Actress and singer Glynis Johns died at the age of 100 in a retirement home in Los Angeles, her manager Mitch Clem announced Thursday, January 4. She was best known for the role of Mrs. Winifred Banks in the 1964 Disney comedy Mary Poppins.
“Today is a sad day for Hollywood,” his manager said. “She’s the last of the last of old Hollywood,” he added.
The South African and British actress has appeared in thirty-five films and series in a 59-year career, according to Allociné. She was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for Horizons Without Borders, released in 1960, starring Robert Mitchum.
” The greatest gift “
Her biggest success was her role as Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, for which she won a Tony Award – the drama equivalent of the Oscars – in 1973. In this musical she performed Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim.
This song “is the greatest gift that has ever been given to me in the theater,” declared the woman whose role was taken over by Elizabeth Taylor for the 1977 film version. But Glynis Johns returned to the stage to play Desiree Armfeldt during the revival of the play in Los Angeles in 1991.
Glynis Johns was the fourth generation of an English theater family. Her father, Mervyn Johns, had a long career as an actor and her mother was a pianist. She was born in Pretoria, South Africa, where her parents were on tour at the time of her birth.
She said she chose her roles based on their complexity. “I’m not interested in playing a single-level role,” she told the Associated Press in 1990.