Glynis Johns, actress who played Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins, dies aged 100

Actress Glynis Johns, best known for her role as Mrs Winifred Banks in the 1964 film Mary Poppins, has died aged 100.

Johns, whose career spanned more than 60 years, died from natural causes at an assisted living facility in the Los Angeles area, her manager, Mitch Clem, said.

“My heart is heavy today with the passing of my beloved client Glynis Johns,” Mr Clem said in a statement.

“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 sombre day for Hollywood. Not only do we mourn the passing of our dear Glynis, but we mourn the end of the golden age of Hollywood.”

A member of a show business family, Johns was born on 5 October, 1923 in South Africa while her Welsh parents were performing there, and took to acting as a child.

A veteran of stage and film, she won a Tony Award in 1973 for her role in the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music and was nominated for an Oscar for the 1960 film The Sundowners.

She was best known her role in Mary Poppins as Winifred Banks, the distracted suffragette mother who seems to care more about her cause than her two children.

Blending music and fantasy, Mary Poppins stands as one of the most popular films of Walt Disney, with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in the starring roles backed by key contributions from Johns and David Tomlinson as her rigid banker husband.

Donning a blue dress with white gloves, a straw hat and a sash with the slogan “Votes for Women” on it, Johns performed the song Sister Suffragette, declaring, “we’re clearly soldiers in petticoats, and dauntless crusaders for women’s votes.”

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The movie was nominated for 13 Oscars and won five. Andrews, as the nanny who flies with the help of an umbrella and brings together the family, won as best actress.

Johns also played a flirtatious mermaid in Miranda (1948), going on to appear in dual roles in the 1954 mermaid sequel, Mad About Men (1954).

She said she had no problem with the mermaid outfit. “I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine. I swam like a porpoise,” Johns told Newsday in 1998.

She was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role as a hotel keeper in the Australian-set adventure The Sundowners alongside Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov.

Johns was an accomplished stage actress as well. Sondheim penned the bittersweet song Send in the Clowns especially for Johns, who sang it in the original Broadway production of A Little Night Music.

“I always said that ‘Send in the Clowns’ was the best gift I was ever given,” she said.

She also made frequent TV appearances, starring in a short-lived US sitcom Glynis in 1963, and even played a villain, Lady Penelope Peasoup, in the popular Batman series.

Her last acting role was in the 1999 film Superstar starring Molly Shannon and Will Ferrell.

She had one son, Gareth Forwood, from the first of her four marriages, with the actor Anthony Forwood.

Gareth built his own acting career before dying in 2007 aged 62 from a heart attack, having been diagnosed with cancer.

Additional reporting by Reuters