Glynis Johns, the actress who played Mrs Banks in 1964 film Mary Poppins, has died.
The British actress, born in South Africa, was 100 years old.
Her manager said she died on Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes.
Mitch Clem said: “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood. She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.”
Johns is best known for appearing in Mary Poppins, in which she played suffragette Mrs Winifred Banks, the mother who reconnects with her children thanks to Julie Andrews’ magical nanny.
Her star turn in the classic film included a performance of the rousing song “Sister Suffragette”.
Wearing a blue dress with white gloves, a straw a hat and a ‘Votes for Women’ sash, Johns sings: “We’re clearly soldiers in petticoats and dauntless crusaders for women’s votes.”
Mary Poppins won five Oscars from 13 nominations and remains one of the most enduringly popular movies made by Walt Disney.
Throughout her decades-spanning career, Johns took on multi-faceted roles and became known for being a perfectionist.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level,” she said in 1990. “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.”
Johns played Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, for which she won a Tony in 1973 for Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” – but lost the part in the film version to Elizabeth Taylor.
Glynis Johns in 1982. Pic: AP
Sondheim wrote “Send in the Clowns” to suit Johns’ distinctive, husky voice and she later said: “I’ve had other songs written for me, but nothing like that. It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever been given in the theatre.”
In 1960, she was nominated for an Oscar for the film The Sundowners.
Her final acting role was in the 1999 film Superstar, starring Molly Shannon and Will Ferrell.
Johns had one son, who died in 2007.
