Oscar Profile #349: Glynis Johns

Born October 5, 1923 in Pretoria, South Africa while her Welsh parents were on tour, Glynis Johns was the daughter of actor Mervyn Johns (1899-1992) and pianist Alice Maude Steele (1901-1970).

A trained dancer, pianist and singer as well as actress, Johns made her first stage appearance as a child ballerina in London’s Garrick Theatre in 1935. She made her film debut in 1938’s South Riding and continued in British films largely unnoticed through 1941. In 1942, she married actor Anthony Forwood with whom she had her only child, actor Gareth Forwood (1945-2007). In 1943, she received excellent notices for her portrayal of a resistance fighter and martyr to the cause in The Adventures of Tartu retitled Sabotage Agent for the U.S. market. Other important roles during this period were as Deborah Kerr’s friend “Dizzy” in 1945’s Perfect Strangers AKA Vacation from Marriage and as the titled mermaid in 1948’s Miranda. She and Forwood divorced in 1948. He later became Dirk Bogarde’s manager and life partner. She would later marry three times, her last marriage ending in divorce in 1964.

1951’s No Highway in the Sky in support of James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich was an international success, resulting in Johns being brought to the U.S. to play the title role in the 1952 Broadway play Gertie. In Hollywood, she starred opposite Richard Todd in two Disney live-action features, 1953’s The Sword and the Rose and 1954’s Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue.

1955’s The Court Jester opposite Danny Kaye was her biggest hit of the decade. She also made audiences and critics alike sit up and take notice with her performances in 1957’s All Mine to Give, 1958’s Another Time, Another Place and 1959’s Shake Hand with the Devil. Her performance in 1960’s The Sundowners earned her what would be her only Oscar nomination.

In 1962, Johns received the best notices of the all-star cast of The Chapman Report playing a sexually promiscuous suburban housewife with a young stud on the side. In 1963, she was properly demure again as Jackie Gleason’s wife in Papa’s Delicate Condition and starred in the 13-episode TV series, Glynis. In 1964, she had her best-known screen role in Mary Poppins.

In 1967, she appeared as Lady Penelope Peasoup in four episodes of Batman. In 1972, she appeared in Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O’Toole. In 1973, she had her greatest stage success in A Little Night Music for which Stephen Sondheim wrote “Send in the Clowns” especially for her. The performance won her a Tony.

Much on TV in the intervening years. Johns had two memorable supporting turns in 1990s films with 1994’s The Ref and 1995’s While You Were Sleeping.

Retired since 1999, Glynis Johns lives quietly in a retirement complex in Los Angeles. She’s now 94 years old.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE COURT JESTER (1955), directed by Norman Panama, Melvin Frank

The best and most successful of Johns’ early Hollywood films was this delightful bit of nonsense about a hapless carnival performer (Danny Kaye) who masquerades as a court jester as part of a plot against an evil ruler (Cecil Parker) who has overthrown the rightful king. The complicated, but very funny plot, features Johns (as Kaye’s love interest), Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury, Mildred Natwick, Robert Middleton, Edward Ashley and many more. There are eight songs and rhymes galore including this unforgettable one which ends: “The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!”

THE SUNDOWNERS (1960), directed by Fred Zinnemann

This warm, wonderful film about a migrant family in Australia’s Outback in the early twentieth century starred Robert Mitchum as the husband and sheep herder, Deborah Kerr as the wife and farmhand cook and Michael Anderson, Jr. as their teenage son and tar boy. The terrific supporting cast is led by Johns as an extremely pleasant barmaid and innkeeper who loves men’s company and knows how to deal with them and Peter Ustinov as a highly educated but slightly mysterious Englishman. It was nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture, Actress (Kerr), Supporting Actress (Johns), Director and Adapted Screenplay.

MARY POPPINS (1964), directed by Robert Stevenson

Thirteen Oscar nominations and five wins were accorded Disney’s live-action musical comedy with minimal animation, the film that launched the screen career of Julie Andrews and gave her an Oscar of her very own. The score is by the Sherman Brothers who wrote the song “Sister Suffragette” especially for Johns to sing as the loving but often absent British mother who needs a nanny to take charge of her two children while she is out marching for women’s rights. She also gets to sing the show’s exuberant final song, “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” as she and her family learn to make it on their own.

THE REF (1994), directed by Ted Demme

This was one of the better Christmas comedies to come out of Hollywood in the last quarter century. Denis Leary had top billing as a cat burglar forced to take a dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve. Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey are the parents and Robert J. Steinmiller, Jr. the son. Johns doesn’t have much screen time as Spacey’s frighteningly funny castrating mother, but she has some of the best lines including the zinger she gives Leary when he says to her “You know what, lady? I’d like to tie you to the back of a f…ing truck.” “You haven’t got the balls.” That was Mrs. Banks thirty years on.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING (1995), directed by Jon Turteltaub

Mistaken identity drives this charming romantic comedy in which Sandra Bullock is a Chicago token collector who saves mugging victim Peter Gallagher from an oncoming train. Visiting the comatose Gallagher in the hospital, she is mistaken for his fiancée which causes all sorts of problems for Gallagher’s brother, Bill Pullman, who is falling in love with the entrancing Bullock. Peter Boyle, Jack Warden and Johns co-star. She doesn’t have much screen time, but as usual Johns makes every second count as Pullman and Gallagher’s delightfully sweet grandmother with a heart condition that doesn’t allow for a lot of excitement.