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Glynis Johns, most known for playing the high-spirited Mrs. Winifred Banks in Disney’s Mary Poppins, has died. She was 100 years old. Johns’ publicist, Mitch Clem, told ABC Eyewitness News that the legendary actor died of natural causes on Thursday, January 4. She was living in an assisted living facility. Before she played the suffragette in the 1964 Julie Andrews classic, Johns starred in another Disney film called The Sword and the Rose. She was named a Disney Legend in 1998 alongside Mary Poppins co-star Dick Van Dyke. Andrews was named one in 1991, with David Tomlinson (Mr. George Banks) being added in 2002 and Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber (Jane and Michael Banks) being added in 2004. With the death of Betty White in 2021, Johns became the oldest living Disney Legend. With the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, she became the oldest living Oscar nominee for acting. Karen Dotrice, Glynis Johns, Matthew Garber, David...

Glynis Johns, the upbeat leading lady with the British charm who starred as the spirited feminist mother Winifred Banks in Mary Poppins, has died. She was 100.

Johns lived in West Hollywood and died Thursday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in the area, her manager, Mitch Clem, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A multitalented actress, dancer, pianist and singer, Johns earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for playing the widowed saloon and hotel owner Mrs. Firth in Fred Zinnemann’s Australia-set The Sundowners (1960).

Plus, she memorably sang “Send in the Clowns,” which Stephen Sondheim wrote just for her, in her Tony Award-winning performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original 1973 production of A Little Night Music.

The husky voiced Johns was nominated for a Golden Globe for portraying a daffy older socialite who is stirred by the young stud she meets on the beach in a then-controversial film about sex,...

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between.

Today we talk about the great Marion Davies! One of the most famous starlets of the 1920s and 1930s, Davies’ legacy is heavily overshadowed by her pseudo-portrayal in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. As Amanda Seyfried’s impressive turn as Davies in the David Fincher film Mank (which has gotten mixed reviews over at The Film Stage) makes its rounds in the awards circuit, Conor and I join forces with the uber-talented film writer Emily Kubincanek to discuss the actress’ lesser-known roles. Namely, When Knighthood Was in Flower, The Red Mill, and Cain and Mabel.

We talk about the heavy meta-elements of Seyfried playing Davies, the gifts and curses that came with Davies’ decades-long relationship with William Randolph Hearst,...

Amanda Seyfried is a fan of old school movies and classic Hollywood. Considering the Mank star has been acting since she was a teenager, this isn’t a surprise. In her mind it’s a prerequisite, something that comes with the territory: each young actor is obligated to “study film on the job” when starting out. So she’s seen Citizen Kane, of course, and knew the stories of Orson Welles’ masterpiece taking on newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. And yet, even she was barely aware of Marion Davies, the once popular movie star from a century ago whose image Kane left like roadkill in its wake.

Perhaps that’s the dark magic of the movies though. Seyfried can recount early memories of Davies’ contemporaries like Charlie Chaplin, who loomed large in her childhood. But the shadows cast by these legends have a way of obscuring everything else.

“I grew...

Founded in 1998, O Som e a Furia is one of Portugal’s leading production companies, and has produced works by Portuguese auteurs such as Miguel Gomes, Ivo Ferreira, Sandro Aguilar, and João Nicolau.

Owned by Luís Urbano and Sandro Aguilar, the company has developed a clear editorial line dedicated to Portuguese and foreign auteurs who develop films with crossover potential that can succeed on the international festival circuit.

Over the past two decades the company has worked with a consistent group of directors and has developed a network of regular co-production partners, in particular in France, Germany, Brazil and Switzerland.

Urbano says that one of his key contributions is at a curatorial level: “We aim to work with directors who have a distinctive point of view and to evolve with them over their careers. In the case of a new director, I can help them create a distinctive mark.”

In...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. João Nicolau's John From (2015), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from May 12 - June 11, 2017 as a Special Discovery.How can we begin to explain why João Nicolau is such a charming oddity in a Portuguese film scene that seems to thrive on individuality and personality? You do not mess with Colonel Tapioca lightly, as someone says at some point in John From, Nicolau’s second feature: the reference is both to a character from the adventures of Tintin and to a Spanish “adventure wear” brand that was very popular in Portugal in the 1990s. Nicolau’s films are full of these little rabbit holes that enrich the tales he’s spinning and sometimes make it seem as if you’ve been mysteriously inducted into the secret society of the Republic of Telheiras.

The Deep comes to an end, Burn Notice season 3 starts in the UK, The Bill finishes for good and there are some cracking movies too...

We start our lead into the bank holiday weekend with news of a series start-up for a show we watch week on week, but haven't covered much in these pages. Burn Notice launches into its third season on these shores on Wednesday, September 1st with Friends And Family on FX at 10:00pm.

Michael Westen the burned special ops spy's story is a continuing saga, so to see where things left off, first watch season 2's finale, Lesser Evil, tonight, Friday August 27th at 11:00pm on FX and you'll be prepped for what's next for Michael, Mom, Fiona and Sam Axe, a classically heroically fabricated name if ever we heard one and he's played by Geek favourite, Bruce Campbell.

If The Deep hasn't given you that sinking feeling (yes,...

British actor Richard Todd was noted for his roles in several Walt Disney adventure films in the early 1950s, starring in 1952’s The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, The Sword and the Rose (1953), and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953).

He was born Richard Palethorpe-Todd in Dublin, Ireland, on June 11, 1919. He trained as an actor and began his career on stage in 1936. He appeared in small roles in several films later in the decade before the outbreak of World War II. Todd served in the British Army during the war. He rose to the rank of Captain by 1944 and participated in the D-Day landings with the British 6th Airborne Division. He returned to the stage and screen after the war.

He earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in the 1949 film The Hasty Heart, and starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright (1950) with Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich.

The actor Richard Todd has died at the age of ninety.

Arguably one of the most respected actors to appear in the classic series, Richard Todd was a British film star well known for his heroic roles in such films as The Dambusters, D-Day the Sixth of June, and The Longest Day.

Born in Ireland, he was a war hero in his own right, being one of the first soldiers to parachute into occupied France on D-Day in 1944. He had a long and distinguished career in British stage and film. He was Oscar-nominated for the 1949 film The Hasty Heart, appearing alongside future American President Ronald Reagan. He won the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer for the same film. In 1957 he appeared in Yangtse Incident alongside William Hartnell.

He appeared in many Disney adventure movies such as The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, The Sword and the Rose and Rob Roy,...

Actor best known for his role in the classic second world war film The Dam Busters

Richard Todd, who has died of cancer aged 90, will be best remembered for the films in which he played a wide assortment of clean-cut British heroes. His most famous performance was as Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters (1955), although he also played Robin Hood and Sir Walter Raleigh.

As dour and stiff upper-lipped as any of the characters he portrayed in his highly successful film career in the 1940s and 1950s, he was one of the first members of the Parachute Regiment to jump on D-day – a real-life role he later echoed, albeit at a higher rank, in The Longest Day (1962), the reconstruction of the invasion of Normandy 17 years after the event (another actor posed as Todd himself).

As Gibson, Todd starred as the leader of the daring airborne mission in May...

Peter Ellenshaw, the visual effects pioneer and matte artist who won an Oscar for Mary Poppins and worked his magic on other live-action Disney classics like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Treasure Island, died Monday at his home in Santa Barbara. He was 93.

Ellenshaw, a painter known for his dramatic seascapes and elegant Irish landscapes, was hand-picked by Walt Disney to serve on the studio's creative team. He painted the iconic first map of Disneyland that was featured on all the early postcards and souvenir booklets.

Ellenshaw began his association with Disney in 1947 when he was tapped to work on the studio's first live-action film, Treasure Island (1950), and he continued working there until his retirement in 1979 following The Black Hole. He came out of retirement to do several matte paintings for the 1990 film Dick Tracy.

Other Disney films on which Ellenshaw worked included "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" (1959), The Sword in the Rose (1953), "The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men" (1952), The Love Bug (1968), The Island on Top of the World (1974) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).