Glynis Johns, of Mary Poppins and A Little Night Music, Dies at 100
(© Martha Swope/New York Public Library for the Performing Arts)obit
Glynis Johns, known to audiences as Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins and the Tony-winning original Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, has died at the age of 100.
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Johns was one of the last remaining stars of cinema’s Golden Age. A fourth-generation performer from a family of artists, she made her screen debut at the age of 15 in South Riding, and earned a National Board of Review Award for her performance in the Powell and Pressburger war film 49th Parallel in 1941.
Johns made her Broadway debut as the title character in the short-lived Enid Bagnold play Gertie in 1952. She had acted onstage for years before that, making her West End debut at the age of 8 in 1931 in Elmer Rice’s Judgment Day. Before reaching adulthood, she had been seen in The Children’s Hour and several other productions throughout the United Kingdom. On Broadway, she also starred in Major Barbara, Too Good to Be True, and The Circle.
Her most famous roles were Winnifred Banks, the “Sister Suffragette” of Disney’s Mary Poppins, and the glamorous actor Desiree in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s A Little Night Music, where she debuted the soon-to-be hit song “Send in the Clowns.” In addition to her Tony, Johns won a Drama Desk Award for her performance. Her career came full-circle in 1991 when she played Madame Armfeldt in a Los Angeles production of A Little Night Music at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.
An Oscar nominee for The Sundowners, Johns’s résumé counts nearly 60 films over the course of her career, from The Thief of Baghdad to While You Were Sleeping and Superstar, where she played Grandmother to Molly Shannon’s Mary Catherine Gallagher. That was her last film role. She played Diane’s mother on Cheers, guested on Dr. Kildare, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote, and briefly had a self-titled crime drama series in the 1960s.
Johns turned 100 on October 5, 2023, and had been living at the Belmont Village Hollywood Heights, near the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. With the passing of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, she became the oldest living Academy Award nominee, and following the death of Betty White in 2021, the oldest living Disney Legend. She was predeceased by all four of her husbands, as well as her son Gareth Forwood, who died in 2007.
