Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes (20 July 1930 – 19 December 2021) was an English actress and singer. Her career on screen, stage and television spanned six decades. She is best known for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film '' Chitty Chitty Bang Bang''. In 1963, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance in '' Brigadoon''.

Childhood and early film career

Family

Howes was born on 20 July 1930 in St John's Wood, London, the daughter of British comedian/actor/singer/variety star Bobby Howes (1895–1972) and actress/singer Patricia Malone (1899–1971). She was the granddaughter of Capt. J.A.E. Malone (died 1928), London theatrical director of musicals, and she had an older brother, Peter Howes, a professional musician and music professor. Her great-grandfather, Captain Joseph Malone, was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1854 at the Charge of the Light Brigade. Her uncle, Pat Malone, was an actor on stage, films, and television.

Howes moved to the family's country house in Essendon, Hertfordshire, for the duration of World War II. She was a show-business baby who lived a quiet, orderly childhood, where she grew up with a nanny and was surrounded by a variety of pets and her parents' theatrical peers, including actor/writer Jack Hulbert and his wife, actress Cicely Courtneidge, who had an adjoining house.

''Thursday's Child''

Her first taste of the stage was school productions, but as she came from a theatrical family, another family friend, an agent who was visiting the Howes family for dinner, became impressed with her and not long after suggested the young Sally Ann for a role in a film. Two hundred young girls had already been screen tested without success, and the producers were desperate to find a talented little girl to play the lead, and they asked her father to please rush in some pictures on the recommendation of the agent. The film, '' Thursday's Child'', was written by playwright and screenwriter Rodney Ackland, also a close neighbour to the Howes family, and it would become Ackland's directorial debut. ''Thursday's Child'' (1943) launched her career.

Ealing

A second film, '' The Halfway House'' (1944), in which she plays a major role as a teenager trying to get her parents to stay together, led to Howes being put under contract by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios, and this was followed by many other film roles as a child actress, including '' Dead of Night'' (1945) with Michael Redgrave, '' Pink String and Sealing Wax'' (1945), '' Nicholas Nickleby'' (1947), '' My Sister and I'' (1948), and ''Anna Karenina'' (1948), with Vivien Leigh.

Rank

At the age of 18, the Rank Organisation put Howes under a seven-year contract, and she went on to make the films '' Stop Press Girl'' (1949), ''The History of Mr. Polly'' (1949) with John Mills, '' Fools Rush In'' (1949), and '' Honeymoon Deferred'' (1951). She married Maxwell Coker in 1950.

Musical theatre

West End

On a teacher friend's recommendation, Howes took singing lessons – not only to bring out her natural talents, but in an effort to lower her speaking voice, which was quite high. While still in her teens, she made her first musical-comedy stage appearance in '' Fancy Free''. In late 1950, she starred in a BBC TV version of ''Cinderella''.

The same year, Howes accepted her first professional stage role in the Sandy Wilson musical ''Caprice.'' She terminated her contract with Rank, where she had been unhappy with the film roles she'd received, and with being "lent out" to other studios. She was finding gainful employment in television and radio, and looking to flex her singing talent, something Balcon and Rank had overlooked. ''Caprice'' was followed by ''Bet Your Life'' with Julie Wilson, Arthur Askey, and Brian Reece, with whom Howes was also simultaneously on radio. She participated in a TV version of ''The Golden Fool''.

In 1953, she starred in the West End in the musical '' Paint Your Wagon'' with her father, Bobby Howes, which ran for 18 months. It was followed by '' Summer Song'', also in the West End, firmly establishing Howes as a leading musical comedy star.

Then came her critically acclaimed performance in the stage drama '' A Hatful of Rain''. In the early-to-mid-1950s, Howes's career expanded to include television appearances, modelling, commercials, and product endorsements.

Howes appeared as a comics character in ''TV Fun'' serial comics and annuals, as a young, wholesome teacher in the wild American West (at a time when Western TV shows were very popular). She appeared on many magazine covers, most notably ''Life'' (3 March 1958), when she took over Julie Andrews's role in ''My Fair Lady'' on New York City's Broadway.

Broadway

Howes was offered the part in ''My Fair Lady'' twice before: first, to join the musical's U.S. touring company (which she declined); and second, to replace Andrews on Broadway – which, at the time, conflicted with Howes's commitment to film '' Admirable Crichton'' (1957) with Kenneth More. ''My Fair Lady'' creators Lerner and Loewe were persistent, though, and Howes accepted the third time, with a year's contract, and at a higher salary than Andrews. Howes was an instant hit as Eliza Doolittle.

In January 1958, Howes married Tony-winning composer Richard Adler ('' The Pajama Game'', '' Damn Yankees''). The following December, she appeared in Adler's musical television adaptation of O. Henry's short story '' The Gift of the Magi'' (1958), which Adler wrote expressly for her. Adler and Bob Merrill also collaborated on a musical version of W. Somerset Maugham's '' Of Human Bondage'' so Howes could play Mildred.

She appeared on many TV shows, including those of Perry Como and Dinah Shore, and Jack Paar's ''The Tonight Show'' in 1962. She appeared on '' The Bell Telephone Hour'', ''The Kraft Music Hall'', and ''The United States Steel Hour'', and appeared on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' four times.

When her contract in ''My Fair Lady'' ended, she returned to Britain to tape six 1-hour installments of ''The Sally Ann Howes Show'', a variety show for ITV, the British commercial television network.

Howes was invited to sing for US presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. She became a frequent guest panellist