SALLY ANN HOWES

20 Dec

(20 July 1930 - 19 December 2021)

She might mainly be remembered for her part as Truly Scrumptious in the musical film of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but the British actress and singer Sally Ann Howes, who has died aged 91, enjoyed a long career on stage, in films and on television. She was originally a child performer born into a theatrical family, her father being the actor-comedian-singer Bobby Howes and her mother the actress and singer Patricia Malone. Sally made her first film appearance in Rodney Ackland's Thursday's Child (1943) with Wilfrid Lawson and Stewart Granger, then The Halfway House with Mervyn and Glynis Johns which led to other films including Dead of Night, Pink String and Sealing Wax and The History of Mr Polly.

She made more films as well as stage musicals such as Fancy Free and Sandy Wilson's Caprice. On television she was in Bet Your Life with Arthur Askey and Julie Wilson and TV movies of Paint Your Wagon and Brigadoon. She also appeared in stage productions of My Fair Lady, Blossom Time, The Great Waltz, I Do! I Do!, Camelot, The King and I and The Sound of Music among many other theatre works. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Brigadoon in 1962.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang came in 1968 after which she mainly appeared on television in the likes of Mission: Impossible, The Virginian, The Hound of the Baskervilles, etc. In 1990 Sally Ann Howes played Desiree in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music for the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. She was married first to the actor H. Maxwell Coker, then to the composer-lyricist Richard Adler, whose two children she adopted, then Andrew Morgan Maree, and finally the agent Douglas Rae from 1973 until his death in 2021.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

SALLY ANN HOWES

JOAN DIDION

JACK HEDLEY