Actress and singer Glynis Johns died at the age of 100 in a retirement home in Los Angeles, her manager Mitch Clem announced on Thursday, January 4. She was particularly known for the role of Mme Winifred Banks in comedy Mary Poppins from Disney, in 1964.
“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 her fifty-nine year career, according to Allocinated. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Horizons without borders, released in 1960 notably with Robert Mitchum.
” The greatest gift “
Her biggest success was her role as Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Musicfor which she won a Tony Award – the equivalent of the Oscars for dramatic art – in 1973. In this musical, she plays Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim.
This song “is the greatest gift anyone has ever given me to the theater”declared the one 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. His father, Mervyn Johns, had a long career as an actor and his 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 admitted to the Associated Press agency in 1990.