Glynis Johns

Glynis Margaret Payne Johns (5 October 1923 – 4 January 2024) was a British actress and singer. In a career exceeding seven decades on stage and screen, Johns appeared in more than 60 films and 30 plays. She received various accolades throughout her career, including a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Laurence Olivier Award. Before her death at age 100, she was considered one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema.

Johns was born in Pretoria, then in the Union of South Africa, the daughter of Welsh actor Mervyn Johns. Raised in England from an early age, she appeared on stage from a young age and was typecast as a stage dancer from early adolescence, making her screen debut in South Riding (1938). She rose to prominence in the 1940s following her role as Anna in the war drama film 49th Parallel (1941), for which she won a National Board of Review Award for Best Acting, and starring roles in Miranda (1948) and Third Time Lucky (1949). Following No Highway in the Sky (1951), a joint British-American production, Johns took on increasingly more roles in the United States and elsewhere. She made her television and Broadway debuts in 1952 and took on starring roles in such films as The Sword and the Rose (1953), The Weak and the Wicked (1954), Mad About Men (1954), The Court Jester (1955), The Sundowners (1960), The Cabinet of Caligari (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), and Under Milk Wood (1971). On television, she starred in her own sitcom Glynis (1963).

Renowned for the breathy quality of her husky voice, Johns sang songs written specifically for her both on screen and stage, most notably "Sister Suffragette", written by the Sherman Brothers for Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), in which she played Winifred Banks and for which she received a Laurel Award, and "Send In the Clowns", composed by Stephen Sondheim for Broadway's A Little Night Music (1973), in which she originated the role of Desiree Armfeldt and for which she received a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.