Mary Poppins' 'bright star' Glynis Johns dies - It's a 'somber day in Hollywood'

August 21, 2024

Beloved actress from Mary Poppins, Glynis Johns, has died, at the age of 100. She was known for playing the enthusiastic and singing ‘Sister Suffragette’ Mrs Banks from the Disney classic.

Mary Poppins star Glynis Johns died peacefully at an assisted living home on Thursday, (January 4), her manager said. The Tony Award-winning actor’s cause of death is not yet known. Her manager Mitch Clem said he had a “heavy” heart after losing the “beloved star”, She was also described as shining “very brightly” throughout her life.

Mary Poppins star Glynis Johns dies

The star had just celebrated a huge milestone, her 100th birthday on October 5.

She has been hailed as one of the final major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Clem said: “Glynis powered her way through life with intelligence, wit, and a love for performance, affecting millions of lives.

“She entered my life early in my career and set a very high bar on how to navigate this industry with grace, class, and truth. Your own truth. Her light shined very brightly for 100 years.

“She had a wit that could stop you in your tracks powered by a heart that loved deeply and purely. Today is a somber day for Hollywood.”

Extensive career spanning several decades

Glynis Johns appeared in many movies and theater shows – not just Mary Poppins, the Disney classic.

She made her debut in 1938, and starred in more than 60 movies and 30 roles in the theater during her 80 years in the business. Johns was also honored through Golden Globe and an Oscar nominations.

The star was a perfectionist: “As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level. The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it. To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real.”

Many beloved fans remember her as the positive Winifred Banks, the matriarch of Mary Poppins, released in 1964, opposite Julie Andrews.

She won a Tony and Drama Desk award for her role of Desiree Armfeldt in the musical A Little Night Music in 1973. The celebrity was known for her husky singing voice.

Born in South Africa in 1923, she was raised in the UK. A woman with many talents, she picked up ballet as a young child and even began teaching the style at only 10 years old. Talent runs in the family, as her dad was actor Melvyn Johns, and her mother was concert pianist Alyce Steele-Wareham.

Four marriages and Hollywood

Her acting debut in the West End came aged eight, and she performed throughout the 1930s. In 1938, she appeared on the screen for the first time in South Riding. But it was the following decade when things really skyrocketed.

Johns appeared in more than one film each year, on average, during the 1940s.

This was also the time when she fell in love with her first husband, Anthony Forwood. They had one child together, actor Gareth Forwood, but divorced in 1948. The actress went on to marry three more times, David Foster four years later before Cecil Henderson in 1960. Then she tied the knot with Elliott Arnold in 1964.

When the 1960s rolled around, she had her own sitcom, named after her, years before Disney called Glynis Johns about Mary Poppins. She later even made a guest appearance in hit TV show Cheers.

In 1998, she was named a Disney legend, and the following year she retired.

Ahead of her 100th birthday last October, her family asked the British government to give her a damehood. However, it was never confirmed before her death.