Mary Poppins actor Glynis Johns has died aged 100
Actor and singer Glynis Johns has died at the age of 100.
Johns is best known for her role in Mary Poppins as Mrs Banks, as well as her performance of the song 'Send in the Clowns'.
The Tony-winning actor passed away peacefully at her home in Los Angeles, her manager has confirmed.
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No cause of death has been given.
In a statement, Johns' manager Mitch Clem said it makes today a 'sombre day for Hollywood'.
Mr Clem told PA news agency: “Glynis powered her way through life with intelligence, wit, and a love for performance, affecting millions of lives,” he said. “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.”
Johns celebrated her 100th birthday in October, and was considered to be one of the last living major stars from the golden age of Hollywood.
Mr Clem added: “Not only do we mourn the passing of our dear Glynis, but we mourn the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood”.
She is best known for her role as the suffragette Mrs Banks in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. On stage she also sang 'Send in the Clowns' in the musical A Little Night Music in 1973, which earned her a Tony and Drama Desk Award.
In 1991 she returned to the show playing Madame Armfeldt, the mother of her original character.
She told the Los Angeles Times at the time: "I’m not going to play Peter Pan again. I’m happy to get on to another role.
"There’s no point in acting at my age unless I’m going to feel that I’m stretching – or unless [I were] getting a million bucks a day."
Making her debut in 1938, Johns appeared in 60 films and more than 30 plays in a career on stage and screen spanning eight decades.
She was born in South Africa in 1923 to actor Melvyn Johns and concert pianist Alyce Steele-Wareham, and made her theatre debut at the tender age of just three weeks.
Raised in the UK she showed an early aptitude for ballet, which she began teaching at the age of just ten.
She was famed as a perfectionist in her craft, saying: “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.”
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Kit Roberts