such as the Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award. She was also nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award.
Johns’s career was at its peak throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including her role as Anna in the war drama film 49th Parallel (1941) for which she received a National Board of Review Award for Best Acting. In 1951, she made her Hollywood screen debut in No Highway in the Sky. In 1960, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs. Firth in The Sundowners.
As stated in broadwayworld.com, later in 1973, she appeared in a Broadway performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original cast of A Little Night Music. At the time, she was 49 and on the verge of her fourth divorce. She sang “Send in the Clowns,” a song written for her by Stephen Sondheim in which she received a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for the best performance on the stage.
Johns also made TV series appearances in shows such as Batman, Murder She Wrote, Cheers, as well as in her own TV sitcom, Glynis. Her last movie appearances included the role of Rose in The Ref (1994), Elsie in While You Were Sleeping (1995), and Grandma in the Superstar (1999). Be it on stage or in a film, Johns’ incredible work as an actress has and will continue to inspire and deeply impact countless people.
