By Brenda June Temple

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Glynis Margaret Payne Johns (5 October 1923 – 4 January 2024) was a British actress. In a career spanning eight 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. She was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema.

Johns was born in Pretoria, South Africa, the daughter of Welsh actor Mervyn Johns. 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 (1972). 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, including “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.

In 1967, she appeared in four episodes of the Batman television series as villainess Lady Penelope Peasoup, one half of the evil duo with Rudy Vallée as her brother Lord Marmaduke Ffogg.

With the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, Johns became the oldest living Academy Award nominee in any acting category. In 2021, with the death of Betty White, she became the oldest living Disney Legend.

Johns retired to the US, where she later resided at the Belmont Village Hollywood Heights, a senior living community, located near the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California.

Glynis Johns died in Los Angeles at an assisted living home, on 4 January 2024, aged 100.