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Glynis Johns, remembered by movie audiences as Mrs. Banks from Mary Poppins and by Broadway devotees as the first person to sing Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In The Clowns” on a national stage, died today of natural causes at an assisted living home in Los Angeles. She was 100.
Her death was announced by her publicist Mitch Clem to LA’s ABC7 and the Washington Post.
A Tony winner for her performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original 1973 Broadway cast of the Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler A Little Night Music, Johns both debuted and, due to her widespread acclaim, helped popularize what would become perhaps Sondheim’s most beloved and well-known songs with “Send In The Clowns.”
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Johns made her West End debut in 1931 at age 8 in Elmer Rice’s Judgment Day, but wouldn’t hit the Broadway stage until 1952, when she played the title role in Enid Bagnold’s play Gertie. Over the next decade she’d appear on Broadway twice again – in 1956’s Major Barbara and 1963’s Too Good To Be True – but it wasn’t until 1973, with Night Music, that she became one of the major Broadway stars of the era.
In the meantime, she made an indelible impression as Winifred Banks, the liberated, if harried, mother in desperate need of a nanny in Walt Disney’s massive hit 1964 film Mary Poppins starring Julie Andrews. As Mrs. Banks, Johns performed one of the more memorable tunes not sung by Andrews or co-star Dick Van Dyke: “Sister Suffragette.”
A complete obituary will be posted shortly…
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