| Variations of Name | Glynis Margaret Payne Johns |
| Biography | Glynis Johns is a British retired actress, dancer, musician and singer. In a career spanning spanning eight decades on stage and screen she appeared in more than 60 films and 30 plays. She has received various accolades throughout her career, including a Tony Award, and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for a Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award. She is known as being one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema. In 2020 Johns became the oldest living Academy Award nominee in any acting category.
Johns made several appearances on stage throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s. Her family returned to the United Kingdom, where she was educated in London and Bristol. She was hailed for her dancing skills and typecast as a stage dancer from early adolescence, making her screen debut in 1938 with the film adaptation of Winifred Holtby's posthumous novel South Riding. 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).
Her first Hollywood role was in No Highway in the Sky (1951), and continued acting in 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). She made her Broadway debut in Gertie (1952). She later originated the role of Desiree Armfeldt in the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music (1973) for which she sang "Send In the Clowns" and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She acted in Walt Disney's musical film of Mary Poppins (1964) where she sang "Sister Suffragette". |